Ernest Mandel, the visionary Belgian author, left an indelible mark on the world of Marxist theory and political activism with his groundbreaking contributions to the study of capitalism and socialism. Through his influential writings and lectures, Mandel challenged conventional wisdom and inspired a new generation of socialist thinkers to envision a more just and equitable society. His work continues to be studied and debated by scholars and activists around the world, reaffirming his status as one of the most important figures in 20th-century political thought.

"You can have relatively high levels of class consciousness with a lower level of class militancy than one would have expected."



"We do not believe that the Marxist program, which embodies the continuity of the experience of the actual class struggle and real revolutions of the last one hundred and fifty years, is a definitely closed book."



"And you cannot have a socialist revolution commandeered from the top, ordered around by some omniscient leader or group of leaders."


1

"There has been hardly a single year since 1917, and in a certain sense since 1905, without a revolution somewhere in the world in which the workers participated in a rather important way."



"The more workers you have in your organization, the better you are implanted in the working class, the more likely you are to come up with the concrete problems of the class."



"Furthermore, there is absolutely no contradiction between the separate organizations of revolutionary vanguard militants and their participation in the mass organizations of the working class."


4

"The conclusion you can draw from these characteristics is that you have an uneven development of class activity and an uneven development of class consciousness in the working class."


4

"You need a vanguard organization in order to overcome the dangerous potential brought about by the uneven development of class militancy and class consciousness."


6

"The only conclusion you can draw from the real historical movement is that by and large, in day-to-day life, what Lenin called trade union consciousness dominates the working class. I would call it elementary class consciousness of the working class."

