Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/52

 professional scholars, artists, engineers and functionaries is increasing rapidly.

Taken as a whole these constitute the so-called "intellectuals," the "new middle class," but they are distinguished from the old middle class above all by the lack of any especial class consciousness. Certain divisions of them have a peculiar caste consciousness, very often a blindness of caste, but the interests of each one of these divisions is too peculiar for any common class consciousness to develop. Its members unite with various classes and parties and furnish the intellectual fighters for each. One portion defends the interests of the ruling class for whom many of the intellectuals serve professionally. Others have championed the cause of the proletariat. The majority, however, have up to the present time remained entangled in the little bourgeois circles of thought. This is not alone because many of them sprung from this class, but also because their social position as "middle class" is like that of the small bourgeois, a midway position between the proletariat and the ruling class.

It is in these divisions of the intellectuals, as remarked above, that a continually increasing sympathy for the proletariat is evident. Because they have no especial class interest, and are most accessible through their professional, scientific point of view, they are easiest won for our party through scientific considerations. The theoretical bankruptcy of bourgeois economics, and the