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From Stanislaw Ossowski, Class Structure in the Social Consciousness

(New York: The Free Press, 1963). Ossowski held the Chair of Sociology
at Warsaw University. He was president of the Polish Sociological Association 1956-63
and vice-president of the International Sociological Association 1959-62
Marxism sees the class struggle as the driving force of history and seeks explanation
of all historical processes in class antagonisms and gives a class interpretation to all
cultural phenomena. It is largely taken for granted that there is only one class struggle
in Marx. Ossowski claims there are at least two.
A

liberation struggles within the framework


of the perennial conflict between oppressing
classes & the oppressed class

struggle between classes competing for power


in a multi-dimensional society

Manifesto of the Communist Party: "The


history of all hitherto existing society is the
history of class struggles; freemen and slave;
patrician and plebian; lord & surf; guildmaster
and journeyman; in a word, oppressor and
oppressed, stood in constant opposition to
one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now
hidden, now open fight"

Class Struggles in France: "All revolutions up


to the present day have resulted in the
displacement of one definite class rule by
another; but all ruling classes up to now have
been only small minorities in relation to the
ruled mass of the people the common form
of all these revolutions was that they were
minority revolutions. Even when the majority
took part, it did so -- whether willingly or not -only in the service of a minority.

seems to be as if exclusively of the conflict


between an oppressed majority and a
minority of exploiters

seems to be as if exclusively of conflicts


between minority classes competing for
power

driving force of history consists of struggles


between an oppressed class and an
oppressor class

driving forces of history comes from struggles


between classes with different interests

appropriation of surplus value and the


oppression of man by man (conflict over
the distribution of wealth & power)

antagonisms of class interests which are not


confined to situations in which the appropriation
of surplus value is involved (conflict over power)

In his conception of history Marx undoubtedly


assumes that the necessary condition for the
existence of all class divisions is the existence
Of an exploited class and that the dichotomic
division of society into exploited and exploiters
is the source of all class divisions

But in the concrete historical studies both Marx


and Engels interpret class struggles more
broadly

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