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The Lumpcnproletariat and lutionary Youth Movement ze = 2 by Bruce Franklin Cau if The first mejor Black rebellions since 1943 broke out in several Jarge cities in the suueer of 1564, That fall, the Free Speech Movement erupted at Rerheley, Since then, it has become increasingly cbvious that the Black Liberation Movement has a leading role in revolutionizing large secticns of white youth, and recently we have come to see 4 Kevolutionary Youth Movewent in the mother country dialectically related to the struggle of the internal Black nation, Clearly it is of crucial importance that there be for these engaged in both struggler a correct theoretical understauding of the relation between the two, In trying to avrive at this understanding, some people with both the Black and youth movements have started relying on the term “lumpenprolctariat."— The reasons fer this are clear, A section of white youth has dropyed ovt of its privileged position and consciously ascwacd a sub-proletariat mode of existence, These "strect people” now live a life at least superficially similer to that into whict a large section of Bleck youth has been forced, Black and white young street people own n> property, rarely sell their labor (in one case because they cennot, in the other bezause they will not), bustle aud driit; they despise and are despised by bourgeo'sfe, petit bourgeoisic, and privileged sectors of the working class alike, Their resemblance to each cther has now been driven heme by the police, who have begun to use oa the white drop-outs the kind of systematic terror and brutality usually reserved for Black and Brown people and the poorest whites, All this has led scwe to theorize tat the principal class struggle in the United ftates is not thrt between the bouryeoisic and the proletariat but that between the Juxpent roletarjat and all other classes, whe are scen as more or less bourgeoisified, They visualize an anarchic force, made up of the most desperate and alienated sub- groups iu society, ripping the vitals out of the Fopire and ¢rageing the rotting corpse tc some fiery Armageddon, Since tnis idea has been advanced by sone people strategically enough placed in the movement to be able to put it into practice, we must seriously analyze both its theoretics] foundations and practical consequences, To do this, we must ansyver two very large and difficult questions: What precisely is the lunpenproletariat? What are its possible roles in the Amerscan revolution? Marxist-Leninist Theory and the Lurpenproletariat Yeo lumpenproletariet is a cluss that haus reecived extresely little attention in cisssjeo) Narxist-Leulnist ticory, and what little attention it has received is puzzling, Marx and Engels were writting ct a time when most other writers shout the history cf revolutionsry struggle toch a consistently beurpeois viewpoint, 'o thes: cther revolutfons--and fer them of course the French revolutten vas the archetyper~ wore n Ly a mob, ea undifferentiated - 3 2. Mexx and Engels, in sinsling out the industr a clalist revolutiou, were anxious to distinguish ft fron that urban mob of the bourgeois wiiters, This way help account or its condi tion. of life, its conn ress, ere its rojJatians