C.L.R. James held that only the proletariat needs a party to know itself.

Evidence

Without the party the proletariat knows nothing. We are here at the climax of a development characteristic of class society. The proletariat is the only historical class to which the party, the political party, is essential… the bourgeoisie has never found a political party necessary to its existence. The characteristic form of bourgeois political power is the perfection of the state, and for long periods the bourgeoisie has been content and flourished even without control of the state power. The bourgeoisie has no need for a special organization of knowing. Bourgeois society is capitalist production, and by its position as agent of capital, the bourgeoisie automatically is in possession of capitalist knowing, science, art, religion, and the essence of bourgeois politics which is the maintenance of capitalist production. … No class in history except the proletariat (and this is by no means accidental) has ever openly, boldly, and both theoretically and practically, aimed at the seizure of state power. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2452

Categorization

• XREF: Directly ties to the reader’s arc: James’s party theory marks a high point of the Black radical tradition’s engagement with Marxism before its later disillusionment.