On the Role of the Individual in Collective Struggle Pt. 1

Against Ascetic Moralism and Liberal Individualism

One of the most persistent confusions within contemporary socialist politics concerns the role of the individual. On one side, we are confronted with bourgeois individualism: the ideology that treats society as nothing more than a collection of isolated atoms, each responsible only for their own private success or failure. On the other side, increasingly common among young socialists, we encounter its inverted mirror image: a moralistic collectivism that treats individual development, enjoyment, or self-discipline as suspect, selfish, or even counterrevolutionary.

Both positions are false. Both weaken the working-class movement.

Marxism-Leninism begins not from moral sentiment but from material reality. Human beings do not act as abstractions called “the masses.” They act as organized collectives composed of real individuals, with real capacities, habits, strengths, weaknesses, discipline, morale, and consciousness. The question is not whether individuals matter, but how they matter, and under what social relations.

The Individual as a Social Product — and a Social Weapon

Marx never denied the role of the individual. He denied the myth of the self-made individual. Individuals are formed by material conditions, class relations, education, culture, and struggle. But once formed, they do not dissolve into nothingness. They act. They organize. They persuade. They lead. They fail or succeed — and those successes and failures have collective consequences.

Lenin understood this clearly. The Bolshevik Party was not built by vague sentiments of solidarity, but by trained, disciplined, politically developed individuals capable of sustained collective work. Cadres were expected to study, to sharpen their thinking, to master organization, to cultivate endurance, clarity, and confidence. This was not “self-help.” It was revolutionary preparation.

There is nothing bourgeois about strengthening oneself for the sake of struggle. What is bourgeois is strengthening oneself against society, or above it.