Etienne Balibar.The Notion of Class Politics in Marx. RM 1(2):18-51 "(A translation from French of an article originally appearing in Marx en perspective [Marx in Perspective], Chavance, B. [Ed], Paris: Editions de l'Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales, 1985.) An analysis of Marxist concepts begins with ""proletariat"" and ""politics."" The proletariat seems to connote the transitional nature of the Wc in the first edition of Capital (1867). In the second edition (1872), Marx's use of the term suggests a strategic means of going beyond capitalism toward socialism. In context, ""proletarian politics"" is paradoxical insofar as politics is presented as a concern of the bourgeoisie. ""Capital"" and ""capitalist"" are used to expose wage labor as the true object of analysis. The need is stressed for a nonhistoricist, but historical, development of a concept of social relation in Marxist theory. A. Waters"