It was not the working classes in Germany who were at the origin of socialist ideas… . [S]ocialist ideas were spread by a party of the intellectual elite, who saw the proletarian masses as a possible instrument of social renewal. … Indeed, the history of European socialism is dotted by a consistent opposition to the practical activity and consciousness of proletarian classes.

Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making o…, loc. 322