Proletarians of All Countries, Unite!: How the Communist Utopia Became a Mockery of Those Who Believed in It

“Do you own land?” — “No.” — “Do you own a house?” — “No.” — “Any property at all?” — “Well, sir, I’m not exactly wealthy.” The censor sighs, dips his stylus in ink, and writes in his wax tablet: proletarius. Literally — “one who produces proles.” Offspring. Children. Future citizens. Future soldiers. Future meat for the legions.

Proletarius — a word that was never a compliment. This is an ancient, cruel Latin mockery of those so wretched that the only thing they have, their only possible contribution to the state — is children. The Roman census official didn’t record such a sub-citizen’s property, because there was none by definition. He recorded their children. Literally: “This sub-citizen has nothing of value except an animal capacity for reproduction.”

This is not a compliment. This is a diagnosis. This is an elegant way of saying: “You have absolutely nothing of value except your genitals and the ability to use them.” Your property is your fertility. Your capital is your sperm. Your contribution to the Eternal City is new bodies for world conquest. The Romans knew how to be cruel in their honesty.

And now — here’s the interesting part. Two and a half thousand years later, a bearded German philosopher who never did physical labor in his life will take this word — this ancient mockery of poverty — and proclaim it the name of the class destined to liberate humanity.

Hard to imagine a more ironic choice. A mockery of the most degraded and humiliated became the slogan of a new world. Contempt transformed into pride. And most horrifying — the etymology proved utterly prophetic.

The Roman Republic, or How to Be a Human Reserve

In Ancient Rome, under the reform of the semi-mythical king Servius Tullius (6th century BCE), citizens were divided into six classes based on their wealth. Five classes were those who had something. The sixth class was those who had nothing. Less than 11,000 asses? Congratulations, you’re officially a proletarius. From the word proles — offspring. Because if you have no property to register, the censor records your children. At least something needs to be registered, right?

Proletarians didn’t serve in the army — not because they were spared, but because Roman legionaries had to buy their own weapons. The proletarians’ problem was they couldn’t afford even a sword. So the state decided to use them differently: not as soldiers, but as producers of soldiers. Logical, isn’t it? If you can’t buy a gladius, at least produce those who can.

In the Centuriate Assembly — a Roman analog of parliament, only with more cynicism — all proletarians together had one century out of 193. One. For comparison: military musicians had two centuries, though they were twenty times fewer in number. In other words, the state considered trumpeters twice as useful as all poor citizens combined. Voting reached the proletarians only when the split among the elite was so deep that patricians were willing to count plebeian opinion. Which happened about as often as Halley’s Comet appears.

Roman authors called proletarians capite censi — “registered by head.” Not by property, not by achievements, but by the fact of having a head on their shoulders. You are not what you have. You are what you can breed. Your value lies in your reproductive function. You have no civil rights? Doesn’t matter. You have biological functions? Now that interests us.

Cicero, who never distinguished himself with excessive sympathy for the lower classes, explained the etymology without embellishment: Servius Tullius called them proletarii because what was expected from them was proles — offspring. Descendants of the city. Material for future conquests. In other words, your purpose is to breed and die so your children can breed and die. The circle of life, poverty edition.

This wasn’t accidental nomenclature. This was a social diagnosis with a taste of contempt: you are not people — you are a biological resource. Your only useful function is reproductive. Not a warrior, not an owner, not a citizen in the full sense. Only — a factory for war “meat.”

And now recall that this very word — proletarius — two millennia later would become the official name of the “advanced class” destined to lead all humanity into a bright future. Feel the irony? The Romans would appreciate it.

Rousseau: When Poverty Is Chic

Fast forward to the eighteenth century. Jean-Jacques Rousseau — the same genius who wrote “Emile, or On Education” but surrendered his five children to an orphanage because raising them was “inconvenient” — publishes “The Social Contract” in 1762. And there appears the French version of the word: prolétaire.

But Rousseau is not Marx. Rousseau is a neurotic romantic in the worst sense. He doesn’t want revolution, he wants to return to nature, where everyone was happy, barefoot, and didn’t know what private property was. For Rousseau, the proletarian is not an economic category but a moral ideal. A human standard.

Rousseau’s logic is stunningly simple: private property is civilization’s original sin. The first person who fenced off a piece of land and said “this is mine” launched all the world’s evils: inequality, envy, wars, lawyers. Therefore, a person without property is one who isn’t yet corrupted. They’re closer to the natural state, or better said — to the animal state of humanity. They’re free because they have nothing. They’re honest because they can’t be corrupted — there’s nothing to corrupt them with.

Rousseau is pure absurd moralism. His proletarian isn’t an economic category but an ethical model. Being poor means being honest. Having no property means not being dependent on it. This is the path to virtue, not revolution.

For Rousseau, the proletarian is not one exploited by the system but one who hasn’t yet fallen into its trap. Not a victim but a lucky one. They’re poor? Excellent! This means they don’t depend on property. They have no possessions? Wonderful! It means possessions don’t have them. Being a proletarian in Rousseau’s view is like being a monk, only without the church and with the possibility of sex.

Rousseau says: “Be poor to be free.”

This is moral. This is uplifting. This is absolutely impractical.

But at least it’s not a call to violence. Rousseau seeks a path to virtue, not to barricades. He’s a moralist who believes humanity can be corrected through education and return to simplicity. He died in 1778, eleven years before the French Revolution, and was fortunate not to see how his ideas would transform into guillotines.

Then came Marx. And ruined everything.

Marx: When Poverty Is a Kalashnikov

Karl Marx read Rousseau. And thought: “Not bad, but too much morality and too little blood.”

Marx is not a romantic. Marx is a Prussian materialist with revolutionary ambitions and a total absence of physical labor experience. He saw proletarians not as moral heroes but as a historical instrument. Not an object of pity but a subject of violence. Not a victim to be pitied but a weapon to be loaded.

For Marx, the proletarian is not one who doesn’t have but one who must seize and divide. Not a wretch lacking moral fortitude but a class lacking only one thing — organized violence. Marx transformed the ancient Roman mockery into a political program: you are proletarians, meaning you have nothing? Excellent! That’s precisely why you have the right to take everything from the rich.

In the “Communist Manifesto” (1848), Marx and Engels formulate this with surgical precision:

“The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.”

Sounds uplifting, doesn’t it? But let’s look more closely. The proletarian is defined through absence. No property. No means of production. No land, workshop, capital. They have only their body — their labor power — and are forced to sell it to avoid starving.

The Roman proletarian had only offspring. The Marxist proletarian has only labor. In both cases — a biological resource packaged in a philosophical wrapper. But now not for breeding soldiers but for slave exploitation in factories.

Marx didn’t create a new concept. He simply moved the ancient Roman formula into industrial capitalism. Rome said: “Your value is in your children.” Marx said: “Your value is in your labor.” In both cases, the proletarian is a biological resource packaged in an economic category.

But there’s a key difference between Rousseau and Marx:

Rousseau says: “Be poor to be free.”
 Marx says: “Be poor to understand who needs to be killed.”

Rousseau seeks a path to virtue. Marx seeks a path to power.

And here the magic happens. Marx didn’t invent a new class. He simply took an ancient Roman term — a word with a degrading etymology, a mockery of poverty — and declared it a revolutionary identity. You’re poor? Don’t be ashamed! You’re exploited? That’s your strength! You have nothing? That’s your right to everything!

Brilliant marketing, credit where due. To transform a social diagnosis into a political brand — that takes considerable talent. The only problem: the etymology didn’t go anywhere. Proletarius still meant the same as in Rome — a person whose only asset is the ability to produce other people. Or, in the industrial era — to sell one’s body as labor power.

Marx thought he changed the word’s meaning. In reality, he only confirmed it.

The Paradox of the International: Uniting Those Who Have Only Bodies

“Workers of the world, unite!” — the final chord of the Communist Manifesto. A slogan that circled the globe. A call that inspired millions. And the most ironic paradox in political thought history.

Because let me ask: what exactly should proletarians unite? What exactly will they bring to this alliance?

Union presupposes common resources. Capitalists unite because they have capital. Landowners unite because they have land. Craftsmen unite because they have skills and tools. And proletarians? They, by Marx’s definition, have nothing. Zero property. Zero means of production. Zero economic base.

Therefore, Marx’s call actually means: “Those who have nothing, unite your nothing!”

Or, to be more precise: “Bodies of all countries, pile up together!”

Because what do proletarians have? Their bodies. Their ability to work. Their ability to reproduce. This is precisely what they can unite — their physical presence, their mass, their biological capacity.

And this is exactly what happened in the 20th century. Communist regimes mobilized millions of proletarians — not their capital (there was none), not their property (it didn’t exist), but their bodies. Bodies for factories. Bodies for collective farms. Bodies for canal construction. Bodies for the Gulag. Bodies for “great projects.”

The Roman Republic used proletarians as producers of soldiers. The Soviet Union used proletarians as producers of labor. The logic remained unchanged: if you have no property, you yourself are property. Property of the state. Property of the party. Property of the system. Property of the idea.

The International united the world’s proletarians. But it united them not as masters of their fate but as bio-resource for new power. Marx wanted to liberate workers. Instead, he created ideological justification for their total mobilization.

The irony is that the slogan proved true — but not in the sense Marx intended. Proletarians indeed united. And indeed gained nothing except new chains.

“Proletarian Culture”: From Irony to Fetish

After 1917, the Bolsheviks took the term “proletarian” and made something from it that even the most cynical Roman censor couldn’t imagine — they transformed it into a sacred object of worship.

Proletkult was born — “proletarian culture.” This wasn’t just ideology. This was religion for atheists. The proletarian became an icon. Not a person of flesh and blood but a symbol. Not a worker but an archetype. Not a citizen with rights but a priest of class struggle.

Soviet propaganda created a striking construction: the proletarian is a class that has all power and owns everything (dictatorship of the proletariat!), but actually had nothing (because otherwise they’re not proletarians, right?). A hegemon without signs of hegemony. An owner-class without property. A paradox packaged in red flags and reinforced concrete slogans.

The Soviet state created a “new person” — a proletarian who renounced everything: the past (bourgeois heritage!), traditions (remnants!), family (cell of bourgeois society!), religion (opium of the people!), any identity except class identity.

Children were named Vladlen (Vladimir Lenin), Marlen (Marx-Lenin), Donar (daughter of the people), Revvold (revolution + Vladimir), Energina (energy of industrialization). Living people were transformed into abbreviations. Into slogans. Into walking monuments of revolution.

“Newspeak” was created — a language where every word had ideological meaning and a person became a function: worker, peasant, soldier, party member, shock worker, Stakhanovite. Not Ivan or Pyotr but a unit of proletarian mass.

And again — everything came down to the body. The proletarian of the Soviet era was a body that works. A body that builds a bright future. A body that sacrifices itself for the revolution. Their value was measured not by what they had but by how much they could give. Their labor, their time, their health, their worthless life, their offspring — all this belonged not to them but to the “proletarian cause.” That is, to the party. That is, to its leaders. That is, to Stalin.

Soviet propaganda repeated daily: “The proletariat is the ruling class!” But real proletarians lived in communal apartments, received bread rations, worked 12-hour days, and had no right even to leave their factory without permission. A ruling class without the right to rule. A dictatorship of the proletariat where proletarians had no rights to dictate.

The Roman irony reached its apotheosis: the name for the poorest, most disenfranchised class of antiquity became the official title of millions who remained just as exploited slaves as their predecessors two thousand years ago. Only now exploitation occurred under red flags and was called “building communism.”

The Bolsheviks didn’t realize the irony. Or they did — and didn’t care.

Russia 2025: Cannon Fodder Back on the Agenda

Now fast forward to our time. Russia. 2022–2025. “Special military operation.” Mobilization. Trenches. Assaults. “Meat attacks” — this is exactly what Russian commanders cynically call what they do with their soldiers.

And suddenly — oh wonder! — the etymology of the term “proletarian” takes on a new, horrifyingly literal meaning.

Putin’s Russia again needs only one thing from its citizens — proles. Offspring. Cannon fodder for the front. Lots of meat.

The 2022–2025 mobilization is a return to the Roman formula in its purest form. The state doesn’t ask what you have. It doesn’t care whether you have education, profession, dreams. The state needs only meat. Meat for trenches. Meat for assaults. Rams for “meat attacks,” as Russian commanders cynically call it.

This is not a metaphor. This is not literary exaggeration. This is literal reality. The Russian state mobilizes hundreds of thousands of men — not because it needs their skills, education, or professionalism. It needs their bodies. Warm, living (for now) bodies that can be thrown into the meat grinder of war.

Putin’s regime restored the ancient Roman logic of the proletariat but without any revolutionary rhetoric. This is pure cynicism of power that views the population as bio-resource. You’re not a citizen. You’re a resource. Your function is to breed soldiers and become a soldier yourself. Your offspring is not your future but fertilizer on which the empire’s future is built.

Russian propaganda doesn’t use the term “proletarian” — it’s outdated, too Soviet, doesn’t fit “spiritual bonds.” But the essence remained absolutely unchanged. Putin’s regime needs from Russians the same thing the Roman Republic needed from proletarii: children for war.

And again — this is no accident. This is the logic of a system incapable of creating prosperity but perfectly able to convert people into instruments of violence. 21st-century Russia is 1st-century BCE Rome but without civilizational achievements. The same legions, the same imperial idea, the same endless need for bodies. Only instead of roads and aqueducts — ruins and corpses.

Putin’s Russia is 1st-century BCE Rome, only without aqueducts, without roads, without law, without culture, and without any civilizational justification. The same legions. The same imperial idea. The same endless need for bodies. Only instead of Pax Romana — a pile of corpses in Donbas.

And again — etymology didn’t deceive. Proles. Offspring. The Romans named proletarians thus because their only contribution was the ability to breed soldiers. Putin returned to this formula in its purest form: Russian men are needed not as citizens, not as entrepreneurs, not as creators. They’re needed as biomaterial for the imperial machine.

The circle closed. History returned to its beginning. Proletarius again means what it meant in Rome: a person whose only function is to be a resource for the state. A body that can be used. Meat that can be thrown into the furnace of war.

Conclusion: Irony That Became Reality

The term “proletarian” traveled an amazing, tragic, and absurd path spanning two and a half thousand years:

Rome: Mockery of the wretched who have nothing but the ability to reproduce.
 Rousseau: Romanticization of poverty as moral virtue.
 Marx: Weaponization of poverty as revolutionary ideology.
 USSR: Fetishization of the proletariat as a sacred hegemon-class that actually had no power.
 Putin’s Russia: Return to the Roman formula in its most cynical form — the state again needs only cannon fodder.

At each stage, the essence remained unchanged: a person whose value is determined not by what they have but by what they can give to the system.

Rousseau romanticized poverty. Marx weaponized it. Lenin industrialized it. Stalin cannibalized it. Putin sent it to slaughter.

The most horrifying irony is that etymology proved prophetic. The Romans invented the term proletarius as mockery of people whose only contribution to the state was breeding children for legions. Marx promised these people liberation — but in reality only changed the format of their exploitation: now they were used not to produce soldiers but to produce goods. Soviet communists created a “dictatorship of the proletariat” — and turned proletarians into slaves of the party nomenclature. And Putin’s Russia closed the historical circle: again offspring, again bodies, again cannon fodder for the empire.

The term “proletarian” is not just a word. It’s a two-and-a-half-thousand-year mockery of people who believed their poverty would become the source of their strength. A mockery that became an apt name. A name that became ideology. An ideology that lives as a meat grinder.

The Romans laughed. Marx didn’t understand the irony. Soviet proletarians paid for this with their lives. And Russian proletarians continue to pay — on the fronts of an imperial war that differs from Roman conquests in its complete absence of meaning.

The Roman censor who two and a half thousand years ago wrote “proletarius” in his tablet next to the names of wretches who had nothing but children probably couldn’t imagine his term would become a revolutionary slogan. But if he could see what happened to this word — from Marx to the Gulag, from the “dictatorship of the proletariat” to mobilization into Putin’s army — he would probably smile.

The Romans knew how to appreciate good irony. Especially when it stretches across millennia and is confirmed by the blood of millions.

Proletarii — those who have only offspring. And the state — any state, from republican Rome to Putin’s Russia — will always find how to use it.

Proles. Offspring. Meat. Resource.

Some words never change their meaning. They simply wait for history to confirm their truth.

Oleh Cheslavskyi — independent historian and analyst specializing in deconstructing imperial narratives.

Originally published at spilno.org