Throughout history, the proletariat, or in the case of George Orwell?s 1984, simply the ?proles? have been the driving force behind all internal change whether it is societal, economic, or political. This lower class has been consistently lied to and stepped on in order to help the middle class rise up against the upper class, yet the proles themselves never seem to obtain any higher societal standing. In a society where most of the population can be considered members of this proletariat, whoever controls them has almost infinite power. The proletariat are the masses, when these masses rise up they can change the course of history. The French Revolution showed the world the power of the masses. Groups of uneducated peasants, the proletariat managed to outnumber the guards at the French palace and overthrow the rule of King Louis. Even Karl Marx, the creator of what eventually evolved to become Ing-Soc, Neo-Bolshevism, and ?Obliteration of the Self? realized the power of the proletariat in overthrowing democracy and capitalism. He ends his book, entitled The Communist Manifesto, with the saying, ?Workers of the world; unite!? He calls upon this lower class in an attempt to use them and gain power to overthrow the current government.
