原书拼音: /t͡siː²² t͡sɔːi̯²² kaːi̯⁵⁵ kʰɐp̚⁵/
class in itself (the proletariat in the stage of spontaneous struggle where it has not yet developed class consciousness)
用例
無產階級對於資本主義社會的認識，在其實踐的初期——破壞機器和自發鬥爭時期，他們還只在感性認識的階段，只認識資本主義各個現象的片面及其外部的聯繫。這時，他們還是一個所謂「自在的階級」。但是到了他們實踐的第二個時期——有意識有組織的經濟鬥爭和政治鬥爭的時期，由於實踐，由於長期鬥爭的經驗，經過馬克思、恩格斯用科學的方法把這種種經驗總結起來，產生了馬克思主義的理論，用以教育無產階級，這樣就使無產階級理解了資本主義社會的本質，理解了社會階級的剝削關係，理解了無產階級的歷史任務，這時他們就變成了一個「自為的階級」。
In its knowledge of capitalist society, the proletariat was only in the perceptual stage of cognition in the first period of its practice, the period of machine-smashing and spontaneous struggle; it knew only some of the aspects and the external relations of the phenomena of capitalism. The proletariat was then still a “class-in-itself”. But when it reached the second period of its practice, the period of conscious and organized economic and political struggles, the proletariat was able to comprehend the essence of capitalist society, the relations of exploitation between social classes and its own historical task; and it was able to do so because of its own practice and because of its experience of prolonged struggle, which Marx and Engels scientifically summed up in all its variety to create the theory of Marxism for the education of the proletariat. It was then that the proletariat became a “class-for-itself”.