Deleuze and Proletariat: path to Ranciere

" ... it is as though each affirmation referred to its negative, or has 'sense' only by virtue of its negation, while at the same time a generalised negation takes the place of the problem. Thus begins the long history of the distortion of the dialectic, which culminates in Hegel and consists in substituting the labour of the negative for the play of difference and the differential. ... Furthermore, if the truth be told, none of this would amount to much were it not for the moral presuppositions and practical implications of such a distortion. We have seen all that this valorisation of the negative signified, including the conservative spirit of such an enterprise, the platitude of the affirmations supposed to be engendered thereby, and the manner in which we are led away from the most important task, that of determining problems and realising in them our power of creation and decision. This is why conflicts, oppositions and contradictions seemed to us to be surface effects and conscious epiphenomena, while the unconscious lived on problems and differences. History progresses not by negation and the negation of negation, but by deciding problems and affirming differences. It is no less bloody and cruel as a result. Only the shadows of history live by negation: the good enter into it with all the power of a posited differential or a difference affirmed; they repel shadows into the shadows and deny only as the consequence of a primary positivity and affirmation. For them, as Nietzche says, affirmation is primary; it affirms difference, while the negative is only a consequence or a reflection in which affirmation is doubled. That is why real revolutions have the atmosphere of fetes. Contradiction is not the weapon of the proletariat but, rather, the manner in which the bourgeoisie defends and preserves itself, the shadow behind which it maintains its claim to decide what the problems are."

Difference and Repetition, p.267-8

Ranciere, in the Misadventures of Critical Thought makes a very similar point with regard to 19th century elites and their use of critical thought. The premise of critical theory to reveal what's hidden beneath mystifications is what Ranciere criticizes there. He argues that this pattern of thought which acts like an authority, revealing the reality of problems was acquired by the elites for social engineering, leading to the assimilation of labour movements into social democratic regimes. On top of that the quote above would reject any interpretaion of Deleuze as "a non-political philosopher before he met Guattari".