I came across this while reading Mao’s On Practice today: he talks about how at the beginning of the capitalist period the proletariat was a “class of itself” but in the later period of organised resistance against capitalism it became a “class for itself”. This rang a vague bell for me, I think I’ve heard people talk about things of themselves while discussing Hegel before but what precisely does it mean? I have not really studied Hegel beyond the very very surface level so I feel there’s some context I am missing here.
You pretty much got it. I’m fairly certain it means, when the proletariat is organized, is class-concious, has a vanguard party, and pushes for its interests at the political and economic level.
For example many countries have a working class, and especially early capitalism had an industrial proletariat, but if it isn’t concious of itself as a class with distinct interests from capitalists, then it can’t organize, and will stay exploited.