Marxism - and my poor head.

Reading up on Marxism, and after many many gruelling hours, I have some idea of the different theories. The overall picture is still blurry, and I don't entirely grasp the nuances, but I believe I have some gist of it.

One thing that I found extremely contradictory is that even though Marx and Engels' model of the economic base and the superstructure is deterministic, they still proclaim that the proletarians and the working class would one day be able to instigate a rebellion against the bourgeoisie. Marx and Engels noted that the economic conditions of the proletarians are oppressive. As ideology (part of the superstructure) is determined by economic conditions - the infrastructure, or also known as the base -  would this not mean that the proletarians' ideology is skewed to one of blind submission and deference to the ruling classes? How does one even work up the idea to start a rebellion?

Seeking to modify this model, Althusser proposed that the infrastructure - superstructure relationship is less deterministic and more interactive. He postulates, then, that there is a mutual process by which ideology and economic conditions both feed into each other. However, he goes on to talk about Ideological State Apparatuses, which the State uses to basically keep people in line.

I don't know how to put forward my argument in a less crude manner, but I will proceed anyway. What I find baffling then, to my still inelastic undergraduate mind, is if Ideological State Apparatuses does selectively constrain the various practices (or, in my opinion, dissension) of the people, how then can there be existence of revolutions and rebellion in the past? It could be that the ISAs failed in restraining oppositional voices, that certain practices slip past their "defences". Yet,  how did that happen? If, in the first place, any form of spontaneous ideology on the proletarians' part has been systematically suppressed,  how do these rebels come up with the idea of rebellion?



Forgive my lack of referencing. Am supposed to be working on an essay on Chaucer right now, and somehow came here to write up this blog post.