What does Winston believe that proles are capable of?

believes
that hope for the overthrow of the Party lies in the proles. While he can't quite believe at
first that they are capable of mounting a conscious rebellionwhen he looks at them, the idea
seems absurd to himhe recognizes that they have advantages Party members don't. First, there are
so many of them: they constitute 85 percent of the population. Second, the Party doesn't care
what they do, so they are not under constant surveillance. Winston realizes that Party members
can't ever come together in groups of more than two or three, which means they can't revolt. The
proles, however, can. As Winston puts it:

They needed only
to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow
the Party to pieces tomorrow morning.

At the same time,
Winston understands how limited the proles are in understanding or in consciousness that the
world could be different. He notes that putting his hope in the proles is an "act of
faith."

Shortly before he is arrested, however, Winston suddenly
realizes that the proles are human in a way Party members are not, because the proles are still
allowed to live ordinary lives:

They were not loyal to a
party or a country or an idea, they were loyal to one another. For the first time in his life he
did not despise the proles or think of them merely as an inert force which would one day spring
to life and regenerate the world. The proles had stayed human. They had not become hardened
inside. They had held on to the primitive emotions which he himself had to re-learn by conscious
effort.

He decides that because of their humanity they
will eventually be awakened and be capable of rising up and overthrowing the
Party.