Revolutionary spontaneity, also known as spontaneism, is a
revolutionary socialist
Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revoluti ...
tendency that believes the
social revolution can and should occur spontaneously
from below by the
working class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...
itself,
without the aid or guidance of a
vanguard party
Vanguardism in the context of Leninist revolutionary struggle, relates to a strategy whereby the most class-conscious and politically "advanced" sections of the proletariat or working class, described as the revolutionary vanguard, form organ ...
and that it cannot and should not be brought about by the actions of
individuals
An individual is that which exists as a distinct entity. Individuality (or self-hood) is the state or quality of being an individual; particularly (in the case of humans) of being a person unique from other people and possessing one's own need ...
such as
professional revolutionaries
Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishm ...
or
political parties who might attempt to foment such a revolution.
In his work ''
What Is to Be Done?'' (1902),
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
argued fiercely against revolutionary spontaneity as a dangerous
revisionist concept that strips away the disciplined nature of
Marxist political thought and leaves it
arbitrary
Arbitrariness is the quality of being "determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle". It is also used to refer to a choice made without any specific criterion or restraint.
Arbitrary decisions are not necess ...
and ineffective.
Rosa Luxemburg, who defended spontaneity on ''
Organizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy
''Organizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy'', later republished as ''Leninism or Marxism?'', is a 1904 pamphlet by Rosa Luxemburg, a Marxist living in Germany. In the text, she criticized Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik faction of ...
'', and the
Spartacist League which had attempted to overturn capitalism during the 1919
German Revolution would become main targets of Lenin's attacks after
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
.
Mao-Spontex
The term Mao-Spontex refers to a political movement in the Marxist and
libertarian movements in Western Europe from 1960 to 1970. Mao-Spontex came to represent an ideology promoting the ideas of
Maoism
Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...
, along with some ideas from
Marxism
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...
and
Leninism, but rejecting the total idea of
Marxism–Leninism
Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century. Developed by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various c ...
. Lenin's work ''What Is to Be Done?'' especially is criticized as dated and Lenin's critique of spontaneity is rejected. Lenin's idea of democratic centralism is supported as a way to organize a party, but a party must also have constant conflict inside of it to remain revolutionary. The revolutionary party discussed must also always be from a mass worker's movement.
See also
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Anarchism
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Crowd psychology
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Impossibilism
*
Invisible dictatorship
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (; 1814–1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist, socialist and founder of collectivist anarchism. He is considered among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major founder of the revolutionary ...
*
Left communism in China
In the People's Republic of China since 1967, the terms "ultra-left" and "left communist" () refers to political theory and practice self-defined as further " left" than that of the central Maoist leaders at the height of the Great Proletarian Cult ...
*
Luxemburgism
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Spontaneous order
*
Immediatism
Peter Lamborn Wilson (October 20, 1945 – May 23, 2022) was an American anarchist author and poet, primarily known for his concept of Temporary Autonomous Zones, short-lived spaces which elude formal structures of control. During the 1970s, Wils ...
*
Spontis
References
{{revolutionary socialism
Anarchist theory
Communism
Revolution terminology