PRRWO’s and RWL’s distorted understanding that “the worship of spontaneity is the root of all opportunism” is bound up with their equally distorted line that “ideology is too abstract,” and that “WVO exaggerates the role of ideology.” PRRWO and RWL said the ideological root of all opportunism is not concrete bourgeois ideology, but “bowing to the spontaneous movement.” In fact, they counterpose the need to criticize concrete forms of bourgeois ideology (by saying “forms are only forms”) to bowing to spontaneity (as we will explain later).
This narrow interpretation of bowing to spontaneity as the logical basis of all opportunism, taking it to mean the motion, the physical activity, of responding to spontaneous mass upsurges, is a case in point of their formalism, of looking only at words rather than the content, the real meaning. They distort and misinterpret the slogan and use it as a theoretical justification for their real abstentionism, boycottism of all grassroots mass actions and united fronts and to justify their special interpretation of “propaganda as the chief form of activity” (as we discussed earlier). This leads them to the logical conclusion that the spontaneous movement itself is the root of all evil. Because if you jump into it, they say, bourgeois ideology in general will undo you.
Let’s go back to Lenin, who for the first time in the history of Marxism, described the theory of worshipping spontaneity as the logical basis for all opportunism. He said “...all worship of the spontaneity of the working-class movement, all belittling of the role of ’the conscious element,’ of the role of Social-Democracy, means, quite irrespective of whether the belittler wants to or not, strengthening the influence of the bourgeois ideology over the workers.”(Lenin, WITBD, Peking ed., p.46; emphasis in original)
Why? Because hence, “to belittle the socialist ideology in any way, to turn away from it in the slightest degree, means to strengthen bourgeois ideology.” (Ibid.. p. 48)(emphasis in original)
Referring to communist-led trade unions in Europe, Lenin insisted that:
...Social-Democratic ideology was able to achieve this superiority, and will be able to maintain it, only by unswervingly fighting against all other ideologies.
But why, the reader will ask, does the spontaneous movement, the movement along the line of least resistance, lead to the domination of the bourgeois ideology? For the simple reason that the bourgeois ideology is far older in origin than the socialist ideology! because it is more fully developed and because it possesses immeasurably more opportunities for being spread. And the younger the socialist movement is in any given country, the more vigorously must it fight against all attempts to entrench non-socialist ideology, and the more strongly must the workers be warned against those bad counsellors who shout against ’overrating the conscious element,’ etc. (Ibid., pp. 50-51 emphasis in original)
Stalin summed up this theory of worshipping spontaneity this way:
The theory of worshipping spontaneity is decidedly opposed to giving the spontaneous movement a politically conscious, planned character. It is opposed to the Party marching at the head of the working class, to the Party raising the masses to the level of political consciousness, to the Party leading the movement; it is in favour of the politically conscious elements of the movement not hindering the movement from taking its own course; it is in favour of the Party only heeding the spontaneous movement and dragging at the tail of it. The theory of spontaneity is the theory of belittling the role of the conscious element in the movement...the logical basis of all opportunism. (Stalin, “Theory,” Foundations of Leninism, Peking ed., pp. 23-24; emphasis in original)
Clearly here the essence of Lenin’s teaching on spontaneity is not the question of mere motion, responding to the mass movement. The essence is what kind of communist response to spontaneous upsurges and how to raise the level of the subjective factor of revolution. In his teaching, Lenin revealed for the first time the strength of bourgeois ideology, how in the slightest absence of “conscious” (not conscious in general, but socialist ideology) thinking clearly based on the theory of Marxism, bourgeois ideology automatically takes command. And when this happens, communists will lose initiative and leadership of the movement to give it clear direction, and will only tail after the spontaneous character of the movement.
Lenin’s teaching illustrates the “unconscious” reflex character of bourgeois ideology, versus the non-automatic, “conscious” character of socialist ideology in our thinking and the upstream struggle to acquire and apply it to build the political movement. We must take this universal teaching broadly. It applies to all phases of our activity and not merely to not tailing after the spontaneous movement, as PRRWO would have us believe.
The theory of spontaneity is broader than its political manifestation. It also refers to belittling the role of the proletarian conscious element, i.e. belittling our ideological and theoretical tasks in the struggle against bourgeois ideology. It refers to liquidating our communist task of raising the consciousness of the working class and especially advanced workers to the level of communism.
In this sense, the theory of spontaneity always goes hand in hand with all forms of opportunism. This is what Stalin meant when he said it is “the logical basis of all opportunism.” This is clearly very different from saying, as PRRWO does, that all motion of responding to the spontaneous movement is the ideological root of all opportunism.
Lenin’s teachings must be applied to our study, formulation of line, policy and plan and implementation, an aspect of implementation being how to respond to the spontaneous movement and give it communist leadership. We must interpret Lenin’s teachings broadly, put MLMTTT in command, and take communist initiative in all phases of our activity. This applies within communist organizations as well as externally in our response to spontaneous struggles.
The “left” opportunist PRRWO and RWL counterpose their narrowly interpreted “bowing to spontaneity” to the task of communists to seek out, grasp, combat and prevent revisionism through criticism of nationally distinctive bourgeois ideological sources. Opportunist arguments lead to opportunist practice. In counter-posing the two tasks, PRRWO cannot but react to revisionism after it has fully matured in their organisation, since they only, understand literal revisionisms of Marxism.
So paradoxically, although the “left” opportunists howl that the theory of spontaneity is the root of all opportunism, by opposing in practice the criticism of the bourgeois ideological roots to prevent revisionism, they objectively glorify the theory of worship of spontaneity in this particular sphere.
This is the height of opportunism in building the anti-revisionist party-claiming to believe in the slogan “build the party on the ideological plane”, but not practicing the five criteria of party character developed by Chairman Mao.
Opportunists of all stripes, especially “left” opportunists like PRRWO, distort and misinterpret slogans to influence the thinking of honest comrades. They drape themselves in the “essence” of MLMTTT but rob it of its revolutionary content with the “popular fixity of words.” They make comrades pay attention to the words of Marxism (and even this they distort) rather than to its spirit and essence. This is how PRRWO uses their “bowing to the spontaneous movement is the root of all evil” line. With their one-sided, formalistic misinterpretation of “bowing to spontaneity,” coupled with their saying that WVO “over-rates the importance of ideology,” “it’s too abstract” and “forms are only forms” line, PRRWO inevitably bows to their own ultra-“left” path of least resistance – namely, boycottism, failing to do the necessary day in and day out exposure of every maneuver of trade union mis-leaders, empty sloganeering instead of concrete analysis of concrete situations, study circle style of work, bowing to spontaneity in theory, organizational primitiveness and narrow nationalism – in all phases of their activities.
PRRWO has, in fact, until recently, always said “bowing to spontaneity” is a right deviation. They refuse to see that both “left” and right forms can be the result of taking the path of least resistance.
Lenin never said that “forms are only forms.” He refers to forms as “poles” of spontaneity. In WITBD Lenin said:
The Economists and terrorists merely bow to different poles of spontaneity: the Economists bow to the spontaneity of the “pure” working-class movement, while the terrorists bow to the spontaneity of the passionate indignation of intellectuals, who lack the ability or opportunity to link up the revolutionary struggle with the working-class movement, to form an integral whole. (WITBD, p. 93; emphasis added)
Similar “poles of spontaneity” exist in the communist movement today. In addition to the deviations common to all organizations in the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement today (WVO included), there are more specific poles, stemming, as we have shown, from the particular social bases in the old anti-war, student, and national liberation movements.
For instance, RCP is the organization that bow’s most strongly to pragmatism and chauvinism, to “left” economism in the form of their “intermediate workers’ organizations”. Petty bourgeois liberalism and illusions of bourgeois democracy are the poles which most strongly affect the OL and White Blindspot tendencies. The Weather Underground finds itself sucked into terrorism. And organizations like PRRWO, which grew out of the national liberation struggles, bow to the “pole” of narrow nationalism.
Chairman Mao, in his “On Correcting Mistaken Ideas in the Party”, spoke of the need to fight poles of spontaneity – the “purely military viewpoint,” “the ideology of roving rebel bands”–which had nationally specific origins in the history of uprisings in China. He presented the question in order to suggest methods of rectification. He said:
The source of such incorrect ideas in this Party organization lies, of course in the fact that its basic units are composed largely of peasants and other elements of petty-bourgeois origin; yet the failure of the Party’s leading bodies to wage a concerted and determined struggle against these incorrect ideas and to educate the members in the Party’s correct line is also an important cause of their existence and growth. In accordance with the spirit of the September letter of the Central Committee, this congress hereby points out the manifestations of various non-proletarian ideas in the Party organization in the Fourth Army, their sources, and the methods of correcting them... (Mao Tse-tung, “On Correcting Mistaken Ideas in the Party,” SWM, Vol. I, p. 105) (emphasis added)
And today, Chairman Mao is unfolding a tremendous struggle against revisionism, the concrete ideological source of which is another nationally distinctive form – Confucianism. And that’s not against Lin Piao only – as we can see now – but it also affected Teng Hsiao-ping and a whole stratum of unrepentant capitalist-roaders, whose ideology stayed at the stage of the bourgeois democratic revolution.
That’s why the fight against these “poles” of spontaneity has “immediate implications as well as long-range historical significance,” as the Chinese comrades described. Chairman Mao’s campaign against Confucian ideology in the fight to combat and prevent revisionism was an attempt to get at the nationally specific ideological roots.
Diametrically opposed to PRRWO’s “forms are only forms” line, Lenin also pointed out:
All over the world, in every capitalist society... the period of formation of workers’ parties was attended by its more or less prolonged and persistent ideological and political subjection to the bourgeoisie. This is common to all capitalist countries , but it assumes different forms in different countries, depending on historical and economic factors. (Lenin, “Concluding Remarks to the Symposium Marxism and Liquidationism,” 1914, Against Revisionism, p. 174)
Also
Familiarity with the various forms in which this tendency is displayed in the Russian Social-Democratic movement in different periods of its development is necessary in order to strengthen revolutionary Marxism and steel the Russian working class in its struggle for emancipation.” (Lenin, “Preface to the Collection Twelve Years,” 1907,
This line of “forms are only forms” is PRRWO’s version of RCP’s “nationalism is only nationalism” line (although given the narrow nationalism of PRRWO, they will not come out with such a line on nationalism). Failing to differentiate the character of various spontaneous movements (in the context of concrete time, place and conditions) from the communist movement, they have come out with a similar position on the trade union struggle: insisting that for working class struggles to take trade union forms is trade unionism. Equating the spontaneous struggle of the working class in trade unions with trade unionism is nothing but reactionary and anti-working class. This is a natural result of their “forms are only forms” line on ideology and is complemented by their Trotskyite “theory of cadre” and hothouse study circle method of developing the advanced – despite the fact that they cannot win over real advanced workers. This bowing to hustlerism is justified in their theoretical systems of substituting the definition of an 1899 advanced worker in St. Petersburg, bowing to spontaneity is the root of all evil, “the vast majority of workers is backward”, “there’s no proletariat in New York”, etc., which are on the lips of PRRWO every day and used to justify their own isolation due to their incorrect lines.