2. The Spontaneity of the Masses and the Consciousness of the Social-Democrats¶
Core Argument¶
In this chapter, Lenin mounts a polemical assault on the notion that the working class can spontaneously generate revolutionary socialist consciousness through its own struggles. He argues that the strength of the movement lies in the awakening of the masses, particularly the industrial proletariat, but its weakness resides in the lack of consciousness among revolutionary leaders. The strikes of the 1890s, while more advanced than earlier revolts, remained purely spontaneous and expressed only trade-union consciousness, not Social-Democratic struggle. Socialist consciousness, Lenin insists, cannot arise from within the working class; it must be introduced from without by intellectuals, as the theory of socialism grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories developed by educated representatives of the propertied classes.
The text identifies a dangerous trend, characterised as Economism, which elevated these shortcomings into virtues and invented a theoretical justification for slavish cringing before spontaneity. Publications such as Rabochaya Mysl and Rabocheye Dyelo are singled out for bowing to spontaneity and reducing Social-Democracy’s role to subservience to the mass movement. Lenin contends that all worship of spontaneity and belittling of the conscious element strengthens the influence of bourgeois ideology upon the workers, for the labour movement pure and simple cannot elaborate an independent ideology for itself. There is no middle course: either bourgeois or socialist ideology prevails. Bourgeois ideology dominates the spontaneous movement because it is older, more fully developed, and possesses far more means of dissemination.
The chapter ridicules Rabocheye Dyelo’s claim that a new social order will arise mainly from elemental outbursts, likening this to the old wisdom that anyone can have children. Lenin concludes that this tendency is not opportunism but “tail-ism,” elevating the tactic of following behind the movement to a principle. The fundamental error of this new trend is its failure to understand that the spontaneous upsurge of the masses demands greater consciousness from Social-Democrats. Revolutionaries had lagged behind this upsurge in both theory and activity, failing to establish a continuous organisation capable of leading the movement. The German example of Lassalle is invoked to show that diverting the working-class movement from its spontaneous trade-unionist path requires fierce struggle against spontaneity itself.