Mao-spontex explained

The term Mao-spontex or Maoist spontaneism refers to a syncretic Maoist and libertarian Marxist political tendency in France that arose after the 1968 Mass Protests and lasted until around 1972.^[1] The name Mao-spontex is a portmanteau of Maoist and spontaneist,^[2] while the reference to, a French cleaning sponge brand, is a re-appropriation of name-calling which disparaged the movement's anti-authoritarian approach to revolution.^[3]

Mao-spontex was inspired by both the spontaneous action of the Movement of March 22 in France and subsequent protest movement and the Cultural Revolution in China, and came to represent an ideology promoting some aspects of Maoism, Marxism, and Leninism, but rejecting the total idea of Marxism–Leninism.^[4] Lenin's work What Is To Be Done? was especially targeted for criticism since they rejected Lenin's critique of spontaneity.^[5] The idea of democratic centralism was supported as a way to organize a party, but only if it stays in constant contact with a mass worker's movement to remain revolutionary.^[6] The main party vehicles for Mao-spontex were the French political party Gauche prolétarienne and the group Vive la révolution.

The tendency falls under the wider current of Western Maoism^[7] that existed after the emergence of the New Left.

See also

• Armed Nuclei for Popular Autonomy
• Autonomism
• La Cause du peuple
• Libertarian socialism
• May 1968 events in France
• Murder of Pierre Overney

Further reading

• Ulrike Heider, German: Keine Ruhe nach dem Sturm, Rogner & Bernhard bei Zweitausendeins, Hamburg, 2001.

External links

• Maoism in France in the 1970s

Notes and References

1. Web site: Cahiers du cinéma's Maoist Turn and the Front Culturel Révolutionnaire . 2024-02-15 . Zapruder World . en-US.
2. Fields . Belden . 1984 . French Maoism . Social Text . 9/10 . 148–177 . 10.2307/466540 . 466540 . 0164-2472.
3. Book: Bourg, Julian . From Revolution to Ethics, Second Edition . 2017-11-28 . McGill-Queen's University Press . 978-0-7735-5246-3 . 86 . 10.1515/9780773552463 . "It did not take long for the GP-ists to become known as 'Mao-spontex', or Maoist-spontaneists. The name was originally an insult—Spontex was the brand name of a cleaning sponge—intended to belittle the group's embrace of anti-authoritarianism as an element of revolutionary contestation. The marxisant tradition had long criticized spontaneism as an anarchistic error.".
4. News: 1969-05-21 . La Ligue Communiste S'en Prend Aux 'Mao Spontex' . 2023-12-07 . . fr.
5. Web site: Why has the ISO collapsed? Workers' Liberty . 2023-12-07 . www.workersliberty.org . en.
6. Web site: Investigation into the Maoists in France. Marxists.org. 30 November 2016.
7. Web site: 'Imperialism runs deep': Interview with Robert Biel on British Maoism and its afterlives . 2023-12-07 . Ebb . en-GB.