Lenin held that unguided uprising passively adopts the ruling ideology.

Evidence

Lenin was engaged in a “desperate struggle against spontaneity,” the competing revolutionary current that insisted workers would rise up and create socialism on their own. But for Lenin, socialism is not something that resides in the heart of every human being, only waiting to be discovered. It is the implementation of centuries of scientific advancement and theoretical elaboration. He argued that any purely spontaneous uprising, taking the path of least resistance, would simply adopt the ideology that is dominant in its society at the time. They will grasp at whatever is already in the air. Because the ruling class had a lot more means at its disposal to propagate its ideology, the revolutionary movement would need to be guided by a coherent ideology of its own. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 81

Categorization

• SEED: A fertile tension for an essay or argument: the ‘spontaneity vs. ideology’ debate maps onto modern mass protests that plateau without organizational theory.
• XREF: connects to: Revolutionaries who internalized the oppressor can re-create oppression after taking power. — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 506

Broader Connections

• Revolutionaries who internalized the oppressor can re-create oppression after taking power. #expands (0.72) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 506