Unled spontaneous revolts invite reactionary counter-movements and coups

Evidence

Neglecting, or worse still despising, so-called “spontaneous” movements, i.e. failing to give them a conscious leadership or to raise them to a higher plane by inserting them into politics, may often have extremely serious consequences. It is almost always the case that a “spontaneous” movement of the subaltern classes is accompanied by a reactionary movement of the right-wing of the dominant class, for concomitant reasons. An economic crisis, for instance, engenders on the one hand discontent among the subaltern classes and spontaneous mass movements, and on the other conspiracies among the reactionary groups, who take advantage of the objective weakening of the government in order to attempt coups d’etat . Among the effective causes of the coups must be included the failure of the responsible groups to give any conscious leadership to the spontaneous revolts or to make them into a positive political factor. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 808

Categorization

• XREF: This mechanism of how unled subaltern movements get captured or outpaced by reactionary forces will echo through later analyses of how anti-Muslim sentiment is weaponized. — connects to: Habermas saw revolution arising from affluence-induced irritation and repoliticization, not violent coup — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2656; Post-Uprisings Western intervention aimed to replace pan-Arab ideology with neoliberal liberal democracy. — Youssef Cherif, Neo-pan-Arabism: a renewed contract of…, 54; Reactionary movements embrace radical change to defend or restore hierarchies. — Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry, The Flag and the Cross: White Christian…, 334 (+4 more)