Can the Masses Develop Communist Ideas?
This brings us to another point, about just what sort of ideas the masses can be expected to spontaneously develop. In “What Is To Be Done?” Lenin said the masses under capitalism are spontaneously capable of only trade-union consciousness.[7] But if this is true doesn’t it mean that basing our actions on the ideas of the masses will inevitably restrict us to mere trade-union activity and not revolutionary activity? No, it does not. This criticism of the mass line was raised by some Soviet revisionists, and will be discussed again briefly when we consider their views. (See chapter 36.) But it is especially worth discussing this criticism since not only revisionists but also some members of genuine communist organizations seem to think along these same lines. Lenin did say that the masses were spontaneously capable of only trade-union, or low-level economic, consciousness; and in this Lenin was completely correct as history has shown over and over again. There is an interesting discussi
