Single Spark Revises Its ‘What We Believe’ Statement
At a recent conference of the Single Spark Collective, the Collective revised the 14th point in our What We Believe Statement.
Previously, the point read:
The basic approach we promote toward the masses of people is to join up with them in their existing struggles for their own collective interests and, in the course of that, to bring the light of revolution to them. As an important part of this, in all our work we try to promote the mass line, the leadership method of ‘from the masses, to the masses.’
We have now changed the point to read:
We are committed to bringing revolutionary ideas to the people. As an important part of this, in all our work we try to promote the mass line, the leadership method of ‘from the masses, to the masses.’
For the Single Spark Collective the Mass Line is a dividing line question. However, we recognize that differing understandings of the Mass Line exist. The “Bring the Light” formulation is one approach to mass work, which we no longer consider a dividing line question. We are debating this issue within our collective and with others outside our collective and our revision to point 14 reflects this.
Lenin discusses the “Bring the Light” method of conducting mass work in his explanation of a draft programme that he drafted while imprisoned in 1895. Since originally adopting this formulation as a guiding concept for conducting our own mass work in the Spring of 2006, we have had considerable debate within our Collective and with fraternal Maoists outside our Collective over the meaning and adequacy of this formulation. In particular, we have debated whether or not the “Bring the Light” formulation is central to a mass line orientation to leading mass struggles, or whether it is ancillary to the mass line method of leadership. We have also had considerable debate as to whether, and to what degree, Lenin subsequently revised his own thinking on this point, in particular in his work What Is to Be Done?
Given the level of debate on this question, we felt it was incorrect to insist on making the “Bring the Light” formulation a dividing line question.
The Single Spark Collective
September 2007
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