Mao-spontex

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. The name Mao-spontex is a portmanteau of Maoist and spontaneist, while the reference to Spontex, a French cleaning sponge brand, is a re-appropriation of name-calling which disparaged the movement's anti-authoritarian approach to revolution.

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. Lenin's work What Is To Be Done? was especially targeted for criticism since they rejected Lenin's critique of spontaneity. 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. 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  that existed after the emergence of the New Left.