 Original cover | |
| Author | Vladimir Lenin (as N. Lenin) |
|---|---|
| Original title | Что дѣлать? Наболѣвшіе вопросы нашего движенія |
| Language | Russian |
| Published | 1902 |
What Is to Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement[a] is a politicalpamphlet written byRussian revolutionaryVladimir Lenin (credited as N. Lenin) in 1901 and published in 1902, a development of a "skeleton plan" laid out in an article first published in early 1901.[1][2] Its title is taken from the 1863novel of the same name by the Russian revolutionaryNikolai Chernyshevsky.
The text's central focus is the ideological formation of theproletariat.[3]: 30 InWhat Is to Be Done?, Lenin argues that theworking class will not spontaneously become political simply by fighting economic battles with employers overwages,working hours, and the like. To educate the working class onMarxism, Lenin insists that Marxists should form apolitical party, orvanguard, of dedicated revolutionaries in order to spread Marxist political ideas among the workers. The pamphlet, in part, precipitated the split of theRussian Social Democratic Labor Party between Lenin'sBolsheviks and theMensheviks.[4]
Lenin first confronts the so-calledeconomist trend in Russiansocial democracy that followed the line ofEduard Bernstein.[3]: 30 He explains that Bernstein's positions wereopportunist, a point expressed by the FrenchsocialistAlexandre Millerand as in taking a post in abourgeois government. Against the economists' demand for freedom of criticism, Lenin advances the position that theorthodox Marxists had the same right to criticize in return. He stresses that in the struggle against thebourgeoisie, revolutionary social democrats would need to pay particular attention to theoretical questions, recallingFriedrich Engels' position that there were three forms of social democratic struggle, namely political, economic and theoretical.[5]
Lenin hypothesizes that workers will not spontaneously developclass consciousness due to economic conflicts with their employers or through spontaneous actions like strikes or demonstrations.[3]: 30 Instead, revolutionaries need to form a political party to publicize Marxist ideas and persuade workers to join.[3]: 30 Lenin argues that understanding politics requires understanding all of society, not just workers and their economic struggles with their employers.
Classpolitical consciousness can be brought to the workersonly from without; that is, only from outside the economic struggle, from outside the sphere of relations between workers and employers. The sphere from which alone it is possible to obtain this knowledge is the sphere of relationships (ofall classes and strata) to the state and the government, the sphere of the interrelations betweenall classes.[6]
Reflecting on the wave of strikes in late 19th century Russia, Lenin writes that "the history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only trade-union consciousness"; that is, combining intotrade unions and so on. However, socialist theory in Russia, as elsewhere in Europe, was the product of the "educated representatives of the propertied classes", theintellectuals or "revolutionary socialist intellectuals". Lenin states thatKarl Marx and Engels themselves, the very founders of modernscientific socialism, belonged to this bourgeoisintelligentsia.[7]
RussianWikisource has original text related to this article:Что делать? Works related toWhat is to Be Done? at Wikisource
What Shall We Do? public domain audiobook atLibriVox| International | |
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