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| What Is To Be Done? (Lenin) | |
|---|---|
| Title | What Is To Be Done? |
| Author | Vladimir Lenin |
| Original title | Что делать? |
| Language | Russian |
| Country | Russian Empire |
| Published | 1902 (in print 1902–1903) |
| Genre | Political pamphlet, polemic |
What Is To Be Done? (Lenin) is a 1902 pamphlet by Vladimir Lenin that argued for a disciplined, professional revolutionary party and articulated a strategy for socialist agitation in the late Russian Empire context. It played a formative role in debates among Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members, influenced figures across European socialist movements, and became a cornerstone text for later Bolshevik tactics and the formation of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Lenin wrote the pamphlet in exile in Geneva and Paris amid factional disputes within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and against the positions of Economism advocates like Yuri Martov and Alexander Potresov. The essay responded to the experiences of underground publications such as Iskra and drew on contemporary events including the aftermath of the 1901 Moscow trial and the repression following the 1905 Revolution. Initially serialized clandestinely and published as a pamphlet in 1902, it circulated among émigré circles in Zurich, London, Berlin, and Stockholm, contributing to organizational debates at the Second Congress of the RSDLP.
Lenin framed his argument around the necessity of a centralized, professional revolutionary cadre modeled in part on the traditions of Marxism as interpreted by figures like Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. He contrasted this model with the worker-led spontaneity promoted by Economists and asserted the primacy of political education via revolutionary newspapers such as Iskra and study groups tied to the party. Key themes include the role of intellectuals drawn from institutions like the Imperial Moscow University and the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in bridging theoretical work and practical agitation, the critique of legalist groups affiliated with the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class, and the strategic use of clandestine cells in cities like Saint Petersburg and Riga. Lenin invoked examples from the Paris Commune and contemporary socialist activities in Germany under leaders like August Bebel and Rosa Luxemburg to justify a disciplined organization.
The pamphlet sharpened divisions within the RSDLP and influenced debates at the 1903 RSDLP Congress, where disputes between Lenin and Julius Martov helped produce the later labels Bolshevik and Menshevik. It was read and critiqued by leading activists including Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, and émigré theoreticians in Vienna and Geneva. Outside Russia, the essay was discussed by members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, the Second International, and revolutionary circles in Italy and Poland, affecting organizational practices in groups linked to figures such as Giuseppe Garibaldi II and Feliks Dzerzhinsky. During the lead-up to the February Revolution and the October Revolution, Lenin's positions informed tactical decisions taken by cadres operating in Petrograd, Moscow, Kronstadt, and other centers of proletarian unrest.
Contemporaneous and later critics accused Lenin of elitism and of undervaluing spontaneous working-class initiatives; opponents included Yuri Martov, Plekhanov, and Rosa Luxemburg who argued for broader democratic forms within socialist parties. Debates over the pamphlet intersected with arguments advanced by Alexandra Kollontai and Nikolai Bukharin about mass participation, as well as with critiques by liberal reformers in Saint Petersburg and constitutionalists around the Cadet Party. Historians and theorists such as Isaac Deutscher and E.H. Carr have analyzed its implications for party centralism, while dissidents like Alexander Solzhenitsyn and émigré critics have linked its organizational prescriptions to later authoritarian tendencies in the Soviet Union.
Lenin’s advocacy for a vanguard party influenced the organizational structure of the Bolsheviks during the revolutionary years of 1917 and the civil war period involving the Red Army and opposing forces like the White movement. The pamphlet’s emphasis on centralized discipline and professional revolutionaries helped shape institutions such as the Cheka, the Communist International (Comintern), and party practices implemented during the New Economic Policy and early Soviet state-building. Debates over democratic centralism drew on Lenin’s formulations and were revisited by leaders including Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, and Mikhail Gorbachev as the Soviet system evolved.
What Is To Be Done? was translated into major languages, appearing in editions circulated by publishers in London, Berlin, Paris, New York, Warsaw, and Prague, influencing activists across the Second International and later the Communist International. Scholarly editions and annotated translations have been produced by historians at institutions like Harvard University, Oxford University, Cambridge University, and Columbia University, while critical commentaries have been written by Alastair Kocho-Williams, Robert Service, Orlando Figes, and Richard Pipes. The pamphlet remains a central text in studies of revolutionary strategy, party theory, and the history of Russian Revolution, sustaining debates in academic forums and political movements worldwide.
Category:Works by Vladimir Lenin