What Is to Be Done?

What Is to Be Done?
Ленин В. И. · Public domain · source
Name	What Is to Be Done?
Author	Vladimir Lenin
Original title	Что делать?
Country	Russian Empire
Language	Russian
Genre	Political pamphlet
Publisher	Iskra (serial); separate editions
Pub date	1902

What Is to Be Done? is a 1902 political pamphlet by Vladimir Lenin that played a formative role in early 20th-century Russian Social Democratic Labour Party debates and in the development of Bolshevism within the broader Marxist movement. Framed as a polemic against rival trends among Russian socialists, the work addressed organization, theory, and revolutionary strategy amid the political crises of the late Russian Empire and the aftermath of the 1905 Russian Revolution. Its arguments influenced key figures, factions, and institutions in revolutionary currents across Europe and beyond.

Background and Context

Lenin wrote the pamphlet during an era shaped by imperial repression, industrialization in cities like Saint Petersburg, and intellectual ferment among émigrés in cities such as Geneva, Paris, and London. The work responded to disputes within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party involving activists and theorists including Dmitri Plekhanov, Georgi Plekhanov (note: same surname—Dmitri versus Georgi confusion avoided elsewhere), Julius Martov, and Alexander Potresov over the roles of trade unions, socialist press organs like Iskra, and clandestine networks. Internationally, debates about organization and party structure mirrored controversies involving Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Eduard Bernstein, and the legacy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Publication History and Editions

Initially serialized in the émigré newspaper Iskra and circulated among party activists, the pamphlet appeared in several clandestine and émigré editions before becoming widely disseminated after 1905. Editions were printed in centers of revolutionary exile such as Geneva, London, and Zurich, and later in underground printings within the Russian Empire and in émigré presses in Paris and Berlin. Subsequent Russian and translated editions were produced during the periods of the February Revolution and the October Revolution, and later by Soviet publishing houses linked to institutions like Pravda and Moscow State University for study by members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. English, German, French, and other translations spread Lenin’s text through networks connected to Second International debates and to revolutionary groups in Austria-Hungary, Germany, Italy, and United States.

Main Arguments and Structure

The pamphlet is organized as a sequence of essays arguing for a centralized, disciplined revolutionary party of professional revolutionaries, opposing decentralist and spontaneist tendencies associated with trade unionism and certain trends within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Lenin drew on analyses of underground organization, press strategy, and cadre training, critiquing positions held by figures like Juluis Martov and engaging with theoretical legacies from Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and earlier Russian thinkers such as Nikolai Chernyshevsky. He emphasized the importance of a politically conscious vanguard to achieve revolutionary aims, discussing relations between legal and illegal work, the functions of a revolutionary newspaper, and the necessity of unified organizational statutes to coordinate cells across urban centers like Saint Petersburg and Moscow. Lenin also attacked opportunist currents associated with Eduard Bernstein and highlighted the pedagogical role of party theory in transforming trade union struggle into political revolution, invoking international examples from German Social Democratic Party debates and experiences from the Paris Commune.

Reception and Influence

The pamphlet polarized opinion within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, contributing to the factional split between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks at the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Prominent contemporaries such as Julius Martov, Georgi Plekhanov, and Alexander Potresov reacted critically, while allies including Leon Trotsky later engaged with Lenin’s organizational prescriptions during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and civil war-era institution building. Internationally, activists in the German Social Democratic Party, Socialist Party of France, and revolutionary circles in Italy and Austria debated Lenin’s model for party centralism. Later institutions including the Communist International and Soviet governmental bodies adapted organizational principles derived from the pamphlet in party statutes and training academies.

Criticisms and Controversies

Critics accused Lenin of advocating excessive centralization and elitism that could suppress internal democracy, charges articulated by Rosa Luxemburg, Julius Martov, and later by Leon Trotsky in private debates. Scholars pointed to tensions between Lenin’s advocacy of clandestine professional cadres and the risks of bureaucratic ossification observed in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. Controversies also arose over Lenin’s portrayal of opponents and the polemical tone directed at figures such as Plekhanov and Martov, which contributed to enduring schisms. Debates about whether the pamphlet’s prescriptions were context-specific or universally applicable persisted among historians in institutions like Columbia University, University of Oxford, and University of Cambridge.

Legacy and Modern Relevance

The pamphlet remains a foundational text for studies of revolutionary organization, taught in courses at universities including Harvard University, University of Chicago, and London School of Economics. Contemporary activists, theorists, and scholars reference its analysis in discussions about party discipline, cadre formation, and the relationship between legal and illegal political activity, while critics invoke its lessons about centralized authority in critiques of authoritarianism. Museums and archives such as the Lenin Institute and collections at the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History preserve early editions, and debates about its relevance continue in the writings of historians and political theorists in venues like Princeton University and the European University Institute.

Category:1902 books