What is to be Done By Vladimir Ilich Lenin

What is to be Done? (1902)
What is to be Done By Vladimir Ilich Lenin

At the time when he wrote "What is to be Done," Lenin was a young Russian emigre recently returned from Siberian exile and living in Geneva, Switzerland.  His work on the Russian Social Democratic newspaper "Iskra" (The Spark), brought him into the center of a debate raging in European Marxist circles over the "revisionist" ideas of Eduard Bernstein.  The problem was all the more urgent for Lenin since some Russian Marxists, known as "economists," were advocating Bernstein's approach, arguing that the Social Democratic party in Russia should focus on legal activities aimed at improving the economic well being of the working class.   Lenin's response was the long pamphlet "What is to be Done," a vigorous polemic in which he sketched out a new vision of a Marxist revolutionary party.    The following are selected excerpts from the larger work.
We have said that there could not have been Social-Democratic consciousness among the workers. It could only be brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc.

The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical and economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, the intellectuals. By their social status, the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia.

Since there can be no talk of an independent ideology formulated by the working masses themselves in the process of their movement, the only choice is--either bourgeois or socialist ideology. There is no middle course (for humanity has not created a "third" ideology, and, moreover, in a society torn by class antagonisms there can never be a non-class or above-class ideology). Hence, to belittle the socialist ideology in any way, to turn away from it in the slightest degree means to strengthen bourgeois ideology. There is a lot of talk about spontaneity, but the spontaneous development of the working-class movement leads to its becoming subordinated to the bourgeois ideology, leads to its developing according to the program of the Credo, for the spontaneous working-class movement is trade unionism, the trade unionism means the ideological enslavement of the workers by the bourgeoisie.  Hence, our task, the task of Social Democracy, is to combat spontaneity, to divert the working-class movement from this spontaneous, trade-unionist  striving to come under the wing of the bourgeoisie, and to bring it under the wing of revolutionary Social Democracy.

As a matter of fact, it is possible to “raise the activity of the masses of the workers: only provided this activity is not restricted to “political agitation on an economic basis.” And one of the fundamental conditions for the necessary expansion of political agitation is the organization of comprehensive political exposure.  The masses cannot be trained to political consciousness and revolutionary activity in any other way except by means of such exposures.  Hence, activity of this kind is one of the most important functions of international Social-Democracy as a whole, for even the existence of political liberty does not in the least remove the necessity for such exposures; it merely changes somewhat the sphere against which they are directed.

We are not children to be fed on the thin gruel of “economic” politics alone; we want to know everything that others know, we want to learn the details of all aspects of political life, and to take part actively in every single political event.  In order that we may do this, the intellectuals must talk to us less of what we already know, and tell us more about what we do not yet know and what we can never learn from our factory and “economic” experience, that is, you must give us political knowledge.  You intellectuals can acquire this knowledge, and it is your duty to bring it to us in a hundred and a thousand times greater measure than you have done up to now; and you must bring it to us, not only in the form of arguments, pamphlets and articles which sometimes-excuse our frankness!-are rather dull, but precisely in the form of live exposures of what our government and our governing classes are doing at this very moment in all spheres of life.  Just devote more zeal to carrying out this duty, and talk less about “raising the activity of the masses of the workers!”  We are far more active than you think, and we are quite able to support, by open, street fighting, demands that do not promise any “palpable results” whatever!  And it is not for you to “raise” our activity, because activity is precisely the thing you yourselves lack!  Bow less in worship to spontaneity, and think more about raising your own activity, gentlemen!

A workers' organization must in the first place be a trade organization; secondly, it must be as broad as possible; and thirdly, it must be as little clandestine as possible (here, and further on, of course, I have only autocratic Russia in mind). On the other hand, the organizations of revolutionaries must consist first, foremost and mainly of people who make revolutionary activity their profession (that is why I speak of organizations of revolutionaries, meaning revolutionary Social-Democrats). In view of this common feature of the members of such an organization, all distinctions as between workers and intellectuals, not to speak of distinctions of trade and profession, in both categories must be obliterated. Such an organization must of necessity be not too extensive and as secret as possible....

As I have already said time and again that by “wise men,” in connection with organization, I mean professional revolutionaries, irrespective of whether they are trained from among students or workingmen.
I assert: 1) that no revolutionary movement can endure without a stable organization of leaders maintaining continuity; 2) that the broader the popular mass drawn spontaneously drawn into the struggle, forming the basis of the movement and participating in it, the more urgent the need for such an organization, and the more solid this organization must be (for it is much easier for demagogues to side track the more backward sections of the masses); 3) that such an organization must consist chiefly of people professionally engaged in revolutionary activity; 4) that in an autocratic state, the more we confine the membership of such an organization to people who are professionally engaged in revolutionary activity and to have been professionally trained in the art of combatting the political police, the more difficult will it be to wipe out such an organization, and 5) the greater will be the number of people of the working class and of the other classes of society who will be able to join the movement and perform active work in it…

To concentrate all secret functions in the hands of as small a number of professional revolutionaries as possible does not mean that the latter will “do the thinking for all” and that the crowd will not take an active part in the movement.  On the contrary, the crowd advance from its ranks increasing numbers of professional revolutionaries; for it will know that it is not enough for a few students and for a few workingmen waging the economic struggle, to gather together and form a “committee,” but that it takes years to train oneself to be a professional revolutionary; the crowd will “think” not of amateurish methods alone but of such training.  The centralization of the secret functions of the organization by no means implies the centralization of all the functions of the movement.  The active participation of the widest mass in the illegal press will not diminish because a “dozen” professional revolutionaries centralize the secret functions connected with this work; on the contrary, it will increase tenfold.  In this way, and in this way alone, will we ensure that reading of illegal literature, writing for it, and to some extent even distributing it, will almost cease to be secret work, for the police will soon come to realize the follow and futility of setting the whole judicial and administrative machine into motion to intercept every copy of publication that is being broadcast in thousands.  This applies not only to the press, but to every function of the movement., even to demonstrations.  The active and widespread participation of the masses will not suffer; on the contrary, it will benefit by the fact that a “dozen” experienced revolutionaries, trained professionally no less than the police, will centralize “all the secret aspects of the work-drawing up leaflets, working out approximate plans and appointing bodies of leaders for each urban district, for each factory district and for each educational institution, etc. (I know that exception will be taken to my “undemocratic” views, but I shall reply fully to this anything but intelligent objection later on.)  The centralization of the most secret functions in an organization of revolutionaries will not diminish, but rather increase the extent and quality of the activity of a large number of other organizations which are intended for a broad public and are therefore as loose and as non-secret as possible, such as workers’ trade unions, workers’ self-education circles and circles for reading illegal literature, socialist and also democratic circles among all other sections of the population, etc., etc.  We must have such circles, trade unions and organizations every-where in as large a number as possible and with the widest variety of functions; but it would be absurd and dangerous to confuse them with the organization of revolutionaries, to obliterate the border line between the, to dim still more the masses’ already incredibly hazy appreciation of the fact that in order to “serve” the mass movement we must have people who will devote themselves exclusively to Social-Democratic activities, and that such people must train themselves patiently and steadfastly to be professional revolutionaries.

Questions:

• What is Lenin’s view of dissent?  How closely must people adhere to socialist thought?
• Why does Lenin reject trade unionism for the working class?
• What must a revolutionary movement have to succeed?
• Lenin argues that revolutionary activity must be centralized.  Why? How does this reflect his own interest?
• Lenin ultimately succeeded in his goal of overthrowing the Russian government.  Is What Is to Be Done? An effective blueprint for would-be revolutionaries?

Addendum for your pleasure!!!
Lenin’s What Is to Be Done – One hundred years on
Ron O’Brien
The Spark 1 December 2003

This year is the centenary of VI Lenin’s book What Is to Be Done. This book played an outstanding role in the campaign to set up a revolutionary Marxist party of the Russian working class. The main ideas put forward by Lenin in 1903 are valid and applicable in the current circumstance where organised workers have been under attack from the New Zealand ruling class, along with the politicians that serve them.

In writing about developing strategy and tactics, Lenin spells out the three forms of struggle the working class is faced with: the economic, the political and theoretical.

Lenin declared: ‘Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement’. This idea cannot be insisted on too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand-in-hand with an infatuation with the narrowest form of practical activity.

Lenin was scathing of a left wing party group, the Workers Cause, who had quoted Marx out of context from a letter on the Gotha Programme, where Marx says: ‘Every step in a real movement is more important than a dozen programmes’. Lenin’s reply to Workers Cause: ‘To repeat these words in a period of theoretical disorder is like wishing mourners at a funeral many happy returns of the day’. In the letter Marx sharply condemns eclecticism in the formulation of principles. ‘If you must unite’, Marx wrote to party leaders ‘then enter into agreements to satisfy the practical aims of the movement. But do not allow bargaining over principles ... do not make theoretical concessions.’

The world workers’ movement is in its very essence an internationalist movement. This means not only that we must combat national chauvinism, but that a movement having been placed on the back foot – as the working class movement in New Zealand has been – can be successful only if it makes use of the experience of other countries. In order to make use of these experiences it is not enough merely to be acquainted with them or simply to copy out the latest resolutions. What is required is the ability to treat these experiences critically and test them independently.

What Is to Be Done is must reading for radical activists to develop an understanding of the political and organisational duties, which the task of taking on the whole capitalist state and its superstructure of ideas and institutions entails.

Revolution is a process, not an event. Our task is to hasten the process.
‘All revolutions are festivals of the oppressed’
Karl Marx
Ron O’Brien is a long-time activist, a former militant in the Seafarers’ Union and a member of the Anti-Capitalist Alliance in Auckland.