Lenin wrote What Is To Be Done? in exile in Munich, and it was published in March of 1902. But Lenin had begun to develop his critique of economism and the organizational plan that he further developed in Iskra (Spark) when he and N. Krupskaya were in Siberian exile in 1899.
The two major weaknesses within the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party that Lenin addresses in What is To Be Done? are Economism and problems of organization. The question of Economism was an historical one, and had begun to develop in the latter 1890’s when Social-Democracy started to move from small propaganda study group activity to agitation and mass work. Basically, the Economists felt that the workers should not be seen as the hegemonic force in the struggle against the Tsar. The Economists saw the role of workers as being to struggle over narrow trade union and economic issues, while all political work against the Tsar was to be left to the “legal Marxist” intellectuals and bourgeois liberals.
At the same time as the Economists were struggling to gain hegemony within Social-Democracy, an openly revolutionary student movement supported the workers’ movement. After the workers, the autocracy considered the students to be its most dangerous enemies, and took strong actions against them, such as forcibly drafting radically minded students into the army, as well as open repression. The Economists ignored the student movement because it was purely political, which, according to the Economists had nothing in common with the immediate economic demands of the workers.
The revolutionary wing of Social-Democracy, grouped around Lenin and the newspaper Iskra, knew that the students, being from the privileged classes, were not solid allies of the workers, and would in fact turn against them, but they also knew that the student movement could benefit the workers in the struggle against Tsarism. Social-Democrats and the workers were obliged to make use of any opposition movement aimed against autocracy. Lenin and the revolutionary Marxist saw the working class as the leading force that could nudge the student and liberal movements forward. At the same time, the revolutionary Marxists warned the workers that as soon as the Tsar was overthrown, the liberal bourgeoisie would turn against the workers.
In December of 1900 the first issue of the newspaper Iskra appeared in Munich. Its masthead carried the slogan “From a spark a flame will flare up”. Iskra was edited by Plekhanov, Martov, Axelrod, Potresov, Vera Zasulich and Lenin, all of whom except Lenin became Mensheviks. Iskra’s primary arguments were directed against the Economists. Iskra’s main idea was the hegemony of the proletariat, and the confidence that the working class would be the liberator class and the main force in the revolution. Iskra also waged a campaign against the Socialist-Revolutionaries, who later became the representatives of the Kulak petty bourgeoisie. Finally, Iskra waged a strong campaign for a single centralized, all-Russian political organization of the proletariat. This last struggle was very important because most revolutionaries were huddled away in small localized circles without a national perspective.
The beginning of 1901 was the most turbulent period of the expanding workers movement, especially in St. Petersburg. On May Day there were bloody clashes and street battles. Soldiers and police attacked the workers and students who supported the workers. In October of 1901 the editorial board of Iskra went to Zurich to consult Rabocheye Delo (Workers’ Cause) about amalgamation, but nothing came of the talks.
Many opportunists, including bourgeois liberals and even some of the liberal aristocrats, clustered around Iskra because it had such force with the workers. Many wrote in to the paper and spoke of how each copy of the paper was read to tatters. One worker wrote concerning the brutal oppression by the police “It is really sickening to die in a hole like dogs where no one can even see us...though they captured lots and lots of us – perhaps there were no more left at all – all the same we will stand fast.” Another worker wrote, “It’s a pity we didn’t have a banner. Another time we’ll get hold of both a banner and pistols.” Lenin looked forward to letters from the workers and was always encouraging workers to write about the conditions they experienced and their thoughts on Iskra.
What Is To Be Done? marked an era. It drew a two year account of the work of Iskra. At the same time it became like a handbook for revolutionary Marxist activities of the time. What Is To Be Done? particularly gave emphasis to the question of “primitiveness” (the Russian being more literally translated “cottage industry methods”) and to the idea of professional revolutionaries.
“Primitiveness” refers to the self-contained local Marxist circles. When workers strikes mobilized 80,000 people, communists could not expect to have much influence if they remained in small local groups. The national party had to have a division of labor where every member knew what to do and what there responsibilities were. Lenin was attacked by the right wing of the Social Democrats for aiming to turn individual revolutionaries into mindless screws and cogs in a big machine, thus “debasing” the role of revolutionaries. Lenin replied that being a small screw or cog in a great revolutionary party pursuing world historic objectives in no way debases the vocation of revolutionary. On the contrary, Lenin advocated the concept of “professional revolutionaries”, that is, people who concern themselves solely with the revolution. For this idea Lenin was also attacked by the right wing of the Social Democrats. At the time the idea was completely new and appeared to many to be “organizational delirium”.
When we read What is To Be Done? we should not simply read to find out what Lenin said, not to draw simple conclusions unavoidably tied to the historical moment; but, in our reading we should struggle to reconstruct the conceptual system and the methodology of the scientific theory that Lenin was developing at the time he wrote. By doing so we will be able to transcend the specific time when What Is To Be Done? was written and utilize it as a tool to transform our knowledge of the present. It is by being conscious of this specific approach to the classics of Marxism-Leninism that we are able to go beyond a simple dogmatist or revisionist reading of such works.
1. Discuss the nature of economism in Lenin’s time and in our own.
2. What is the character of economism in the US historically, and more importantly, in the period of the “New Communist Movement”?
3. Why does Lenin assert the importance of theory and theoretical struggle?
4. Why do we assert the need for developing theory and engaging in theoretical struggle?
5. What determines the nature and direction of theory?
6. What is “worship of spontaneity”?
7. Discuss the relationship between the spontaneous workers movement and the communist movement and the basis of their fusion.
8. Discuss the relationship between workers, communist consciousness, and the dissemination of theory to the masses.
9. Why do communists intervene in trade union struggles? What are some of the pitfalls of this activity?
10. Distinguish trade union politics and Communist politics.
11. Why is political education essential to the workers movement?
12. Discuss the nature of agitation and propaganda and its relationship to the current situation in the realm of political education.
1. Discuss the need for an organization of communists.
2. Discuss the internal and external character of centralism and its modification by democratic practices. That is the coordination of the mass movement by the party and the coordination of the activity of communists in the party.
3. Compare and contrast the situation in which the party building movement existed in Russia when What is To Be Done? was written and now in the US. Focus on points concerning the nature of the state, the state of the mass movement, the nature of theory, and the question of hegemony.
4. Discuss the role that can be played in establishing a coordinating center for the various practices by the Guardian, the Theoretical Review, and the Philadelphia Workers Organizing Committee’s “leading Ideological Center” and the prospects for the future.
V. I. Lenin, What Is To Be Done?