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"What Is to Be Done?" by Vladimir Lenin is a seminal work that outlines the revolutionary strategy and organizational principles for the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Written in 1902, this influential text serves as a cornerstone in the development of Leninist thought. Lenin addresses the challenges facing the working class movement, particularly the lack of revolutionary consciousness among the proletariat. He argues for the necessity of a vanguard party composed of professional revolutionaries who possess the political knowledge to guide the working class towards socialist revolution. The text delves into Lenin's critique of spontaneity and calls for a disciplined and centralized party that can provide direction and leadership. Lenin emphasizes the importance of theoretical clarity, political education, and a strong organizational structure to achieve the ultimate goal of overthrowing the capitalist system. "What Is to Be Done?" has been a subject of extensive debate and interpretation within Marxist circles, and its ideas have had a profound impact on the development of revolutionary movements worldwide. This work remains a key reference for those exploring Leninist theory and the role of the vanguard party in revolutionary change.
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Vladimir Lenin
What Is to Be Done?
Illustrated
"What Is to Be Done?" by Vladimir Lenin is a seminal work that outlines the revolutionary strategy and organizational principles for the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Written in 1902, this influential text serves as a cornerstone in the development of Leninist thought.
Lenin addresses the challenges facing the working class movement, particularly the lack of revolutionary consciousness among the proletariat. He argues for the necessity of a vanguard party composed of professional revolutionaries who possess the political knowledge to guide the working class towards socialist revolution.
The text delves into Lenin's critique of spontaneity and calls for a disciplined and centralized party that can provide direction and leadership. Lenin emphasizes the importance of theoretical clarity, political education, and a strong organizational structure to achieve the ultimate goal of overthrowing the capitalist system.
"What Is to Be Done?" has been a subject of extensive debate and interpretation within Marxist circles, and its ideas have had a profound impact on the development of revolutionary movements worldwide. This work remains a key reference for those exploring Leninist theory and the role of the vanguard party in revolutionary change.
I. DOGMATISM AND “FREEDOM OF CRITICISM”
A. WHAT IS “FREEDOM OF CRITICISM”?
“Freedom of criticism,” this undoubtedly is the most fashionable slogan at the present time, and the one most frequently employed in the controversies between the Socialists and democrats of all countries. At first sight, nothing would appear to be more strange than the solemn appeals by one of the parties to the dispute for freedom of criticism. Can it be that some of the advanced parties have raised their voices against the constitutional law of the majority of European countries which guarantees freedom to science and scientific investigation? “Something must be wrong here,” an onlooker, who has not yet fully appreciated the nature of the disagreements among the controversialists, will say when he hears this fashionable slogan repeated at every cross-road. “Evidently this slogan is one of the conventional phrases which, like a nickname, becomes legitimatized by use, and becomes almost a common noun,” he will conclude.
In fact, it is no secret that two separate tendencies have been formed in international Social-Democracy. The fight between these tendencies now flares up in a bright flame, and now dies down and smoulders under the ashes of imposing “resolutions for an armistice.” What this “new” tendency, which adopts a “critical” attitude towards “obsolete doctrinaire” Marxism, represents has been stated with sufficient precision by Bernstein, and demonstrated by Millerand.
Social-Democracy must change from a party of the social revolution into a democratic party of social reforms. Bernstein has surrounded this political demand with a whole battery of symmetrically arranged “new” arguments and reasonings. The possibility of putting socialism on a scientific basis and of proving that it is necessary and inevitable from the point of view of the materialist conception of history was denied, as also were the facts of growing impoverishment and proletarianization and the intensification of capitalist contradictions. The very conception, “ultimate aim,” was declared to be unsound, and the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat was absolutely rejected. It was denied that there is any difference in principle between liberalism and socialism. The theory of the class struggle was rejected on the grounds that it could not be applied to a strictly democratic society, governed according to the will of the majority, etc.
Thus, the demand for a definite change from revolutionary Social-Democracy to bourgeois social-reformism was accompanied by a no less definite turn towards bourgeois criticism of all the fundamental ideas of Marxism. As this criticism of Marxism has been going on for a long time now, from the political platform, from university chairs, in numerous pamphlets and in a number of scientific works, as the younger generation of the educated classes has been systematically trained for decades on this criticism, it is not surprising that the “new, critical” tendency in Social-Democracy should spring up, all complete, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter. The content of this new tendency did not have to grow and develop, it was transferred bodily from bourgeois literature to socialist literature.
To proceed. If Bernstein’s theoretical criticism and political yearnings are still obscure to anyone, the French have taken the trouble to demonstrate the “new method.” In this instance, also, France has justified its old reputation as the country in which “more than anywhere else, the historical class struggles were each time fought out to a decision ...” (Engels, in his introduction to Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire .) The French Socialists have begun, not to theorize, but to act. The more developed democratic political conditions in France have permitted them to put Bernsteinism into practice immediately, with all its consequences. Millerand has provided an excellent example of practical Bernsteinism; not without reason did Bernstein and Vollmar rush so zealously to defend and praise him! Indeed, if Social-Democracy, in essence, is merely a reformist party, and must be bold enough to admit this openly, then not only has a Socialist the right to join a bourgeois cabinet, it is even his duty always to strive to do so. If democracy, in essence, means the abolition of class domination, then why should not a Socialist minister charm the whole bourgeois world by orations on class co-operation? Why should he not remain in the cabinet even after the shooting down of workers by gendarmes has exposed, for the hundredth and thousandth time, the real nature of the democratic co-operation of classes? Why should he not personally take part in welcoming the tsar, for whom the French Socialists now have no other sobriquet than “Hero of the Knout, Gallows and Banishment” (knouter, pendeur et deportateur)? And the reward for this utter humiliation and self-degradation of socialism in the face of the whole world, for the corruption of the socialist consciousness of the working class—the only basis that can guarantee our victory—the reward for this is imposing plans for niggardly reforms, so niggardly in fact that much more has been obtained from bourgeois governments!
He who does not deliberately close his eyes cannot fail to see that the new “critical” tendency in socialism is nothing more nor less than a new species of opportunism. And if we judge people not by the brilliant uniforms they deck themselves in, not by the imposing appellations they give themselves, but by their actions, and by what they actually advocate, it will be clear that “freedom of criticism” means freedom for an opportunistic tendency in Social-Democracy, the freedom to convert Social-Democracy into a democratic reformist party, the freedom to introduce bourgeois ideas and bourgeois elements into socialism.
“Freedom” is a grand word, but under the banner of free trade the most predatory wars were conducted; under the banner of free labor, the toilers were robbed. The modern use of the term “freedom of criticism” contains the same inherent falsehood. Those who are really convinced that they have advanced science would demand, not freedom for the new views to continue side by side with the old, but the substitution of the new views for the old. The cry “Long live freedom of criticism,” that is heard today, too strongly calls to mind the fable of the empty barrel.
We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and difficult path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and are under their almost constant fire. We have combined voluntarily, precisely for the purpose of fighting the enemy, and not to retreat into the adjacent marsh, the inhabitants of which, from the very outset, have reproached us with having separated ourselves into an exclusive group and with having chosen the path of struggle instead of the path of conciliation. And now several among us begin to cry out: let us go into this marsh! And when we begin to shame them, they retort: how conservative you are! Are you not ashamed to deny us the right to invite you to take a better road! Oh yes, gentlemen! You are free not only to invite us, but to go yourselves wherever you will, even into the marsh. In fact, we think that the marsh is your proper place, and we are prepared to render you every assistance to get there. Only let go of our hands, don’t clutch at us and don’t besmirch the grand word “freedom”; for we too are “free” to go where we please, free not only to fight against the marsh, but also against those who are turning towards the marsh.
B. THE NEW ADVOCATES OF “FREEDOM OF CRITICISM”
Now, this slogan (“freedom of criticism”) is solemnly advanced in No. 10 of Rabocheye Dyelo, the organ of the League of Russian Social-Democrats Aboard, not as a theoretical postulate, but as a political demand, as a reply to the question: “is it possible to unite the Social-Democratic organizations operating abroad?”—“in order that unity may be durable, there must be freedom of criticism.”
From this statement two very definite conclusions must be drawn: 1) that Rabocheye Dyelo has taken the opportunist tendency in international Social-Democracy under its wing; and 2) that Rabocheye Dyelo demands freedom for opportunism in Russian Social-Democracy. We shall examine these conclusions.
Rabocheye Dyelo is “particularly” displeased with Iskra’s and Zarya’s “inclination to predict a rupture between the Mountain and the Gironde in international Social-Democracy.”
“Generally speaking,” writes Krichevsky, editor of Rabocheye Dyelo, “this talk about the Mountain and the Gironde that is heard in the ranks of Social-Democracy represents a shallow historical analogy, which looks strange when it comes from the pen of a Marxist. The Mountain and the Gironde did not represent two different temperaments, or intellectual tendencies, as ideologist historians may think, but two different classes or strata—the middle bourgeoisie on the one hand, and the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat on the other. In the modern socialist movement, however, there is no conflict of class interests; the socialist movement in its entirety, all of its diverse forms [B. K.’s italics], including the most pronounced Bernsteinists, stand on the basis of the class interests of the proletariat and of the proletarian class struggle, for its political and economic emancipation.”
A bold assertion! Has not B. Krichevsky heard the fact, long ago noted, that it is precisely the extensive participation of the “academic” stratum in the socialist movement in recent years that has secured the rapid spread of Bernsteinism? And what is most important—on what does our author base his opinion that even “the most pronounced Bernsteinists” stand on the basis of the class struggle for the political and economic emancipation of the proletariat? No one knows. This determined defense of the most pronounced Bernsteinists is not supported by any kind of argument whatever. Apparently, the author believes that if he repeats what the pronounced Bernsteinists say about themselves, his assertion requires no proof. But can anything more “shallow” be imagined than an opinion of a whole tendency that is based on nothing more than what the representatives of that tendency say about themselves? Can anything more shallow be imagined than the subsequent “homily” about the two different and even diametrically oppo-site types, or paths, of Party development? (Rabocheye Dyelo.) The German Social-Democrats, you see, recognize complete freedom of criticism, but the French do not, and it is precisely the latter that present an example of the “harmfulness of intolerance.”
To which we reply that the very example B. Krichevsky quotes proves that those who regard history literally from the Ilovaysky point of view sometimes describe themselves as Marxists. There is no need whatever, in explaining the unity of the German Socialist Party and the dismembered state of the French Socialist Party, to search for the special features in the history of the respective countries, to compare the conditions of military semi-absolutism in the one country with republican parliamentarism in the other, or to analyze the effects of the Paris Commune and the effects of the Anti-Socialist Law in Germany; to compare the economic life and economic development of the two countries, or recall that “the unexampled growth of German Social-Democracy” was accompanied by a strenuous struggle, unexampled in the history of socialism, not only against mistaken theories (Mühlberger, Dühring, the Socialists of the Chair), but also against mistaken tactics (Lassalle), etc., etc. All that is superfluous! The French quarrel among themselves because they are intolerant; the Germans are united because they are good boys.
And observe, this piece of matchless profundity is intended to “refute” the fact which is a complete answer to the defense of Bernsteinism. The question as to whether the Bernsteinists do stand on the basis of the class struggle of the proletariat can be completely and irrevocably answered only by historical experience. Consequently, the example of France is the most important one in this respect, because France is the only country in which the Bernsteinists attempted to stand independently, on their own feet, with the warm approval of their German colleagues (and partly also of the Russian opportunists). (Cf. Rabocheye Dyelo, Nos. 2-3.) The reference to the “intolerance” of the French, apart from its “historical” significance (in the Nozdrev sense), turns out to be merely an attempt to obscure a very unpleasant fact with angry invectives.
But we are not even prepared to make a present of the Germans to B. Krichevsky and to the numerous other champions of “freedom of criticism.” The “most pronounced Bernsteinists” are still tolerated in the ranks of the German Party only because they submit to the Hanover resolution, which emphatically rejected Bernstein’s “amendments,” and to the Lübeck resolution, which, notwithstanding the diplomatic terms in which it is couched, contains a direct warning to Bernstein. It is a debatable point, from the standpoint of the interests of the German Party, whether diplomacy was appropriate and whether, in this case, a bad peace is better than a good quarrel; in short, opinions may differ in regard to the expediency, or not, of the methods employed to reject Bernsteinism, but one cannot fail to see the fact that the German Party did reject Bernsteinism on two occasions. Therefore, to think that the German example endorses the thesis: “The most pronounced Bernsteinists stand on the basis of the proletarian class struggle, for its economic and political emancipation,” means failing absolutely to understand what is going on before one’s eyes.
More than that. As we have already observed, Rabocheye Dyelo comes before Russian Social-Democracy, demands “freedom of criticism,” and defends Bernsteinism. Apparently it came to the conclusion that we were unfair to our “critics” and Bernsteinists. To whom were we unfair, when and how? What was the unfairness? About this not a word. Rabocheye Dyelo does not name a single Russian critic or Bernsteinist! All that is left for us to do is to make one of two possible suppositions: first, that the unfairly treated party is none other than Rabocheye Dyelo itself (and that is confirmed by the fact that, in the two articles in No. 10, reference is made only to the insults hurled at Rabocheye Dyelo by Zarya and Iskra). If that is the case, how is the strange fact to be explained that Rabocheye Dyelo, which always vehemently dissociates itself from Bernsteinism, could not defend itself, without putting in a word on behalf of the “most pronounced Bernsteinists” and of freedom of criticism? The second supposition is that third persons have been treated unfairly. If the second supposition is correct, then why are these persons not named?
We see, therefore, that Rabocheye Dyelo is continuing to play the game of hide-and-seek that it has played (as we shall prove further on) ever since it commenced publication. And note the first practical application of this greatly extolled “freedom of criticism.” As a matter of fact, not only has it now been reduced to abstention from all criticism, but also to abstention from expressing independent views altogether. The very Rabocheye Dyelo which avoids mentioning Russian Bernsteinism as if it were a secret disease (to use Starover’s apt expression) proposes, for the treatment of this disease, to copy word for word the latest German prescription for the treatment of the German variety of the disease! Instead of freedom of criticism—slavish (worse: monkey-like) imitation! The very same social and political content of modern international opportunism reveals itself in a variety of ways according to its national characteristics. In one country the opportunists long ago came out under a separate flag, while in others they ignored theory and in practice conducted a radical-socialist policy. In a third country, several members of the revolutionary party have deserted to the camp of opportunism and strive to achieve their aims not by an open struggle for principles and for new tactics, but by gradual, unobserved and, if one may so express it, unpunishable corruption of their Party. In a fourth country again, similar deserters employ the same methods in the gloom of political slavery, and with an extremely peculiar combination of “legal” with “illegal” activity, etc., etc. To talk about freedom of criticism and Bernsteinism as a condition for uniting the Russian Social-Democrats, and not to explain how Russian Bernsteinism has manifested itself, and what fruits it has borne, means talking for the purpose of saying nothing.
We shall try, if only in a few words, to say what Rabocheye Dyelo did not want to say (or perhaps did not even understand).
C. CRITICISM IN RUSSIA
The peculiar position of Russia in regard to the point we are examining is that the very beginning of the spontaneous labor movement on the one hand, and the change of progressive public opinion towards Marxism on the other, was marked by the combination of obviously heterogeneous elements under a common flag for the purpose of fighting the common enemy (obsolete social and political views). We refer to the heyday of “legal Marxism.” Speaking generally, this was an extremely curious phenomenon that no one in the ‘eighties or the beginning of the ’nineties would have believed possible. In a country ruled by an autocracy, in which the press is completely shackled, and in a period of intense political reaction in which even the tiniest outgrowth of political discontent and protest was suppressed, the theory of revolutionary Marxism suddenly forces its way into the censored literature, written in Æsopian language, but understood by the “interested.” The government had accustomed itself to regarding only the theory of (revolutionary) Narodnaya Volya-ism as dangerous, without observing its internal evolution, as is usually the case, and rejoicing at the criticism levelled against it no matter from what side it came. Quite a considerable time elapsed (according to our Russian calculations) before the government realized what had happened and the unwieldy army of censors and gendarmes discovered the new enemy and flung itself upon him. Meanwhile, Marxian books were published one after another, Marxian journals and newspapers were published, nearly everyone became a Marxist, Marxism was flattered, the Marxists were courted and the book publishers rejoiced at the extraordinary, ready sale of Marxian literature. It was quite natural, therefore, that among the Marxian novices who were caught in this atmosphere, there should be more than one “author who got a swelled head....”
We can now speak calmly of this period as of an event of the past. It is no secret that the brief period in which Marxism blossomed on the surface of our literature was called forth by the alliance between people of extreme and of extremely moderate views. In point of fact, the latter were bourgeois democrats; and this was the conclusion (so strikingly confirmed by their subsequent “critical” development) that intruded itself on the minds of certain persons even when the “alliance” was still intact.
That being the case, does not the responsibility for the subsequent “confusion” rest mainly upon the revolutionary Social-Democrats who entered into alliance with these future “critics”? This question, together with a reply in the affirmative, is sometimes heard from people with excessively rigid views. But these people are absolutely wrong. Only those who have no self-reliance can fear to enter into temporary alliances even with unreliable people; not a single political party could exist without entering into such alliances. The combination with the “legal Marxists” was in its way the first really political alliance contracted by Russian Social-Democrats. Thanks to this alliance, an astonishingly rapid victory was obtained over Narodism, and Marxian ideas (even though in a vulgarized form) became very widespread. Moreover, the alliance was not concluded altogether without “conditions.” The proof: the burning by the censor, in 1895, of the Marxian symposium, Materials on the Problem of the Economic Development of Russia. If the literary agreement with the “legal Marxists” can be compared with a political alliance, then that book can be compared with a political treaty.
The rupture, of course, did not occur because the “allies” proved to be bourgeois democrats. On the contrary, the representatives of the latter tendency were the natural and desirable allies of Social-Democracy in so far as its democratic tasks that were brought to the front by the prevailing situation in Russia were concerned. But an essential condition for such an alliance must be complete liberty for Socialists to reveal to the working class that its interests are diametrically opposed to the interests of the bourgeoisie. However, the Bernsteinian and “critical” tendency, to which the majority of the “legal Marxists” turned, deprived the Socialists of this liberty and corrupted socialist consciousness by vulgarizing Marxism, by preaching the toning down of social antagonisms, by declaring the idea of the social revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat to be absurd, by restricting the labor movement and the class struggle to narrow trade unionism and to a “realistic” struggle for petty, gradual reforms. This was tantamount to the bourgeois democrat’s denial of socialism’s right to independence and, consequently, of its right to existence; in practice it meant a striving to convert the nascent labor movement into a tail of the liberals.
Naturally, under such circumstances a rupture was necessary. But the “peculiar” feature of Russia manifested itself in that this rupture simply meant the elimination of the Social-Democrats from the most accessible and widespread “legal” literature. The “ex-Marxists” who took up the flag of “criticism,” and who obtained almost a monopoly of the “criticism” of Marxism, entrenched themselves in this literature. Catchwords like: “Against orthodoxy” and “Long live freedom of criticism” (now repeated by Rabocheye Dyelo) immediately became the fashion, and the fact that neither the censor nor the gendarmes could resist this fashion is apparent from the publication of three Russian editions of Bernstein’s celebrated book (celebrated in the Herostratus sense) and from the fact that the books by Bernstein, Prokopovich and others were recommended by Zubatov. (Iskra, No. 10.) Upon the Social-Democrats was now imposed a task that was difficult in itself, and made incredibly more difficult by purely external obstacles, viz., the task of fighting against the new tendency. And this tendency did not confine itself to the sphere of literature. The turn towards criticism was accompanied by the turn towards Economism that was taken by Social-Democratic practical workers.
The manner in which the contacts and mutual inter-dependence of legal criticism and illegal Economism arose and grew is an interesting subject in itself, and may very well be treated in a special article. It is sufficient to note here that these contacts undoubtedly existed. The notoriety deservedly acquired by the Credo was due precisely to the frankness with which it formulated these contacts and laid down the fundamental political tendencies of Economism, viz., let the workers carry on the economic struggle (it would be more correct to say the trade union struggle, because the latter also embraces specifically labor politics), and let the Marxian intelligentsia merge with the liberals for the political “struggle.” Thus it turned out that trade union work “among the people” meant fulfilling the first part of this task, and legal criticism meant fulfilling the second part. This statement proved to be such an excellent weapon against Economism that, had there been no Credo, it would have been worth inventing.
The Credo was not invented, but it was published without the consent and perhaps even against the will of its authors. At all events the present writer, who was partly responsible for dragging this new “program” into the light of day, has heard complaints and reproaches to the effect that copies of the résumé of their views which was dubbed the Credo were distributed and even published in the press together with the protest! We refer to this episode because it reveals a very peculiar state of mind among our Economists, viz., a fear of publicity. This is a feature of Economism generally, and not of the authors of the Credo alone. It was revealed by that most outspoken and honest advocate of Economism, Rabochaya Mysl, and by Rabocheye Dyelo (which was indignant over the publication of Economist documents in the Vademecum), as well as by the Kiev Committee, which two years ago refused to permit the publication of its pro fession de foi, together with a repudiation of it, and by many other individual representatives of Economism.
This fear of criticism displayed by the advocates of freedom of criticism cannot be attributed solely to craftiness (although no doubt craftiness has something to do with it: it would be unwise to expose the young and as yet puny movement to the enemies’ attack!). No, the majority of the Economists quite sincerely disapprove (and by the very nature of Economism they must disapprove) of all theoretical controversies, factional disagreements, of broad political questions, of schemes for organizing revolutionaries, etc. “Leave all this sort of thing to the exiles abroad!” said a fairly consistent Economist to me one day, and thereby he expressed a very widespread (and purely trade unionist) view: our business, he said, is the labor movement, the labor organizations, here, in our localities; all the rest are merely the inventions of doctrinaires, an “exaggeration of the importance of ideology,” as the authors of the letter, published in Iskra, No. 12, expressed it, in unison with Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 10.
The question now arises: seeing what the peculiar features of Russian “criticism” and Russian Bernsteinism were, what should those who desired to oppose opportunism, in deeds and not merely in words, have done? First of all, they should have made efforts to resume the theoretical work that was only just begun in the period of “legal Marxism,” and that has now again fallen on the shoulders of the illegal workers. Unless such work is undertaken the successful growth of the movement is impossible. Secondly, they should have actively combated legal “criticism” that was greatly corrupting people’s minds. Thirdly, they should have actively counteracted the confusion and vacillation prevailing in practical work, and should have exposed and repudiated every conscious or unconscious attempt to degrade our program and tactics.
That Rabocheye Dyelo did none of these things is a well-known fact, and further on we shall deal with this well-known fact from various aspects. At the moment, however, we desire merely to show what a glaring contradiction there is between the demand for “freedom of criticism” and the peculiar features of our native criticism and Russian Economism. Indeed, glance at the text of the resolution by which the League of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad endorsed the point of view of Rabocheye Dyelo.
“In the interests of the further ideological development of Social-Democracy, we recognize the freedom to criticize Social-Democratic theory in Party literature to be absolutely necessary in so far as this criticism does not run counter to the class and revolutionary character of this theory.” (Two Congresses, p. 10.)
