Lenin what is to be done

More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about What Is to Be Done? Lists with This Book. Community Reviews.

Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of What Is to Be Done? Jun 04, C rated it really liked it. Not that book, that I get. Does Marxism make them look a little too hard in the mirror? Are the concepts too abstract? Is the moral duty put upon their shoulders too heavy? If we follow the trail of who told you this, and who told them that, all the way back until we find someone who actually read the book, where will we end up?

Really two pages? One of the most historical influential works of the 20th century warrants a two page introduction by someone who occupies the polar opposite political spectrum.

There is no state of nature, and no serious speculation on how things ought to look. As a result, it can be rather confusing, or at least, circumspect. Lenin is constantly citing newspaper and propaganda articles that the reader will not have access too. The names, and journalist he is referring too, are primarily people no one in the 21st century has heard of.

Lenin is arguing against the reformist economist movement. This is a movement that believes Russia only needs stronger trade unions, and union activist, and believes this movement can arise from the spontaneity of the working class. Just as Occupy Wall Street ballooned up, rather spontaneously, without any serious prediction, the economists believe these sorts of movements, especially those that revolve around Trade Union activism, are what Russia needs.

Moreover, the best trade union activism can do is make exploitation more bearable, but it cannot eradicate it wholesale. Therefore the economists are complicit in exploitation, and lack the courage to do their duty to end it. End of story. Lenin would lobby the same criticism, with more venom and erudition, and he does, at the economist.

If you really want revolution, not reform, you need to steer the revolution, there needs to be control, and understanding, not spontaneity without direction.

Moreover, you need theory. When one really delves into the essence of Liberal and Conservative, Libertarian, and Republican, there is nothing stark to define these differences. Lenin thinks we need something deeper than economics and politics, we need to synthesize it with theory, and of course that theory is Marxism amen.

Lenin was quite convinced that revolutionaries could, had, and will continue to arise from the working class. Moreover, he believed that his secret party ought to host debates and lectures given by his brand of Marxism, along with attending liberals, democrats, and economist. Once a stage was given to all views present, Lenin believed the theory of his group the Social-Democrats , would easily prevail, for him this was the vanguard.

The vanguard is the group with the most advanced theories and ideas of its day. Not a group of armed thugs. He does recognize that the group must remain underground and secret, and cannot be an open democracy initially.

This is not because he prefers authoritarian measures, but because philosophical circles that discuss revolution, student activist, Marxists, etc, were all persecuted by the Tsar. There was no freedom of speech and expression, if you said what Lenin said you went to prison, and were tortured.

Therefore, what is the most practical measure to ending the reign of the Tsar? Democracy is not and cannot be that choice. This leaves 21st century readers, growing up in the comforts of their day, with narrow hindsight to easily scoff at Lenin for not being more open.

View 2 comments. Aug 04, Nathan "N. What can be done? View all 13 comments. Jan 26, Mia Nisiyama rated it really liked it Shelves: borsch-and-tears , proletarians-of-the-world-unite , reviewed. Aug 23, Rui Coelho rated it did not like it. We get it, Lenin, social-democrats suck. Indeed they do.

But besides that, do you have anything else to say? No, just more ramblings about russian social-democrats? Too bad. View all 3 comments. Oct 05, Czarny Pies rated it really liked it Recommends it for: History students. Shelves: political-theory. History students have to read this one. After years of socialist theorizing someone had to make it work in practice. Lenin and Stalin did just that The key was to remove all mass input and ensure that a group of professional apparatchiks i.

It worked brilliantly. In less than ten years a country built on a vague utopian theory was transformed into a highly effective polic History students have to read this one.

In less than ten years a country built on a vague utopian theory was transformed into a highly effective police state untroubled by any form of dissidence. View all 7 comments. Aug 02, Odi Shonga rated it it was ok. This is a very specific pamphlet that details very specifically some issues the Russian Social Democrats were having at the time. Some people would have you believe that you have to follow the same formula of a secret vanguard of professional revolutionaries, while avoiding setting up local papers.

Anyway, you might have already known all that. Power to you. I thought this might be a place to go. I mean, sure, it gives you a sense of what direction the Bolsheviks under Lenin would go. Before you get mad, remember: I am a dumb idiot man. Jun 03, Holly rated it it was amazing.

Essential reading for anyone organising on the left, and a very relevant guide to dealing with opportunists and reactionaries of both right and left types. Jul 04, Palao rated it really liked it.

An interesting piece of political theory. Hard as fuck to read. Half the book is Lenin shitting on other people I don't even know about, but his reflections on the nature of organizations, political leadership, the working class in tsarist Russia and mass politics are quite interesting. As the book in which a lot of the ideas many actual political parties base themselves upon it's certainly worth a read But it won't be a fun one tbh. Aug 27, Jimmy rated it it was ok Shelves: political-science.

A more or less simple concept can be pulled from this rather esoteric polemical rant; make the economic struggle a political one. Of course, this idea can only be introduced to the working class by a privileged member of the leftist, Russian intelligentsia such as Lenin. And naturally it has to be introduced to these people in the convoluted language of a radical Marxist. From John Reed's descriptions of him, Lenin sounded like a powerful enough orator, but reading his words is an entirely diffe A more or less simple concept can be pulled from this rather esoteric polemical rant; make the economic struggle a political one.

From John Reed's descriptions of him, Lenin sounded like a powerful enough orator, but reading his words is an entirely different story. I am not a Communist. I have the firm belief, however, that before stating what I am not I have to understand what I am against.

I thought that to understand Communism I had to read one of its primary sources, so I read one of the two great treatises of Communism the other one being 'State and Revolution,' also by V. It wasn't a smooth read: 'What is to be Done? It is an uncompromising explanation and exhortation to all workers, all proletarians, I am not a Communist. It is an uncompromising explanation and exhortation to all workers, all proletarians, to revolt not only against the economic constraints then but to overturn the entire status quo of Russia.

It is also a portrait of its writer, V. Ulyanov, who is known to most people nowadays as Lenin. To summarize the work, Lenin merely writes to tell his hearers not to capitulate and not to be moderate. Change must come from the ground up, and if it will take a centralized, organized workers' party who will revolt against the established social order, so be it.

He contrasts his belief to the 'cowardice' of the Economists, who will later on become the Mensheviks: while both wish to change the status quo, the Mensheviks were the offshoot of the Economists that Lenin had spoken about in this treatise. They wished to change the status quo with more moderation, allowing a bourgeois revolution in the process.

The aftermath of Lenin's works was a Russia that was both powerful and pitiful. While it had a great standing army, it could barely feed most of its people.

While it strove towards scientific progress, most of USSR's people were struggling to survive day-to-day. I'm not saying that its antipode, capitalism, is great, but I'm partial toward it because it gives credit to hard work and diligence. While we cannot have all that we wish to have, I do think our lives will improve if we work hard towards what we desire. In any major idealism, however, sacrifices have to be made. In China, the Communist Party had a base in the countryside whereas in the USSR it was an urban party composed of manual and non-manual workers.

Their attachment to land ownership was much greater than their support for a new form of collective ownership. Consequently, the Bolsheviks, when in power, faced opposition from the villages which led to violence between the peasantry and Soviet leadership.

The role of the media in the form of an all-Russian newspaper as an educative instrument as well as a coordinating one was also right. Where Lenin was incomplete was in his failure fully to understand the autocratic effects of bureaucratic control which became apparent in the period after the seizure of power in Russia. While organisational forms, similar to democratic centralism, had also been adopted by other social-democratic parties such as the SPD in Germany , after , in Russia, it became a process of centralised economic development and modernisation.

The political forms of Tsarist Russia were reconstituted as a socialist political bureaucracy. Applying democratic centralism as a form of organisation to all associations in society led to forms of political domination incompatible with socialism. He saw the contradictions between the positive effects of economic development concurrent with the economic exploitation of the dependent countries.

Lenin showed immense courage and political leadership in carrying out a successful national revolution. This was his greatest achievement. Lenin noted the dislocating effects of the First World War on the capitalist powers.

It was a decisive factor in disrupting the Russian economy and society and created a wide range of political strata predisposed to revolution. But he was mistaken to believe that it would break world capitalism.

Moreover, Lenin misjudged the national political and social relationships between classes in the developed capitalist states. Imperial capitalism could be likened not to a continuous chain, but to a large tree — cutting off new thin and old decayed branches does not kill it. Capitalism continued to expand and grow. Eventually in the late twentieth century, it overpowered the Soviet Union as well as the eastern European socialist states.

Lenin erred in his understanding of the working classes in the advanced capitalist states. Despite systemic economic crises, capitalist societies have maintained high levels of social and political integration. Even in the early twentieth century, the western working-classes remained integrated into capitalist society and this attachment was neither broken by the suffering endured during the First World War, nor by the victory of the Bolsheviks in Russia.

Lenin regarded the October Revolution in Russia as a success for the socialist cause. However, his approach was incomplete and he provided an erroneous analysis of the disintegration of advanced imperial capitalism.

Social and political integration has remained much higher than he anticipated and in this he is not alone. Capitalism in the West was threatened by the October Revolution but not defeated by it. Please read our comments policy before commenting. He has written extensively on development, transformation and the changing forms of capitalist society.

Recent work has been on Eurasia, employment and unemployment and alternatives to capitalism. Search for:. Blog Team April 22nd, Views about Lenin Lenin is a controversial political leader who aroused deep feelings of loyalty among his followers, not only Bolsheviks in the former USSR but also among the leaders of communist parties, such as Mao Tse Tung and Fidel Castro. Socialist revolution Lenin followed conventional nineteen century Marxist reasoning: socialism could only arise out of modern bourgeois capitalism.

The role of the party Marx and Engels were principally concerned with the anatomy and dynamics of capitalism. An evaluation The political conditions in Russia revised traditional Marxism in three ways.

The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i. 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. The political struggle of Social-Democracy is far more extensive and complex than the economic struggle of the workers against the employers and the government.

Similarly indeed for that reason , the organization of a revolutionary Social-Democratic party must inevitably be of a kind different from the organisation of the workers designed for this struggle. 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 Our worst sin with regard to organization is that by our amateurishness we have lowered the prestige of revolutionaries in Russia.

A person who is flabby and shaky on questions of theory, who has a narrow outlook, who pleads the spontaneity of the masses as an excuse for his own sluggishness , who resembles a trade union secretary more than a spokesman of the people, who is unable to conceive of a broad and bold plan that would command the respect even of opponents, and who is inexperienced and clumsy in his own professional art - the art of combating the political police - why, such a man is not a revolutionary but a wretched amateur!

Source: V. Lenin, Collected Works, Moscow, , v. From Documents in Russian History.