What Is to Be Done? [Burning Questions of Our Movement]

by Vladimir Lenin and Wladimir Iljitsch Lenin

Book Overview

2013 Reprint of 1929 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. In "What Is to Be Done?", Lenin argues that the working class will not spontaneously become political simply by fighting economic battles with employers over wages, working hours and the like. To convert the working class to Marxism, Lenin insists that Marxists should form a political party, or "vanguard", of dedicated revolutionaries...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1614274789
• ISBN13: 9781614274780
• Release Date: September 2013
• Publisher: Martino Fine Books
• Length: 178 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Critical Read For Everyone

Definite must read! Read the political ideas and the relevant historical basis of a governing structure truly for the people and by the people. This is vastly different than the current modern authoritarian regimes espousing to be communist, or the free countries for the people as long as their what the ruling elite wants. Its a critical read if you like social issues, history or just non-fiction writing.

Lenin's operational perspective

"What Is to Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement" is one of V. I. Lenin's most important works. It lays out his strategy of revolutionary change. The Publisher's Note starts the book off, putting it in context (Page v): "In Lenin's concept a leading, a vanguard party could be only a party of revolutionary Marxism and this required at the outset a clear definition and rejection of opportunism." This slender volume attempts to lay out an approach to revolutionary change. The key actor is the party, to serve as a vanguard for the masses, to make decisions in their name and in their interest. One function of the party is to accelerate the development of class consciousness among the Russian "have notes." Lenin observes that (page 78) "'Everyone agrees' that it is necessary to develop the political consciousness of the working class. The question is, how that this is to be done and what is required to do it." He responds to his own question (Page 79): "To bring political knowledge to the workers, the Social-Democrats must go among all classes of the population; they must dispatch units of their army in all directions." This vanguard party would include professional revolutionaries and others, all bound together by the need to foment revolutionary fervor among the masses. In the process, vehicles such as the "'plan for an All-Russian newspaper '. . . is the most practical plan for immediate and all-round preparation of the uprising. . . ." He also identifies as enemies those who would urge slow, evolutionary change. This is, in the end, Lenin's tactical textbook, his blueprint for revolutionary change. As such, it is an important historical and political document. Will readers be convinced by his logic? Many will not, but it is nonetheless important to understand his sense of what is needed to bring about a revolution.

BURNING ISSUES OF OUR MOVEMENT, INDEED

Every militant who wants to fight for socialism, or put the fight for socialism back on the front burner, needs to read this book. Every radical who believes that society can be changed by just a few adjustments needs to read this book in order to understand the limits of such a position. Thus, it is necessary for any politically literate person of this new generation to go through the arguments of this classic of Marxist literature in order to understand the strategic perspective for socialism in the 21st century. Older militants can also benefit from a re-reading of this work. Except for the obvious change of names and organizations from those whom Lenin argued with on my re-reading of this document I was astonished by the appropriateness of the arguments presented. Militants of my generation, the Generation of `68, came late to an appreciation of the importance of this book and spent a lot of wasted time and energy on other strategies. Those so-called New Left theories that ran the gamut from mild social reform through vicarious guerilla warfare to revolutionary terror had, however, one common axis- denial of the centrality of the working class as the motor force for revolution, especially in the advanced capitalist countries. Once the most thoughtful of us came understand the bankruptcy of our previous strategies Lenin's little book became compulsory reading. Lenin's What Is To Be Done? thus takes it place as one of the basic documents of the revolutionary Marxist movement along with Marx and Engel's Communist Manifesto. Although the book was written to address the disputes among socialists at the beginning of the 20th century the arguments presented have relevance today. And what are those arguments. There are three main points which are interrelated; the need for a fight against a reformist and for a revolutionary perspective to fight to the end for establishment of a socialist order; the need for a revolutionary organization of professional revolutionaries to lead the vanguard of the working class to socialism; and, the necessity for an independent-minded vanguard both in its relationship to the some times backward political consciousness of the working class as a whole and to other social classes. Although the political opponents that Lenin was polemizing against, and this document is a polemic, are long gone and his literary style would not be to today's taste these were and continue to be the defining issues of revolutionary strategy today. After the experience of one hundred years of reformist socialist practice under capitalism it is hard to believe that the fight against such a limitation of the socialist program was a central argument that animated not only the Russian revolutionary movement but the international social democracy as well. The fight against revision of the Marxist program of class struggle and the need to fundamentally change the structure of society that began in that period seeped into the Russian movement as

BURNING ISSUES OF OUR MOVEMENT, INDEED.

Every militant who wants to fight for socialism, or put the fight for socialism back on the front burner, needs to read this book. Every radical who believes that society can be changed by just a few adjustments needs to read this book in order to understand the limits of such a position. Thus, it is necessary for any politically literate person of this new generation to go through the arguments of this classic of Marxist literature in order to understand the strategic perspective for socialism in the 21st century. Older militants can also benefit from a re-reading of this work. Except for the obvious change of names and organizations from those with while Lenin argued on my re-reading of this document I was astonished by the appropriateness of the arguments presented. Militants of my generation, the Generation of `68, came late to an appreciation of the importance of this book and spent a lot of wasted time and energy on other strategies. Those so-called New Left theories that ran the gamut from mild social reform through vicarious guerilla warfare to revolutionary terror had, however, one common axis- denial of the centrality of the working class as the motor force for revolution, especially in the advanced capitalist countries. Once the most thoughtful of us came understand the bankruptcy of our previous strategies Lenin's little book became compulsory reading. Lenin's What Is To Be Done? thus takes it place as one of the basic documents of the revolutionary Marxist movement along with Marx and Engel's Communist Manifesto. Although the book was written to address the disputes among socialists at the beginning of the 20th century the arguments presented have relevance today. And what are those arguments. There are three main points which are interrelated; the need for a fight against a reformist and for a revolutionary perspective to fight to the end for establishment of a socialist order; the need for a revolutionary organization of professional revolutionaries to lead the vanguard of the working class to socialism; and, the necessity for an independent vanguard both in its relationship to the working class as a whole and to other social classes. Although the political opponents that Lenin was polemizing against, and this document is a polemic, are long gone and his literary style would not be to today's taste these were and continue to be the defining issues of revolutionary strategy today. After the experience of one hundred years of reformist socialist practice under capitalism it is hard to believe that the fight against such a limitation of the socialist program was a central argument that animated not only the Russian revolutionary movement but the international social democracy as well. The fight against revision of the Marxist program of class struggle and the need to fundamentally change the structure of society that began in that period seeped into the Russian movement as well. Thus, it was therefore necessary to polemize agains