Document 25-5: Vladimir I. Lenin, What Is to Be Done? (1902)

Preparing for the Coming Revolution

VLADIMIR I. LENIN, What Is to Be Done? (1902)

Marx’s vision of revolutionary change was developed with the industrialized countries of northern Europe in mind. It was the industrial working class that would create the revolution. Through workers’ groups, trade unions, and political parties, the proletariat would organize themselves into an irresistible force that would crush the bourgeoisie. The expansion of male suffrage in Britain, France, Germany, and Italy facilitated this process by bringing working-class people into the electorate. Russian socialist revolutionaries were, therefore, faced with two key problems. First, Russia remained staunchly autocratic, and the formation of political opposition groups was illegal. Second, Russian industry was still in its infancy, and, thus, there was no sizable industrial working class to serve as the bulwark of the revolution. With these problems in mind, the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) outlined a revised socialist strategy in his pamphlet “What Is to Be Done?”

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., it may itself realize the necessity for combining in unions, for fighting against the employers and for striving to compel the government to pass necessary labor legislation, etc. The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories that were elaborated by the educated representatives of the propertied classes, the intellectuals. According to their social status, the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia. Similarly, in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of Social Democracy1 arose quite independently of the spontaneous growth of the labor movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the development of ideas among the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia. At the time of which we are speaking, i.e., the middle of the nineties [1890s], this doctrine not only represented the completely formulated program of the Emancipation of Labor group,2 but had already won the adherence of the majority of the revolutionary youth in Russia. . . .

It is only natural that a Social Democrat, who conceives the political struggle as being identical with the “economic struggle against the employers and the government,” should conceive of an “organization of revolutionaries” as being more or less identical with an “organization of workers.” And this, in fact, is what actually happens; so that when we talk about organization, we literally talk in different tongues. I recall a conversation I once had with a fairly consistent Economist, with whom I had not been previously acquainted. We were discussing the pamphlet Who Will Make the Political Revolution? and we were very soon agreed that the principal defect in that brochure was that it ignored the question of organization. We were beginning to think that we were in complete agreement with each other—but as the conversation proceeded, it became clear that we were talking of different things. My interlocutor accused the author of the brochure just mentioned of ignoring strike funds, mutual aid societies, etc.; whereas I had in mind an organization of revolutionaries as an essential factor in “making” the political revolution. After that became clear, I hardly remember a single question of importance upon which I was in agreement with that Economist!

What was the source of our disagreement? The fact that on questions of organization and politics the Economists are forever lapsing from Social Democracy into trade unionism. The political struggle carried on by the Social Democrats is far more extensive and complex than the economic struggle the workers carry on against the employers and the government. Similarly (and indeed for that reason), the organization of a revolutionary Social Democratic Party must inevitably differ from the organizations of the workers designed for the latter struggle. A workers’ organization must in the first place be a trade organization; secondly, it must be as wide as possible; and thirdly, it must be as public as conditions will allow (here, and further on, of course, I have only autocratic Russia in mind). On the other hand, the organizations of revolutionaries must consist first and foremost of people whose profession is that of a revolutionary (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, and certainly distinctions of trade and profession, must be obliterated. Such an organization must of necessity be not too extensive and as secret as possible. . . .

I assert:

  1. that no movement can be durable without a stable organization of leaders to maintain continuity;
  2. that the more widely the masses are spontaneously drawn into the struggle and form the basis of the movement and participate in it, the more necessary is it to have such an organization, and the more stable must it be (for it is much easier for demagogues to sidetrack the more backward sections of the masses);
  3. that the organization must consist chiefly of persons engaged in revolutionary activities as a profession;
  4. that in a country with an autocratic government, the more we restrict the membership of this organization to persons who are engaged in revolutionary activities as a profession and who have been professionally trained in the art of combating the political police, the more difficult will it be to catch the organization, and the wider will be the circle of men and women of the working class or of other classes of society able to join the movement and perform active work in it. . . .

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, no less professionally trained than the police, will centralize all the secret side of the work—prepare leaflets, work out approximate plans and appoint bodies of leaders for each urban district, for each factory district and to each educational institution, etc. (I know that exception will be taken to my “undemocratic” views, but I shall reply to this altogether unintelligent objection later on.) The centralization of the more secret functions in an organization of revolutionaries will not diminish, but rather increase the extent and the quality of the activity of a large number of other organizations intended for wide membership and which, therefore, can be as loose and as public as possible, for example, trade unions, workers’ circles for self-education and the reading of illegal literature, and socialist and also democratic circles for all other sections of the population, etc., etc. We must have as large a number as possible of such organizations having the widest possible variety of functions, but it is absurd and dangerous to confuse those with organizations of revolutionaries, to erase the line of demarcation between them, 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.

Aye, this appreciation has become incredibly dim. The most grievous sin we have committed in regard to organization is that by our primitiveness we have lowered the prestige of revolutionaries in Russia. A man who is weak and vacillating on theoretical questions, who has a narrow outlook, who makes excuses for his own slackness on the ground that the masses are awakening spontaneously; who resembles a trade union secretary more than a people’s tribune, who is unable to conceive of a broad and bold plan, who is incapable of inspiring even his opponents with respect for himself, and who is inexperienced and clumsy in his own professional art—the art of combating the political police—such a man is not a revolutionary but a wretched amateur!

Let no active worker take offense at these frank remarks, for as far as insufficient training is concerned, I apply them first and foremost to myself. I used to work in a circle that set itself great and all-embracing tasks; and every member of that circle suffered to the point of torture from the realization that we were proving ourselves to be amateurs at a moment in history when we might have been able to say, paraphrasing a well-known epigram: “Give us an organization of revolutionaries, and we shall overturn the whole of Russia!”

From Collected Works of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, vol. 5 (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1961). Marxists Internet Archive. Web. February 23, 2010.

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