Important points from Lenin's 'What is to be Done'

 

Delegates to the 2nd RSDLP congress in 1903

The following is a list of important points from Lenin's 1901-2 work "What is to be Done." Important works to read to understand the context of the work include Lars Lih's "Lenin Rediscovered," Neil Harding's "Lenin's Political Thought," and Hal Draper's "The Myth of Lenin's 'Concept of the Party.'" I have selected three points from each chapter. 

Preface:

• The polemical side of this work against RD was tacked on at the end after they published a piece against Iskra. It was originally intended to be a work directed towards building the party, not a statement against economism.
• The Social Democrats and Economics exist within the same party but speak "different languages." This must be resolved prior to any unity. 
• Lenin knows that true economism ended years ago, but RD epitomizes the same sense of disorganization and confusion within the party. If any remnants of economism can be said to exist, they are its embodiment. 

Chapter 1:

• Calls for freedom of criticism are disingenuous, and behind them lie a desire to criticize Marxism and turn it into a doctrine of reformism and opportunism. This type of revisionism is epitomized in Bernstein and his ilk in the SPD. Freedom of criticism is the freedom for opportunist elements to transform Social Democracy into a reformist party. 
• RD doesn't want to say anything about Bernsteinism and doesn't want to understand anything about the danger it presents. 
• The destruction of the Tsarist autocracy is the most revolutionary of all the immediate tasks facing the socialist movement in the entire world. The Russian workers will become the vanguard of the revolution after defeating the Tsar- the most deposit force in Europe. 

Chapter 2: 

• The original social democrats agitated among the workers and never lost sight of the most important immediate aim - overthrowing the Tsar - and the final aim of socialism. Well done! 
• Mistakes by social democracy were understandable when we were young and weak, and when the workers' movement was first emerging. But now we know better! We must get our act together and lead the masses in the struggle to overthrow the Tsar while imparting the good news of socialism among the workers. 
• Workers cannot spontaneously resist the bourgeois ideology that permeates all of society. There is no middle ground in regard to contending for ideology. Social democracy either wins the battle for the consciousness of the working class or the workers remain bourgeoise. 

 Chapter 3: 

• The economists are those who hide their reformism behind the phrase "imparting a political character to the economic struggle." This is trade unionism, i.e. agitating economic reforms that the government can implement ("realistic" demands). Real social democrats also agitate economic reforms and have those reforms as part of their demands. But they do not spend the majority of their time on this aspect of the class struggle; they understand that democracy is the light and air of the working class movement and thus put the overthrow of the Tsar and creation of the democratic republic as their highest aim. Only under the democratic republic can the class struggle be waged most effectively. 
• How do the economists understand themselves? As true social democrats who champion the cause of the workers more than their rival paper, Iskra. Martynov says: "We must also react to the urgent and current interests of the working class...Iskra is in reality an organ of the revolutionary opposition that indicts our system and mainly our political system. We on the other hand will work for the cause of the workers in a close organic link with the proletarian struggle." (Lenin points out that Iskra actually prints more articles about basic workplace issues than RD). 
• The economists, like the anarchists, "cow toe to Stikhiinost." They demonstrate abject spontenaity. That is, they tail the workers and demand only what is possible (demands that the government can easily grant). Iskra supports (i.e. publishes) every protest against autocracy even when it promises no tangible result (see for example, an article about protesting students being conscripted as punishment in 1900). It is a dereliction of social democratic duty to tail the workers. Social democracy must lead the workers by providing a broad and multi-sided education that expands the horizons of the class. The working class must be prepared to lead all of society in overthrowing the tsar and creating a democratic republic; they must be told the good news of socialism. 

Chapter 4: 

• The current social democratic movement in Russia must overcome the growing pains of "artisanal limitations" (amateurism) of the past revolutionary movements These limitations include a lack of preparation and the general failures demonstrated by economism, i.e. a narrowing of the scope of work. Social democracy must have socialism as its final goal and must master the fine art of not being arrested. An organization of revolutionaries must be created that leads the newly present workers' movement in Russia. 
• Lenin presents himself as someone who is eminently determined to organize despite adverse circumstances. The party must be convinced that the conditions can and must be changed and that a party newspaper is a way to go about this task. 
• Lenin continues to reveal himself as nothing other than a textbook Marxist and social democrat. His ideas are those of social democracy. Lenin is concerned that the opportunity to realize the merger formula of socialism with the workers' movement will be missed if the social democrats do not get their act together and overcome economism which explicitly glorifies not being ahead of the most advanced layers of the working class (lowing themselves to the level of the workers' resistance to capitalism and remaining "practical") and says mass movements make an organization less necessary. 

Chapter 5: 

• Lenin is determined to work out as many kinks as possible within the still-to-be-born RSDLP prior to a unity conference. He has grave misgivings given the response to his plan: "Given a conscientious approach to the issue, was it really possible not to understand that if the comrades accept the plan presented to their attention, then they will carry it out not because of 'subordination' but from a conviction of its necessity for our common cause, and if they do not accept it, then the 'sketch' (such a pretentious word, don't you think? ) will simply remain no more than a sketch? Isn't it demagoguery when you battle against a sketch of a plan not only by denouncing it and advising comrades to reject it, but also by inciting people who are inexperienced in revolutionary matters against the author of the sketch for this reason alone, that he dared to 'hand down laws', act as a 'supreme regulator ' - in other words, that he dared to propose a sketch of a plan? Can our party develop and move forward if merely an attempt to lift up local activists to broader views, tasks, plans, and so forth is rejected not only because the proposed views are untrue but also because of people are 'offended' that someone 'wants' to 'lift us up'?" 
• The cries of alarm over getting rid of individual social democratic committees scattered across Russia are hypocritical: these committees asked for a source of unity through a literary organ - exactly the thing Lenin is offering them! 
• Detractors say that strong political organizations are needed to sustain an all-party newspaper. But a paper is needed to first build these strong political organizations! Everyone agrees that a strong party is needed, but there's a disagreement as to how to go about creating it. Strong cadre are built around the daily activities involved in producing and distributing a newspaper. There are lots of "bricks and bricklayers" in Russia but no "thread" to unify their labor. The paper is the link that controls the whole chain; the link that must be grasped and held the tightest (and for this Lenin is slandered as "wanting control over the whole chain"). 

 Conclusion:

• There are three periods in the history of Russian Social Democracy. First, the emergence and consolidation of the theory and program of Social Democracy. Next, the intelligence gained enthusiasm for the workers' movement. They were young, unprepared, and quickly dispersed by the authorities. The RSDLP was formed at the end of this period by social democrats who had turned away from terrorism and read Marx. Finally, a third period began in 1898 and has yet to end, This is a period of "disarray, disorganization, unsteadiness." The workers' movement and desire for democracy across larger sections of society are outpacing the social democrats. Worst of all, members of their own ranks are looking to justify this backwardness! 
• The 2nd Congress of the RSDLP (1903) cannot be called until there is clarity within the party ranks, i.e. the third period is "liquidated."