What Is To Be Done?

BURNING QUESTIONS of our MOVEMENT “...Party struggles lend a party strength and vitality; the greatest
proof of a party’s weakness is its diffuseness and the blurring of clear demarcations; a party becomes stronger by
purging itself...”

(From a letter of Lassalle to Marx, of June 24, 1852)

•

According to the author’s original plan, the present pamphlet
was to have been devoted to a detailed development of the ideas
expressed in the article “Where To Begin”, ( Iskra , No. 4, May 1901). [1]
We must first apologise to the reader for the delay in fulfilling the promise made in that article (and
repeated in response to many private inquiries and letters). One
of the reasons for this delay was the attempt, undertaken in June
of the past year (1901), to unite all the Social-Democratic
organisations abroad. It was natural to wait for the results of
this attempt, for, had the effort proved successful, it would
perhaps have been necessary to expound Iskra’s conceptions of organisation from a somewhat different
approach; in any case, such a success promised to put an end very
quickly to the existence of the two trends in the Russian
Social-Democratic movement. As the reader knows, the attempt
failed, and, as we propose to show, was bound to fail after the
new swing, of Rabocheye Dyelo , in its issue No. 10, towards Economism. It was found to be absolutely essential to
begin a determined struggle against this trend, diffuse and
ill-defined, but for that reason the more persistent, the more
capable of reasserting itself in diverse forms. Accordingly, the
original plan of the pamphlet was altered and considerably
enlarged.

Its main theme was to have been the three questions raised in
the article “Where To Begin” – the character and main content of
our political agitation; our organisational tasks; and the plan
for building, simultaneously and from various sides, a militant,
all-Russia organisation. These questions have long engaged the
mind of the author, who tried to raise them in Rabochaya Gazeta [3] during one of the
unsuccessful attempts to revive that paper (see Chapter V). But the original plan to confine the
pamphlet to an analysis of only these three questions and to set
forth our views as far as possible in a positive form, without, or
almost without, entering into polemics, proved wholly impracticable, for two reasons. On the one hand, Economism proved
to be much more tenacious than we had supposed (we employ the term
Economism in the broad sense, as explained in Iskra , No. 12 (December 1901), in the article entitled “A Talk With
Defenders of Economism”, which was a synopsis, so to speak, of the
present pamphlet [2] ).
It became clear beyond doubt that the differences regarding the solution of the three questions
mentioned were explainable to a far greater degree by the basic
antithesis between the two trends in the Russian Social-Democratic
movement than by differences over details. On the other hand, the
perplexity of the Economists over the practical application of our
views in Iskra clearly revealed that we often speak literally in different tongues and therefore cannot
arrive at an understanding without beginning ab ovo , and that an attempt must be made, in the simplest possible
style, illustrated by numerous and concrete examples, systematically to “clarify” all our basic points of
difference with all the Economists. I resolved to make such an attempt at “clarification”, fully realising that it would
greatly increase the size of the pamphlet and delay its
publication; I saw no other way of meeting my pledge I had made in the article “Where To Begin”. Thus, to the apologies
for the delay, I must add others for the serious literary
shortcomings of the pamphlet. I had to work in great haste ,
with frequent interruptions by a variety of other tasks.

The examination of the above three questions still constitutes
the main theme of this pamphlet, but I found it necessary to begin
with two questions of a more general nature – why such an
“innocent” and “natural” slogan as “freedom of criticism” should be for us a veritable war-cry, and why we cannot
come to an understanding even on the fundamental question of the role of
Social-Democrats in relation to the spontaneous mass movement. Further, the exposition of our views on the character
and substance of political agitation developed into an explanation
of the difference between trade-unionist politics and
Social-Democratic politics, while the exposition of our views on
organisational tasks developed into an explanation of the
difference between the amateurish methods which satisfy the
Economists, and the organisation of revolutionaries which we hold
to be indispensable. Further, I advance the “plan” for an
all-Russia political newspaper with all the more insistence
because the objections raised against it are untenable, and
because no real answer has been given to the question I raised in
the article “Where To Begin” as to how we can set to work from
all sides simultaneously to create the organisation we need. Finally, in the concluding part, I hope to show that we did
all we could to prevent a decisive break with the Economists, a
break which nevertheless proved inevitable; that Rabocheye Dyelo acquired a special significance, a “historical”
significance, if you will, because it expressed fully and
strikingly, not consistent Economism, but the confusion and
vacillation which constitute the distinguishing feature of an entire period in the history of Russian Social-Democracy; and
that therefore the polemic with Rabocheye Dyelo , which
may upon first view seem excessively detailed, also acquires
significance, for we can make no progress until we have completely
put an end to this period.

N. Lenin

February 1902

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Notes:
[1]
See present volume [5], pp. 13–24.— Ed .

[2]
See present volume [5], pp. 313–20.— Ed .

[3]
Rabochaya Gazeta ( Workers’ Gazette )—an illegal newspaper issued by the Kiev group of Social-Democrats. Two issues
appeared—No. 1 in August and No. 2 in December (dated November) 1897. The
First Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. adopted Rabochaya Gazeta as the
official organ of the Party, but the newspaper discontinued publication
shortly after the Congress, as a result of a police raid on the
printing-press and the arrest of the Central Committee.