Introduction¶
Core Argument¶
In What is to be Done?, Lenin forged a Marxist classic on the revolutionary party, a work that remains indispensable for understanding how to seize state power. Bourgeois commentators and reformists routinely slander this text, falsely claiming it planted the seeds of totalitarian dictatorship. In reality, Lenin built a party capable of carrying out socialist revolution, which is precisely why his adversaries conflate Leninism with Stalinism. The book contains one acknowledged exaggeration—the claim that the working class left to itself can only achieve trade union consciousness. Lenin borrowed this from Kautsky, later admitted it was a “sharply simplified” and “blunt formula” deployed against the Russian Economists, and never repeated it. Despite this, the work is a vital contribution on the revolutionary party’s role as organiser and director of proletarian revolution.
Lenin wrote the book to settle scores with the Economist opportunists, whom he saw as part of an international revisionist trend alongside Bernstein and Millerand. The Economists displayed complete disdain for theory, arguing workers needed only economic struggles, not revolutionary ideas. Lenin countered that without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. He quoted Engels, who placed theoretical struggle alongside political and economic struggle, and blamed the British movement’s slow progress on its dismal approach to theory. Lenin insisted revolutionaries must be tribunes of the people, not mere trade union secretaries. The party must train professional revolutionaries, erasing distinctions between workers and intellectuals. He rejected adapting to the “average worker,” arguing this insulted workers. The fundamental economic interests of the proletariat can only be satisfied by political revolution replacing bourgeois dictatorship with proletarian dictatorship. Lenin subordinated the struggle for reforms to the revolutionary struggle for socialism.
Lenin argued for a centralised party based on democratic centralism, modelled on German Social-Democracy, not merely due to tsarist Russia’s underground conditions but because the ruling class never surrenders power without a fight. The Bolshevik Party’s success in October 1917 proved this; subsequent working-class defeats stem from failing to build such a party. Lenin concludes by stressing the importance of a regular workers’ newspaper, which would act as a pair of smith’s bellows, fanning class struggle into a general conflagration. Around this common effort, a trained army of fighters would gather, producing revolutionary leaders to settle accounts with Tsarist Russia. By October 1917, this work turned the dream into reality: Lenin trained a generation of cadre-Bolsheviks who formed the framework for a mass party. Under Lenin and Trotsky, this party drew the best workers and peasants to conquer state power. Today’s Marxists must learn these lessons to prepare for future revolutions, and studying What is to be Done? is an essential part of that preparation.