What Is To Be Done

Description

Among V.I. Lenin’s most significant theoretical works, What ls To Be Done? is a classic text on the role of a revolutionary communist party.

In it he elaborated the principles upon which the Bolshevik or Communist Party was founded. Lenin clarified the difference between a party of reform and a vanguard party of revolution and the role of Marxist theory and education. He discussed questions such as the attitude to terrorism, to reforms, and to students, as well as non-proletarian forces. He discusses methods of work, the importance of the party press and assimilation of the experiences of other countries.

This classic text, taken from Lenin’s Collected Works published by Progress Publishers in 1961, includes a Publishers Note by James S. Allen, then director of International Publishers. As Allen writes, Lenin “saw the need for a vanguard party that, in the midst of the spontaneity of the mass movement, would impart socialist consciousness to the workers.”

Is Lenin’s analysis still relevant? Is a vanguard party still needed? What about socialist consciousness? These are still “Burning Questions” today as far-right, fascist elements work to stifle democracy at every turn. International Publishers urges you to engage with Lenin, to discuss Lenin, to take what is valuable in Lenin’s analysis and apply it to today’s political landscape.