What Is To Be Done? (Lenin, 1935)/Preface
WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
PREFACE
According to the author's original plan, the present pamphlet was intended for the purpose of developing in greater detail the ideas that were expressed in the article he wrote in Iskra, No. 4, May, 1901, entitled "Where to Begin."[1] First of all, we must apologise to the reader for this belated fulfilment of the promise made in that article (and repeated in reply to many private enquiries and letters). One of the reasons for this belatedness was the attempt to combine all the Social-Democratic organisations abroad which was undertaken in June last (1901). Naturally, one wanted to see the results of this attempt, for had it been successful, it would perhaps have been necessary to express Iskra's views on organisation from another point of view. In any case, such success promised to put an end very quickly to the existence of two separate tendencies in Russian Social-Democracy. As the reader knows, the attempt failed, and, as we shall try to show farther on, failure was inevitable after the new turn Rabocheye Dyelo took in its issue No. 10 towards Economism. It was found to be absolutely necessary to commence a determined fight against these diffused, ill-defined, but very persistent tendencies, which may degenerate into many diverse forms. Accordingly, the original plan of the pamphlet was changed and considerably enlarged.
Its main theme was to have been the three questions presented in the article: "Where to Begin," viz., the character and the principal content of our political agitation; our organisational tasks; and the plan for setting up simultaneously in various parts of the country, a militant, All-Russian organisation. These questions have long engaged the mind of the author, and he tried to raise them in the Rabocheye Gazeta at the time one of the unsuccessful attempts was made to revive that paper (cf. Chap. V). But the original plan to confine this pamphlet to these three questions, and to express our views as far as possible in a positive form without, or almost without, entering into polemics, proved quite impracticable for two reasons. One was that Economism proved to he more virile than we supposed (we employ the term Economism in the broad sense as it was explained in Iskra No. 12, December, 1901, in an article entitled "A Conversation with Defenders of Econornism," which represented a synopsis, as it were, of the present pamphlet).[2] It became unquestionably clear that the differences regarding the solution of the three problems :mentioned were to be explained to a much greater degree by the fundamental antagonism between the two tendencies in Russian Social-Democracy than by differences over practical questions. The second reason was that the astonishment displayed by the Economists concerning the views we expressed in Iskra revealed quite clearly that we often speak in different tongues, and therefore cannot come to any understanding without going over the whole range of questions ab ovo;[3] that it was necessary to attempt in the simplest possible style, illustrated by numerous and concrete examples, systematically "to clear up" all the fundamental points of difference with all the Economists. I resolved to make this attempt to "clear up" these points, fully realising that it would greatly increase the size of the pamphlet and delay its publication, but I saw no other way of fulfilling the promise I made in the article "Where to Begin." In apologising for the belated publication of the pamphlet I also have to apologise for its numerous literary shortcomings. I had to work under great pressure, and frequently had to interrupt the writing of it for other work.
The three questions mentioned before still represent the main theme of this pamphlet, but I had to start out with the examination of two other, more general questions, viz., Why does an "innocent" and "natural" slogan like "freedom of criticism" represent a fighting watchword for us at the present time? And why can we not agree on even so important a question as the rôle of Social-Democracy in relation to the spontaneous mass movement? Furthermore, the exposition of our views on the character and the content of political agitation developed into an explanation of the difference between trade-union politics and Social-Democratic politics, and the exposition of our views on organisational tasks developed into an explanation of the difference between primitive methods, which satisfy the Economists, and an organisation of revolutionists, which in our opinion is essential. Moreover, I insist mote strongly than ever on the plan for a national political newspaper, the more so because of the weakness of the arguments that were levelled against it, and because the question that I put in the article "Where to Begin" as to how we can set to work simultaneously, all over the country, to establish the organisation we require was never really answered. Finally, in the concluding part of this pamphlet I hope to prove that we did all we could to avoid a rupture with the Economists, but the rupture proved inevitable; that Rabocheye Dyelo acquired special, "historical," if you will, significance not so much because it expressed consistent Economism, but because it fully and strikingly expressed the confusion and vacillation that mark a whole period in the history of Russian Social-Democracy, and that therefore, the polemics with Rabocheye Dyelo, which at first sight may seem excessively detailed, also acquires significance; for we can make no progress until we have completely liquidated this period.
February, 1902.