Description
Aakar Books Lenin Rediscovered What Is To Be Done? In Context (Historical Materialism Series) by Lars T Lih
Lenin's What is to be Done? (1902) has long been seen as the founding document of a 'party of a new type'. For some, it provided a model of the 'vanguard party' that was the essence of Bolshevism, for others it manifested Lenin's elitist and manipulative attitude towards the workers. This substantial new commentary, based on contemporary Russian and German- language sources, provides hitherto unavailable contextual information that undermines these views and shows how Lenin's argument rests squarely on an optimistic confidence in the workers' revolutionary inclinations and on his admiration of German Social Democracy in particular. Lenin’s outlook cannot be understood, Lih claims here, outside the context of international Social Democracy, the disputes within Russian Social Democracy and the institutions of the revolutionary underground. The commentary is accompanied by a complete new translation of What is to be Done? that focuses particularly on hard-to-translate key terms. This study raises new and unsettling questions about the legacy of Marx, Bolshevism as a historical force and the course of soviet history, but, most of all, it will revolutionize the conventional interpretations of Lenin. Table of Contents: Introduction Part I. Erfurtianism The Merger of Socialism and the Worker Movement A Russian Erfurtian The Iskra Period Part II. Lenin's Significant Others Russian Foes of Erfurtianism A Feud Within Russian Erfurtianism The Purposive Worker and the Spread of Awareness Part III. The World of What is to be Done? Lenin's Erfurtian Drama The Organizational Question: Lenin and the Underground After the Second Congress Conclusion Annotations Part One: Section Analysis Annotations Part Two: Scandalous Passages Translation Note on the Translation Lenin's What is to be Done? Foreword Chapters: Dogmatism and Freedom of Criticism The Stikhiinost of the Masses and the Purposiveness of Social Democracy Tred-iunionist Politics and Social-Democratic Politics The Artisanal Limitations of the Economists and the Organization of Revolutionaries The 'Plan' for an All-Russian Political Newspaper Conclusion Bibliography Index