What Is to Be Done

Lenin's 1902 pamphlet arguing that the working class cannot develop revolutionary consciousness spontaneously — and that a disciplined vanguard party of professional revolutionaries is required to lead the revolution.

The vanguard party concept: Lenin's argument has two parts. (1) Epistemological: the working class, left to itself, will only develop 'trade union consciousness' (demands for better wages and conditions within capitalism), not revolutionary consciousness that sees capitalism as a system to be overthrown. Revolutionary theory must be brought to the workers from outside. (2) Organizational: the revolutionary party must be a small, disciplined organization of professional revolutionaries (not a mass party), capable of operating clandestinely under Tsarist conditions. The pamphlet is the organizational founding document of Bolshevism and of all Leninist revolutionary parties. The vanguard party model was adopted by communist parties globally.