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book1902

What Is to Be Done?

Disciplines:
political philosophy
absurdism/marxism

Summary

Lenin's pamphlet on revolutionary organization — arguing for a disciplined party of professional revolutionaries rather than a broad, spontaneous mass movement.

Core Contribution

The vanguard party: workers cannot spontaneously develop revolutionary consciousness — they develop trade union consciousness. A small party of professional revolutionaries must bring socialist consciousness to the working class from outside. Democratic centralism: tight internal discipline combined with democratic deliberation within the party. The most consequential piece of Marxist organizational theory.

Key Spikes & Highlights

  • The vanguard party concept — a small elite bringing revolutionary consciousness to the masses — was borrowed by revolutionary movements worldwide, from Mao to Castro, often with very different results than Lenin intended.

Historical Influences

Karl Marx Karl Kautsky

Intellectual Lineage

Russian Marxism Revolutionary Theory

Allied Works

State and Revolution Imperialism the Highest Stage of CapitalismThe April Theses

Contemporaries & Peers

State and Revolution Imperialism

Minds Influenced

Leninism Maoism Revolutionary Movements

Intellectual Posterity

Leninism Vanguard Party Theory

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What Is to Be Done?

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