Books like What is to Be Done?: Burning Questions of Our Movement

I don’t get it. Not that book, that I get. What I don’t get is why every popular Marxist book I read, I come away with an entirely different reading than the main stream interpretation? I don’t possess faculties other do not, so what is it? Does Marxism make them look a little too hard in the mirror? Are the concepts too abstract? Is the moral duty put upon their shoulders too heavy?If you’ve heard about this book, and you probably have, you think you know it’s a book all about how to establish an authoritarian vanguard party that works for the interest of the working class alone, to usher in some kind of despotic and nefarious branch of undemocratic communism. If we follow the trail of who told you this, and who told them that, all the way back until we find someone who actually read the book, where will we end up? Maybe Jay Edgar Hoover’s office? Again I don’t know. A long game of ‘telephone’ exist around this book, which really ought to be quelled by individuals doing their own reading. It doesn’t help of course that Robert Service, a member of Reagan’s cabinet I believe, wrote the curt two page introduction. Really two pages? One of the most historical influential works of the 20th century warrants a two page introduction by someone who occupies the polar opposite political spectrum. Although this is a political book about how to foment revolution, it is not a treatise like Locke, Hobbe’s or Rousseau, it does not pretend to be ahistorical or maximizing universal rights. There is no state of nature, and no serious speculation on how things ought to look. This book deals with extremely contemporary issues of Lenin’s day. As a result, it can be rather confusing, or at least, circumspect. Lenin is constantly citing newspaper and propaganda articles that the reader will not have access too. The names, and journalist he is referring too, are primarily people no one in the 21st century has heard of. Lenin is arguing against the reformist economist movement. This is a movement that believes Russia only needs stronger trade unions, and union activist, and believes this movement can arise from the spontaneity of the working class. Just as Occupy Wall Street ballooned up, rather spontaneously, without any serious prediction, the economists believe these sorts of movements, especially those that revolve around Trade Union activism, are what Russia needs. Moreover, the best trade union activism can do is make exploitation more bearable, but it cannot eradicate it wholesale. Therefore the economists are complicit in exploitation, and lack the courage to do their duty to end it. It’s ironic that unlike Marx, Lenin constantly refers to ending exploitation as his moral imperative, and duty. Let’s be frank, Occupy at best achieved a MINOR change in political narrative. End of story. Lenin would lobby the same criticism, with more venom and erudition, and he does, at the economist. If you really want revolution, not reform, you need to steer the revolution, there needs to be control, and understanding, not spontaneity without direction. It’s easier to squash the latter, harder to squash the former. Moreover, you need theory. All revolutions of Lenin’s day, and of ours, are focused on politics and economics, but they have no deep theories to them. When one really delves into the essence of Liberal and Conservative, Libertarian, and Republican, there is nothing stark to define these differences. They don’t account for how society works either, they merely talk about the role of the individual, not how he came to be, why he does what he does, and when and how he can transcend his present relations. Lenin thinks we need something deeper than economics and politics, we need to synthesize it with theory, and of course that theory is Marxism (amen). Let’s get to the major controversy though. Wasn’t Lenin just advocating authoritarianism that guided the daft working class along? No. Lenin was quite convinced that revolutionaries could, had, and will continue to arise from the working class. But he wasn’t a romantic, he knew good and well if you spend 11 hours a day with your mind devoted to one menial function, it’s pretty clear you won’t spend the remaining 5 hours of your day brushing up on theory, politics, and economics. It’s the sad fate of liberal capitalism that the best theories most often come from those with undeserved leisure time. Moreover, he believed that his secret party ought to host debates and lectures given by his brand of Marxism, along with attending liberals, democrats, and economist. Once a stage was given to all views present, Lenin believed the theory of his group (the Social-Democrats), would easily prevail, for him this was the vanguard. The vanguard is the group with the most advanced theories and ideas of its day. Not a group of armed thugs.He does recognize that the group must remain underground and secret, and cannot be an open democracy initially. This is not because he prefers authoritarian measures, but because philosophical circles that discuss revolution, student activist, Marxists, etc, were all persecuted by the Tsar. There was no freedom of speech and expression, if you said what Lenin said you went to prison, and were tortured. Therefore, what is the most practical measure to ending the reign of the Tsar? Democracy is not and cannot be that choice. This leaves 21st century readers, growing up in the comforts of their day, with narrow hindsight to easily scoff at Lenin for not being more open. Maybe that scoffing is easy, but it’s going to be a whole lot harder for that same scoffer to openly advocate the rule of the Tsar, and his autocratic regime, that quelled all freedom of speech. Once you realize you cannot, and morally should not, advocate the reign of an autocratic Tsar, you too are left asking what Lenin asked in the title of this book: “What is to be done?”