DOC What Is to Be Done?: Burning Questions of Our Movement by V. I. Lenin in History

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Amazing Quality for an Excellent PriceBy Hayden TuckerThe quality of this book is absolutely amazing. I suggest to anyone wanting this book; order this copy. You won't be disappointed.1 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Classic LeninBy Adam L. PowersDemocratic Centralism; the whys and wherefores along with history and positions detailing the split within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Some of the references that Lenin makes would have been easily known in his time though for us; checking the writings of Karl Kautsky and Plekhanov are recommended as with most of Lenin's works. If one cannot find the works of the above mentioned see [...]1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. NOT THE TRADE UNION SECRETARY; BUT THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLEBy Marc Lichtman“…the Social-Democrat’s ideal should not be the trade union secretary; but the tribune of the people; who is able to react to every manifestation of tyranny and oppression; no matter where it appears; no matter what stratum or class of the people it affects; who is able to generalize all these manifestations and produce a single picture of police violence and capitalist exploitation; who is able to take advantage of every event; however small; in order to set forth before all his socialist convictions and his democratic demands; in order to clarify for all and everyone the world-historic significance of the struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat.”--From What Is to be Done?As other reviewers have pointed out; it’s quite incredible what some people manage to read into this book written in 1902; which simply isn’t here. Lenin was a strong opponent of opportunism within the Socialist International; and that is part of what this work is about. He singles out Eduard Bernstein (Germany) and Alexandre Millerand (France); as well as the “Economist” current in Russia.Some of the best political writings against the first two of these opportunists were by Rosa Luxemburg: “Reform or Revolution;” and “Socialist Crisis in France” (Rosa Luxemburg Speaks contains all of the first; also available as a small book Reform or Revolution; and much of the second).But Lenin as yet had no idea how opportunist most of the leadership of the Social Democracy was (to trace his development on this; see Lenin's Struggle for a Revolutionary International: Documents: 1907-1916: The Preparatory Years. His model of a party was still the German Social Democrats (unlike the Russians able to function legally; although they hadn't always been). And he still viewed Karl Kautsky as the leader of the left wing of that party and of the International. The spectacle of socialist leaders voting for war credits of “their” governments in the First World War created the need for a new International.But the next book by Lenin that has a significant amount of attention paid to organization is One Step Forward; Two Steps Back (The Crisis in Our Party); Lenin’s evaluation of the famous 1903 congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party; which started out with a broad majority; but which split into two hostile factions (this was not the final split though; that only happened in 1917).A good introduction to the importance of Leninist organizational practices is a small pamphlet The Revolutionary Party: Its Role in the Struggle for Socialism by James P. Cannon; a founding leader of the US Communist Party; and later the founder of what was then called American “Trotskyism.” But Cannon's greatest written contribution to party building is The Struggle for a Proletarian Party; which should be read along with In Defense of Marxism: The Social and Political Contradictions of the Soviet Union.