The ideological keystone of the Bolshevik Party

LENIN, Vladimir Ilyich (Ulianov).

Shto Delatch? Nabolevchye Voprosy Nashevo Dvishenija [What is to be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement].

Stuttgart: Nachfolger J. H. W. Dietz, 1902.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #003091

8vo (220 x 149 mm). vii [1], 144 pp. Bound in contemporary half moiré-cloth (extremities rubbed, boards scratched, lower corner of upper board bumped). Light even browning of text, small patch shaved and repaired on title-page and on the following two sheets (not affecting any text), faint illegible oval stamp on p.v, minor faint spotting in places, small tear to blank inner margin of one leaf, but generally a clean and well preserved copy. ----

PMM 392; Kindler X, 198. - EXTREMELY RARE FIRST EDITION of Lenin's ideological keystone of the Bolshevik Party. "Written between the autumn of 1901 and February 1902, while Lenin and his wife, N. K. Krupskaya, were in exile in Munich (with Zürich the main centre of Russian revolutionary emigration at that time) 'What is to be done?' was the ideological keystone of the Bolshevik Party. It was published, with the subtitle 'Burning Questions of Our Movement', by the official publishers of the German Social-Democratic Party, Dietz of Stuttgart. The title-page bore the significant quotation from Lassalle: 'Party struggles give a party strength and life. . . A party becomes stronger by purging itself'. Of the book's first appearance Krupskaya wrote: 'Later the Mensheviks vehemently attacked 'What is to be done?' but at this juncture the book captivated everyone, especially those more closely in touch with Russian work.' This was because it 'provided a plan for extensive revolutionary work. It pointed out definite jobs to be done. But though the book's appeal for better organization was of central importance, particularly in the haphazard Russian movement of those days, this was not separated from the general argument on the political necessity to build a strong, centralized party (a 'party of a new type'), fighting constantly for the purity of its doctrine, and led by professionals 'who shall devote to the revolution not only their spare evenings, but the whole of their lives'. Lenin contended for conscious leadership as against reliance on 'spontaneous' reactions among the people and stressed the great value of a party newspaper as a collective organizer, drawing on the experience of the recently-founded Iskra: it was in no. 4 (May 1901) of that journal that Lenin, in an article headed 'Where to begin?', had sketched the ideas fully developed in 'What is to be done?'. The boot presented Lenin's most searching criticism of the 'economist' tendency; the view that the purely economic, trade union struggle was all that concerned the workers. On the contrary, he said, 'the workers can acquire class political consciousness only from without, that it is only outside of the economic struggle'. The revolutionary socialist's ideal, he added, 'should not be a trade union secretary, but a tribune of the people'." (PMM). - Visit our website for additional images and information.

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