What Is to Be Done? (Russian: Что делать?) was a political pamphlet, written by Vladimir Lenin at the end of 1901 and early 1902. The title is inspired by the novel of Nikolai Chernyshevsky with the same name. The piece called for the formation of a revolutionary vanguardist party that would direct the efforts of the working class. Lenin felt that, left to their own devices, workers would be merely satisfied with "trade unionism," and that only a revolutionary party could direct a "scientific" socialist revolution. The piece partly precipitated the split of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks became Lenin's revolutionary party, while the Mensheviks preferred to take a more moderate path to liberal government that would eventually lead to socialist revolution. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known by the name   (b. ... Nikolai Chernyshevsky Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky (Russian: Николай Гаврилович Чернышевский) (July 12, 1828 - October 17, 1889) was a Russian revolutionary democrat, materialist philosopher, critic, and socialist. ... The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, or RSDLP (Росси́йская Социа́л-Демократи́ческая Рабо́ча&#1103... Bolshevik Party Meeting. ... Leaders of the Menshevik Party at Norra Bantorget in Stockholm, Sweden, May 1917. ... Bolshevik Party Meeting. ... Leaders of the Menshevik Party at Norra Bantorget in Stockholm, Sweden, May 1917. ...

• Malia, Martin. The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991. New York: The Free Press, 1994.

External links

• What Is To Be Done?, by V.I. Lenin
• Lenin's Collected Works