[lbo-talk] what is to be done

[James Heartfield]

In What is to be Done, the section one, is a kind of Allan Bloom-like attack on relativism, or what Lenin caricatures as 'the swamp', the minority among the social democrats who are trying to avoid the argument coming to a head, and hoping that they can make the RSDLP into a broad church that holds many views.

Section two, on 'Spontaneity of the masses' is the part where he says that spontaneously, i.e. without the party, the working class will never attain any higher consciousness than that of militant trade unionism. Revolutionary consciousness will only come from outside the day-to-day struggles, i.e. through a party.

In section three, he argues that the Rabochye Dyelo faction are 'economists' meaning that they bow down before the spontaneous trade union consciousness of the masses. He says that they are adding nothing new to the workers' own trade union organisations, and merely reproducing their efforts to no effect. To advance from trade union struggle, to revolutionary consciousness, Lenin is saying, means challenging their existing level of consciousness, not just repeating it back to the workers.