9.8 KiB
9.8 KiB
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2 | `V. I. Lenin`,` What Is To Be Done? (1901)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/i.htm`,`We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and difficult path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and we have to advance almost constantly under their fire. We have combined, by a freely adopted decision, for the purpose of fighting the enemy, and not of retreating into the neighbouring marsh, the inhabitants of which, from the very outset, have reproached us with having separated ourselves into an exclusive group and with having chosen the path of struggle instead of the path of conciliation. And now some among us begin to cry out: Let us go into the marsh! And when we begin to shame them, they retort: What backward people you are! Are you not ashamed to deny us the liberty to invite you to take a better road! Oh, yes, gentlemen! You are free not only to invite us, but to go yourselves wherever you will, even into the marsh. In fact, we think that the marsh is your proper place, and we are prepared to render you every assistance to get there. Only let go of our hands, don’t clutch at us and don’t besmirch the grand word freedom, for we too are ‘freeÓ to go where we please, free to fight not only against the marsh, but also against those who are turning towards the marsh!` |
3 | `V. I. Lenin`,`What Is To Be Done?, “Criticism in Russia” (1904)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/i.htm`,`History has now confronted us with an immediate task which is the most revolutionary of all the immediate tasks confronting the proletariat of any country. The fulfilment of this task, the destruction of the most powerful bulwark, not only of European, but (it may now be said) of Asiatic reaction, would make the Russian proletariat the vanguard of the international revolutionary proletariat. And we have the right to count upon acquiring this honourable title, already earned by our predecessors, the revolutionaries of the seventies, if we succeed in inspiring our movement, which is a thousand times broader and deeper, with the same devoted determination and vigour.` |
4 | `V. I. Lenin`,`What Is To Be Done?, “Criticism in Russia” (1904)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/i.htm`,`In a country ruled by an autocracy, with a completely enslaved press, in a period of desperate political reaction in which even the tiniest outgrowth of political discontent and protest is persecuted, the theory of revolutionary Marxism suddenly forced its way into the censored literature before the government realised what had happened and the unwieldy army of censors and gendarmes discovered the new enemy and flung itself upon him. ` |
5 | `V. I. Lenin`,`What Is To Be Done?, “Criticism in Russia” (1904)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/i.htm`,`This fear of criticism displayed by the advocates of freedom of criticism cannot be attributed solely to craftiness. No, the majority of the Economists look with sincere resentment upon all theoretical controversies, factional disagreements, broad political questions, plans for organising revolutionaries, etc.` |
6 | `V. I. Lenin`,`What Is To Be Done?, “Dogmatism And ‘Freedom of Criticism’” (1904)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/i.htm`,`If democracy, in essence, means the abolition of class domination, then why should not a socialist minister charm the whole bourgeois world by orations on class collaboration?` |
7 | `V. I. Lenin`,`What Is To Be Done?, “Dogmatism And ‘Freedom of Criticism’” (1904)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/i.htm`,`In the history of modern socialism this is a phenomenon, that the strife of the various trends within the socialist movement has from national become international.` |
8 | `V. I. Lenin`,`What Is To Be Done?, “Dogmatism And ‘Freedom of Criticism’” (1904)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/i.htm`,`Those who are really convinced that they have made progress in science would not demand freedom for the new views to continue side by side with the old, but the substitution of the new views for the old.` |
9 | `V. I. Lenin`,`What Is To Be Done?, “Political Exposures And ‘Training In Revolutionary Activity’” (1904)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/iii.htm`,`A basic condition for the necessary expansion of political agitation is the organisation of comprehensive political exposure.` |
10 | `V. I. Lenin`,`What Is To Be Done?, “The Plan For an All-Russia Political Newspaper” (1904)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/v.htm`,`A newspaper is not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, it is also a collective organiser. ` |
11 | `V. I. Lenin`,`What Is To Be Done?, “The Plan For an All-Russia Political Newspaper” (1904)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/v.htm`,`Every question “runs in a vicious circle” because political life as a whole is an endless chain consisting of an infinite number of links. The whole art of politics lies in finding and taking as firm a grip as we can of the link that is least likely to be struck from our hands, the one that is most important at the given moment, the one that most of all guarantees its possessor the possession of the whole chain.` |
12 | `V. I. Lenin`,`What Is To Be Done?, “The Primitiveness of the Economists and the Organization of the Revolutionaries” (1904)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/iv.htm`,`Attention, must be devoted principally to raising the workers to the level of revolutionaries; it is not at all our task to descend to the level of the “working masses.”` |
13 | `V. I. Lenin`,`What Is To Be Done?, “The Primitiveness of the Economists and the Organization of the Revolutionaries” (1904)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/iv.htm`,`It is particularly necessary to arouse in all who participate in practical work, or are preparing to take up that work, discontent with the amateurism prevailing among us and an unshakable determination to rid ourselves of it.` |
14 | `V. I. Lenin`,`What Is To Be Done?, “The Primitiveness of the Economists and the Organization of the Revolutionaries” (1904)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/iv.htm`,`This struggle must be organised, according to “all the rules of the art”, by people who are professionally engaged in revolutionary activity. ` |
15 | `V. I. Lenin`,`What Is To Be Done?, “The Spontaneity of the Masses and the Consciousness of the Social-Democrats” (1904)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/ii.htm`,` Since there can be no talk of an independent ideology formulated by the working masses themselves in the process of their movement, the only choice is – either bourgeois or socialist ideology. There is no middle course (for mankind has not created a “third” ideology).(This does not mean, of course, that the workers have no part in creating such an ideology. They take part, however, not as workers, but as socialist theoreticians, as Proudhons and Weitlings, to the extent that they are able to acquire the knowledge of their age and develop that knowledge.)` |
16 | `V. I. Lenin`,`What Is To Be Done?, “The Spontaneity of the Masses and the Consciousness of the Social-Democrats” (1904)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/ii.htm`,`To belittle the socialist ideology in any way, to turn aside from it in the slightest degree means to strengthen bourgeois ideology. There is much talk of spontaneity. But the spontaneous development of the working-class movement leads to its subordination to bourgeois ideology; for the spontaneous working-class movement is trade-unionism, and trade unionism means the ideological enslavement of the workers by the bourgeoisie. Hence, our task, the task of Social-Democracy, is to combat spontaneity, to divert the working-class movement from this spontaneous, trade-unionist striving to come under the wing of the bourgeoisie, and to bring it under the wing of revolutionary Social Democracy.` |
17 | `V. I. Lenin`,`What Is To Be Done?, “Trade-Unionist Politics And Social-Democratic Politics” (1904)`,`http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/iii.htm`,`Revolutionary Social-Democracy has always included the struggle for reforms as part of its activities. But it utilises “economic” agitation for the purpose of presenting to the government, not only demands for all sorts of measures, but also (and primarily) the demand that it cease to be an autocratic government.` |