Lenin in “What is to be done?” shows himself to have little concern for and faith in, the Russian Proletariat.

Lenin wrote ‘What is to be done?’ to be read by his fellow Russian intelligentsia in exile. These Social Democrats had varying ideas on what to change and how to change things - back home in Russia but all were looking to bring about the end of the Romanov regime. In his book, Lenin both stated his own ideas of how to bring about this revolution and argued against those ideas of his contemporary socialists. His aim was to set up a professional organisation to lead the proletariat. This is all set out in the book. It can also be seen in the book that Lenin shows himself to be a professional revolutionary but with little regard for the working class.

Marx regarded the workers highly. These proletariats would both carry the weight of the revolution and lead it themselves: a revolution led by workers for the workers. He perceived that society would in time reach a stage, were it would be inevitable for the proletariat to take control. However Lenin, although claiming his views to be purely Marxist, differs here. Like Marx he saw that the proletariat was not strong enough in Russia but saw it for different reasons. Marx wished for the workers to unite in preparation for the right time when society would be ripe for the revolution. Lenin considered that the time was right for the revolution but that the working class were not. Up until then the strikes and protests of the workers in Russia had been merely “spontaneous” (p97). Lenin writes that it “represents nothing more nor less than the consciousness in an embryonic form… The workers were losing their age-long belief in the unshakeability of the system, which oppressed them and began… I shall not say to understand, but to sense the necessity for a collective resistance… But this was nevertheless more an expression of desperation and vengeance than a struggle” (ibid). Lenin clearly shows little faith in the workers here; they do not ‘understand’ the need for unity but only ‘sense’ the need. After all, their consciousness is no more than in ‘embryonic form’.

Lenin also states the importance for these workers to be kept on the right path of socialism. The “socialist movement… must struggle against all attempts to entrench non-socialist ideology, and … the workers must be warned against bad counsellors” (p109). The workers, according to Lenin, have not the consciousness to develop their own ideas – they must be instructed in socialism. And the intelligentsia must endeavour to stop any competition that may lead the workers away from democratic socialism. The workers were not developed enough in consciousness to know the difference between socialist and bourgeois, and so counter-revolutionary advice. (This shows the extent to which Lenin had diverted from true Marxism.)

Again, Lenin gives the workers little regard; they are too underdeveloped to have socialist ideas of their own. This is another reason why the intelligentsia must instruct them. “All those who talk about ‘over rating the importance of ideology’, about exaggerating the role of the conscious element, etc, imagine that the labour movement pure and simple can and will elaborate an independent ideology for itself… But this is a profound mistake” (p105). So from this we can see that Lenin considered the working class to be in need of leadership:- the leadership of those who have a consciousness in more than merely, working class, ‘embryonic form’. This leadership would have to come from the intelligentsia. Also Lenin believed that the working class was incapable of arriving at an ideology itself and so this ideology would have to be developed for them by this intelligentsia.

The belief that the working class is too underdeveloped meant that the whole revolutionary element would have to be run by the intelligentsia. The workers would not simply have to be led but also instructed in revolutionary politics. The workers ‘spontaneous’ strikes would not suffice – the intelligentsia would have to show them the way in disciplined revolution, because the “first available means of struggle in a modern society will always be the trade union means of struggle, and the ‘first available’ ideology the bourgeois (trade union) ideology” (p111). Without leadership the workers would easily fall prey to the bourgeoisie (trade unions being bourgeois). Lenin believed there was no other way to revolution in Russia than his own way; any other attempt was merely bourgeois: “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… ‘third’ ideology… Hence to belittle socialist ideology in any way, to turn from it in the slightest degree means to strengthen bourgeois ideology” (p107). Lenin clearly states that any effort by the working class to help themselves merely strengthens the bourgeoisie. The only true revolutionary path for them is Lenin’s own socialism in which the ‘working masses’ play no more a part than pawns ordered by the intelligentsia. (Dr. A. Grunbacher of Birmingham University History Department, to whom an earlier draft of this paper was presented by me, agreed with me and used the term “cannon fodder”.)

The way in which the working class considered they were themselves gaining a say, was through the development of trade unions and the ability to strike. But these two efforts Lenin held with little regard. He writes that, “trade unionism means the ideological enslavement of the workers to the bourgeoisie” (ibid). And, that the misguided “trade unionist [is] striving to come under the wing of the bourgeoisie” (ibid). So Lenin’s idea was that, not only were the working class better following him and the intelligentsia but that, any endeavour on their own part would be pro-bourgeois and so counter-productive. The workers would have to be commanded at the right moment to revolt – the right moment and the command decided by the intelligentsia – and up until then to do nothing for themselves in the hope of improving their working conditions.

It is with this need for the workers to be shown the way to revolution that Lenin writes that other socialists, that merely follow trends, are following a policy of “tailism” (p118). Earlier uprisings had failed because of this: they had “lagged behind… both in their ‘theories’ and in their activities; they failed to establish a constant and continuous organisation capable of leading the whole movement” (p119). Basically these ‘tailists’ had merely followed the early ‘spontaneous’ revolts of the workers, that they were displaying mere “subservience to spontaneity” (p140). Lenin also writes: “We must have people who will devote themselves… to be professional revolutionaries” (p188). Any other socialist is denigrated to being “not a revolutionary, but a wretched amateur!” (ibid). The revolution would have to be led professionally by a ‘disciplined, centralised party’ (Schapiro, 1967: p14) of intelligentsia: Not the place for the mostly uneducated workers who are busy trying to make a living and placing their trust in the trade unions.

Lenin argues that trade unions are bourgeois; one reason was that they followed ‘unsocialist’ ideas in their aim to help the workers. But Lenin does write that “there remains the path of the secret trade union organisations” (p178), which could be run on intelligentsia lines, “with rules of strict secrecy [and]… the organisation of revolutionaries” (p181), all in the endeavour of “the consolidation and development of a social democratic trade union movement” (ibid). These should also be kept away from the ‘economists’ who took part in the open trade unions with the hope of helping the workers gain better conditions. Lenin disliked the ‘economists’ and their struggle for reforms. He considered it to “degrade social democratic politics” (pp 125-7). Lenin believed that workers that gained better working conditions would be less likely to revolt. By keeping them unhappy they were always ready to be provoked into a protest. V. S. Frank writes (Schapiro, 1967:p30) that ‘Lenin refused to collaborate in any way whatever with those… who were willing to lend a hand to the authorities in relieving the terrible famine [in]… the Lower Volga Valley.’ Also Lenin once commented on ‘the moralising vomit’ (ibid: p31) when referring to competitors in the intelligentsia.

Lenin did not care in the slightest for the working class, and anyone who did was merely helping the bourgeoisie and not socialism. He shows little regard for the workers here: they would get all they want after the revolution; up until then they would simply have to show solidarity under the socialist ideal and wait for the signal.

Lenin does however allow, and even to encourage, members of the working class to join his intelligentsia. People can be “professional revolutionaries, irrespective of whether they have developed from among students or working men” (p185). Also Lenin writes that in his professional revolutionary movement it will be a “greater… number of people from the working class… who will be able to join the movement and perform active work in it” (p186). But the intelligentsia was always largely a middle class - and even largely Jewish - society despite the welcome to all classes. Lenin’s view of the working class as a whole was not very flattering. He argues that the more workers or other “backward sections of the masses” (ibid) that join the more important it would be for “solid” (ibid) leadership. To join the workers, would have to abandon any ideas of reforms, which is no doubt what would be on their minds. Socialism was for Lenin, a movement aimed solely at the riddance of the Romanov government and NOT the emancipation of the Russian proletariat. There would be no gradual change, no alleviation of the workers’ plight: but only a sudden violent revolution when the time was decided upon. (Surely it was a middle class and even Jewish elite ‘intelligentsia’ that was called for to treat the Russian proletariat in such a dismissive way; as mere ‘cannon fodder’?)

In ‘What is to be done?’ Lenin shows little regard for the working class. All their efforts up until this point are shown to be counter-revolutionary. They are merely ‘spontaneous’ and this is because the working class have an underdeveloped conscious mind. Lenin’s view is that the workers will not develop by themselves; they need help to do this in the form of education and guidance/leadership from the intelligentsia. This intelligentsia would be running the revolution along ‘socialist’ lines as a professional organisation. If the workers asked for reforms or set up trade unions they were being unsocialist and hence, in Lenin’s view, bourgeois. The intelligentsia that aim to help bring in reforms for the workers are slammed as being unsocialist and bourgeois for all their efforts. Lenin had clearly diverted from Marxist belief in the gradual approach/progress of ‘scientific socialism’. The intelligentsia would have to ‘spear head’ revolution (i.e. the murder of the Tsar) rather than rely on the natural/progressive stages of Marxism. (The student today need only regard the treatment of the common soldier under Trotsky’s command, during the Russian Civil War to see just what the proletariat were: mere ‘cannon fodder’.)

So the workers must follow Lenin and the intelligentsia for the revolution else they unwittingly play into bourgeois hands. Marx writes in the ‘Communist Manifesto’ that the communists are ‘that section which pushes forward all others’ (Marx, 1995ed:p95). But Marx regarded the workers highly: The workers themselves would move the revolution forward with the intelligentsia-communists merely pushing the movement or speeding it along. To Lenin the workers were incapable of direct socialist revolution and so to stop them being unsocialist (and so bourgeois) they needed ‘leading’; leading along socialist lines by a professional revolutionary like himself.