What is to Be Done?

And this was his contribution.

He wrote a book early in his career called What Is To Be Done? And what is to be done is to form a conspiratorial revolutionary party, political party, the party of a new type, as it ultimately turned out to be.

And this political party, not like the Democrats or the Republicans, in the sense that it's not about winning elections, it's about taking over.

They could use elections, they could use revolution, coup d'etat, any method.

It's from Vladimir Lenin, who was one of the chief protagonists of the Bolshevik takeover of Russia in 1917.

The quote is from What Is To Be Done, which is a 1902 pamphlet.

And the quote is, without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement.

And I think he was also the one who said that, you know, something like, I struggled to find the quote, but something like, give me four years to... you know, teach the children and, you know, the seeds I have sown will never be uprooted, something like that, which happens to be kind of close to the length of many uni courses.

Uh, anyway, ju- just to, if you have a, a bit more energy for one final question, thinking about kind of moving away from theoretical particulars and to kind of reflect on philosophy theory, critical theory in general, given the radical shifts of the digital revolution, the wake of the 2008 financial crisis that is, uh, proving more and more hugely important to our current situation.

What is the task of thinking today? Uh, maybe I'm getting towards Lenin's What Is to Be Done, but, you know, Horkheimer, for example, makes the distinction between traditional and critical theory, right? And traditional theory has this tendency of kind of ivory tower intellectual masturbation.

The theorist removes him or herself from society and observes from a distance.

But critical theory is also attempting to open paths of liberation, of emancipation, right? I mean, this is maybe Marx's 11th thesis on Feuerbach, right? And I know there's an inversion, but about changing the world, that theory should take up justice, should try to make a difference, not just observe, but kind of have its claws in the body politic, you could say.

Mm-hmm

... uh, "Combat Liberalism" and Lenin's, uh, I believe you talked about "What Is To Be Done?"

Mm-hmm.

And one of the themes that you sort of drew out of that, that I very much, uh, thought was insightful, is the way in which these very committed, uh, revolutionaries, people with a revolutionary politics, there's a distinction there between what they are doing and politics as a means of creating an identity.

Vladimir took over a small wing, turning it into his study.

He spent the months reading everything in his dead brother's trunk, chemistry textbooks with margin notes about explosives, political pamphlets denouncing autocracy, works by Pisarev and Dobrolyubov, the radical critics who'd inspired a generation of revolutionaries, and one book in particular that Sasha had underlined heavily, Chernyshevsky's What Is to Be Done? The novel was terrible as literature, wooden characters, implausible plot, prose like a police report.

But Vladimir didn't read it for style.

He read it for the vision of new people who rejected traditional morality and built their lives on rational principles.

In his place stood someone harder, more focused, frighteningly disciplined.

When she tried to talk to him about Sasha, he would listen politely, then change the subject to economic statistics or European politics.

By autumn, he'd read What Is to Be Done? five times.

Each reading revealed new layers.