Vladimir Lenin: What Is to Be Done?

Questions for Further Study

• 1. According to Lenin, what was “to be done”?
• 2. What role did Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel’s Communist Manifesto play in laying the intellectual foundations for Leninism?
• 3. Compare the revolutionary movement in Russia with other revolutionary movements throughout the world as reflected, for instance, in Mao Zedong’s “Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan,” Emiliano Zapata’s Plan of Ayala, or Fidel Castro’s History Will Absolve Me. Were there similarities in the impulses behind these revolutionary movements? How were they different?
• 4. In the twenty-first century, Lenin's name continues to be used almost as an insult in non-Communist, Western nations. For example, in much of the West, words and phrases such as Marxist-Leninist and Bolshevik are often used to denigrate the political philosophy of leaders and politicians with extreme liberal views. Do you believe that this characterization of Leninism is fair? Why have Lenin's views elicited fear from many people in capitalist countries over the past century?
• 5. Beginning in the 1990s numerous nations were formed out of the now dissolved Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or Soviet Union. Did the ultimate dissolution of the Soviet Union, along with its bloc of Communist nations, mean that Lenin's views were incorrect? Explain.