Truth is not absolute. Everything is a real existence under certain historical conditions. During its development, it must be combined with the objective conditions at that time. If we only look at the enemy's viewpoint criticized by Lenin, it seems that there is nothing wrong and nothing to refute. For example, "raising the salary per ruble by one kopeck is more affordable and valuable than any socialism or any politics;" Workers should struggle, because they know that struggle is not for future generations, but for themselves and their children. P323 "Politics is always subordinate to economy" P329 "Political agitation should be a superstructure to encourage economic struggle, and should grow up on the basis of economic struggle and obey it" P330; "The tasks of the Party grow with the development of the Party" P334 and so on. From these sentences, we all seem to agree that they are in line with Marxist methodology. But when Lenin compared these remarks with the reality of the development of Russian workers' career at that time, and then through Lenin's in-depth analysis, we found that these views were so harmful, confusing workers with little discernment at that time, and so harmful to the whole revolutionary work. Lenin was able to do this because he skillfully used Marxist dialectics and methodology, not a rigid dogmatist. Because of this, Lenin's thought is at the forefront of his contemporaries, so he can lead the masses on the road to victory.
Linking to our present work, we really need Lenin's way of thinking, and we need to exercise our ability to grasp the essence of things, but we can't lose our goal in the direction. Counselors are intimate friends and life mentors of college students. If we don't combine the actual concept of talent development with the correct working methods, our work will certainly not be effective and will be harmful to the growth of college students.
3. Firm ideals and beliefs
Without a firm belief in communism, it is impossible to imagine Lenin's revolutionary enthusiasm when capitalism developed into imperialism. Lenin was still in exile when he was preparing for the revolutionary cause. Lenin pointed out in 1899 that "the premise of socialism and the task of the social democratic party" written by Bernstein, "the content of this book surprises me more and more, which is too bad in theory, and it is a repetition of others' words. In fact, there is no attempt to make serious independent criticism. In fact, this is opportunism. " (all 37/24 1-242). It is precisely because Lenin has lofty ideals and firm beliefs that he always seems to be instinctively aware of all kinds of non-Marxist wrong ideas, so he can always walk in the forefront of his contemporaries and expose all kinds of wrong ideas. It is precisely because of Lenin's firm ideals and beliefs that when Lenin realized his own shortcomings, he immediately looked so humble, as he wrote in his article, "Because I am talking about the lack of cultivation here, I will use this word to refer to myself first. I used to work in a group, which put forward various tasks for myself. All of us who have participated in this group often realize with sadness that at such a historical juncture, we can change a famous saying and say,' Give us a revolutionary organization and we can turn Russia upside down! At that time, we showed ourselves as craftsmen. Later, the more I often recalled the guilt at that time, the more I hated those fake Social Democrats. "P406-407, such a sincere and heartfelt apology, is only available to people with high morality!
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council's Opinions on Strengthening and Improving College Students' Ideological and Political Education pointed out that the current ideological and political education of college students should do well in four aspects, and the first point is to establish ideals and beliefs. In Lenin, it is precisely this that is highly reflected!
Second, the writing background
There is a lot of information about the writing background of this article. In the "Introduction to Marxist Ideological and Political Education Works" (edited by Andy Lau, Higher Education Press, which was also an important bibliography when we took the exam at that time), I pointed out "What should I do?" At the time of publication, world capitalism entered the stage of imperialism, the contradictions in capitalist society deepened and expanded, and the proletarian revolution has been put into daily life as a direct practical problem. Marxists represented by Lenin have done a lot of theoretical and organizational work in order to meet the coming revolutionary storm. ... at this time, the revisionist trend of thought represented by Bernstein began to flood in the second international. They attacked Marxism as "outdated" and "outdated". “P 1 19
Before Lenin wrote this article, the actual situation was that the workers' movement was booming at that time, but it was in a decentralized state, and the correct leadership of a firm proletarian party was urgently needed. What should Lenin do in writing? Earlier, he wrote "An Urgent Task of Our Movement" at the beginning of19001,which profoundly pointed out: "The whole history of Russian socialism determines that the most urgent task of socialism is to oppose the full-time government and strive for political freedom. The phenomenon that socialist ideology is divorced from advanced figures of the working class is much more serious in Russia than in other countries, so the revolutionary movement in Russia is bound to be weak. This naturally leads to the task that the Russian Social Democratic Party should achieve: instilling socialist ideology and political consciousness into the proletariat and organizing a revolutionary party closely related to the spontaneous workers' movement. " P285 At this time, Lenin had just returned from exile. In order to establish a truly unified proletarian revolutionary party, it is planned to establish an all-Russian Marxist secret organ newspaper. But such a newspaper is difficult to publish in Russia. This is because the police and spies of the czar government are everywhere, and they will be caught in a few hours. Then, in order to deeply expose the current ideological trend affecting revolutionary political parties, he wrote "Outline of Anarchism and Socialism" at 190 1, in which Lenin profoundly revealed the four major drawbacks of anarchism. It was these early practices and theoretical work that made Lenin concentrate on writing this article in the autumn of 1902. "article. In this article, Lenin started with two general questions: "Why does a" harmless "and" normal "slogan like" Criticizing Freedom "become a real signal to fight for us? Why can't we even talk about the basic question of the role of the Social Democratic Party in spontaneous mass movements? Secondly, explain our views on the nature and content of political incitement. " On this basis, P292 profoundly expounded "our organizational tasks, and at the same time, we began to set out plans to establish all-Russian combat organizations in various places." P29 1 If we grasp these points, then we can deeply understand this article.
As for the influence of this article, in the annotation of the first volume of Selected Works of Lenin, it is pointed out that "1902- 1903", what should I do? It is widely spread in social democratic organizations all over Russia, and many people have been influenced by it and become supporters of Mars. "What should I do? This book played a particularly important role in the establishment of the revolutionary Marxist political party of the Russian working class and the victory of Lenin and Mars in the committees and organizations of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, as well as in the second congress of 1903. " P824 Therefore, a deep understanding of this article will play an important guiding role in understanding the first socialist country, and we can better understand the problems encountered in China's democratic revolution and socialist construction. We can also better understand our current ideological and political work.
Third, the article structure analysis.
The article consists of preface, conclusion and five main parts. In the preface, Lenin pointed out the reasons for changing the original writing plan and the basic content of this paper. It is worth noting that at the end of the preface, the author wrote: Therefore, at first glance, it is meaningful for us to have an overly detailed debate with the workers' cause, because we can't move forward without completely ending this period. P292-293 When reading this article in depth, sometimes I really feel that Lenin has repeatedly demonstrated the spontaneous characteristics of the workers' worship movement from various angles, and it is even a bit cumbersome. But Lenin himself pointed out here that this is necessary to build a strong political party, and the triviality here is so important.
In the conclusion, Lenin scientifically divided the history of Russian Social Democratic Party into three periods. Personally, reading the preface first and then the conclusion, grasping Lenin's thinking of writing this article as a whole and grasping the development history of the Social Democratic Party will play a great role in correctly understanding the text. At least in my opinion, after reading the development history of the Democratic Party, we can understand all kinds of problems encountered in the development of the Democratic Party, and we can clearly see the direction that the Democratic Party should develop, so as to better understand Lenin's views and persistent positions in this article. It can also be deeply understood: Why did Lenin use "What should I do?" Such as the title of the article, because Lenin wants to remind us that the correct direction of our party is what we should pay most attention to!
The text of the article is divided into five parts. If we look at the topic, we also find an interesting phenomenon: the first four parts are the formats of "* *" and "* *" (such as dogmatism and "freedom of criticism"; The spontaneity of the masses and the consciousness of the Social Democratic Party. )! It can be clearly seen from this that Lenin actually opposed all kinds of wrong views and things established with proletarian political parties to what we should adhere to, which is also determined by the nature of the article debate. In the fifth part, Lenin focuses on the "plan" of all-Russian political newspapers, because under the current historical conditions, only newspapers can play the role of real organizers.
If I were to summarize the main contents of five texts in one sentence, I would give the title:
Current theoretical struggle →
Present situation and demand →
The choice of political stance →
Organizational problems of revolution →
Specific organizational forms.
Note: Unless otherwise specified, all articles cited in this article are from Selected Works of Lenin, Volume I, People's Publishing House, 1995 edition.
Fourth, reading notes of each chapter of the text
Dogmatism and "freedom of criticism"
This chapter is divided into four parts: what is "freedom of criticism", the new proposition of "freedom of criticism", Russian criticism and Engels' theory on the significance of theoretical struggle. Lenin's basic view expressed in this chapter is that dogmatism is an evaluation imposed on the Democrats by the economic faction, and they criticize the Democrats for only copying Marxist dogma, instead of focusing on the current economic struggle of workers against the government. In Lenin's view, economists are new advocates of "criticizing freedom". They criticized the Democratic Party, but the essence of criticism was to expose their theoretical paleness. In the final analysis, economists have no opinions, and their role is to pull the current workers' movement back.
1, what is "freedom of criticism"
Criticism came from Bernstein and others, who criticized the Social Democratic Party and "put forward a set of fairly strict new arguments and reasons", the essence of which was that "the Social Democratic Party should be changed from a party advocating social revolution to a democratic party advocating social improvement". P295 Therefore, "the new' criticism' faction in the socialist movement is just a new variant of opportunism." Judging from Bernstein's actions and the contents of their propaganda, it can be understood that "freedom of criticism" is the freedom of opportunists within the Social Democratic Party, the freedom to turn the Social Democratic Party into a democratic party that advocates improvement, and the freedom to instill bourgeois ideas and bourgeois factors into the socialist movement. ”P297
2. A new advocate of "freedom of criticism"
"Workers' Cause, the official publication of the Overseas Federation of Russian Social Democrats, recently solemnly put forward this slogan ('freedom of criticism'), not as a theoretical principle, but as a political requirement." P298
How does the workers' cause criticize the Democratic Party? In the Workers' Cause newspaper, Bo Krichevski wrote: "However, there is no conflict of class interests in the modern socialist movement. All his factions, including the most obvious Bernstein faction, stand in the position of safeguarding the interests of the proletariat and fighting for political and economic liberation of the proletariat. "P298-299 This is really a great misjudgment of the current situation, and it is also the biggest difference between economists and the Democratic Party in reality. In the view of the German party, this judgment of the Workers' Cause newspaper was rejected twice. Now, Bernstein "criticizes" the Democratic Party as if it had wronged them. However, the Workers' Cause newspaper asked, "Who has been wronged? Who is wrong? Where is it? What time? What's the matter? On these issues, "Workers' Career" has been avoided. " P30 1 It can be seen from here that "in fact,' freedom of criticism' is not only manifested by no criticism at once, but also by no independent opinions at all." P302
3. Russian criticism
In this part, Lenin wants to "simply explain what he doesn't want to say" in the workers' career. P302 At that time, the basic feature of the Russian struggle was that "when the spontaneous workers' movement began to appear and the advanced public opinion began to turn to Marxism, it was obvious that different elements were United under a common banner against the common enemy (stale social and political world outlook)". P303 It is absolutely necessary for the Revolutionary Democratic Party to even form an "alliance" with bourgeois Democrats, because "what is involved here is the democratic task of the Social Democratic Party. "Under such conditions, socialists" may completely reveal the hostility between the interests of the working class and the interests of the bourgeoisie to the working class. " P304 Now, if someone criticizes this "alliance" of socialists or even deprives them of this possibility, "this is completely equivalent to the bourgeois Democrats denying the independence and autonomy of the socialist movement, thus denying its right to exist, which is actually trying to turn the just-started workers' movement into the tail of liberals." P305 In this case, rupture is inevitable.
Bernstein's criticism of the Democratic Party, if we explore their political inclination, is to "let the workers fight the economic struggle (more precisely, the struggle of unionism, because the struggle of unionism also includes a special kind of workers' politics), and let Marxist intellectuals and liberals combine to fight the political struggle. "P305-306 This tendency is clearly reflected in their purpose. In the face of this criticism, what kind of task should the Social Democratic Party shoulder? " First, efforts should be made to restore the theoretical work that has just begun in the era of legal Marxism and now falls on the shoulders of lawless elements; Without such work, sports can't develop smoothly. Second, we must actively fight against legitimate' criticisms' that seriously corrode people's consciousness; Third, actively oppose the confusion and vacillation in the actual movement, and expose and refute all acts that intentionally or unintentionally belittle our program and strategy. “P307
4. Engels discusses the significance of theoretical struggle.
The Social Democratic Party is facing all kinds of criticism. Then, "Who is the critic?" Lenin found through investigation that "the notorious freedom of criticism is not to replace another theory with one theory, but to abandon any complete and thorough theory freely, which is eclecticism and unprincipled." When the workers' movement was fruitful, the workers' cause shouted, "One practical action is more important than a dozen plans." P3 1 1 Lenin pointed out that our Democratic Party must never relax its vigilance in theory, because this is our program and the principle guiding our movement. "We must never trade principles." "Without revolutionary theory, there would be no revolutionary movement."
When Lenin emphasized the importance of revolutionary theory, he listed three reasons: first, our party has just formed, and the liquidation with other factions in revolutionary thought that are in danger of deviating from the correct truth is far from over. Second, the social democratic movement is international. This not only means that we should oppose ethnic chauvinism, but also means that the movement started in young countries can develop smoothly only by using the experience of other countries. Third, the Russian Social Democratic Party has undertaken a national task that no socialist party in the world has ever undertaken. Therefore, "only under the guidance of advanced theory can the role of advanced soldiers be realized." P3 12 Therefore, the great struggle of the Social Democratic Party does not take two forms (political and economic). China generally thinks that there are three forms, and there is a theoretical struggle P3 12 beside these two struggles. Then Lenin quoted Engels for a long time to discuss the importance of theoretical struggle.
The spontaneity of the masses and the consciousness of the Social Democratic Party
This chapter contains three parts: the beginning of spontaneous climax; Worship of spontaneity and workers' thoughts; "Self-liberation society" and "workers' cause".
In this chapter, Lenin criticized "economism" more deeply, because he found that "Workers' Career" tried to attribute "general differences" to a deeper root, "that is, it was attributed to spontaneous factors and the significance of conscious and planned Iraq and the Soviet Union, with different estimates." This is essentially "the whole essence of the current theoretical and political differences of opinion" among Russian social Democrats. P3 16 Therefore, I personally think this chapter is the embodiment of the core idea of this article.
1, the beginning of spontaneous orgasm
Based on the actual situation of Russian workers' strike in this section, Lenin profoundly pointed out through the workers' strike movement from the 1960s to the present that the workers' strike has been in the "embryonic state of consciousness" from the initial destruction of machinery to the recent planned strike, but these strikes are still the struggle of trade unionism, "not the struggle of social democracy; These strikes show that the workers feel their confrontation with the factory owners, but they don't realize and can't realize the irreconcilable opposition between their interests and the whole modern political system and social system, that is to say, they don't and can't have the consciousness of social democracy. " P3 17
As for the formation of workers' self-awareness (or resistance to the whole capitalist system), it can only be instilled from the outside. Here, Lenin put forward his famous "indoctrination theory". In fact, many intellectuals are already doing indoctrination work. Lenin quoted the Workers' Cause newspaper edited by/kloc-0 at the end of 895 and some handwritten pamphlets in his article, which were all attempts to awaken workers' consciousness. However, due to the lack of struggle experience of Democrats, these newspapers prepared to pay were taken away by the gendarmerie. Lenin pointed out through these examples that we should draw lessons profoundly and improve the cultivation of revolutionary practice. For true Democrats, "revolutionary experience and organizational ability can be learned." As long as you have the desire to cultivate these necessary qualities! As long as we can recognize shortcomings, because in the revolutionary cause, recognizing shortcomings is equivalent to correcting more than half! “P320
2. Worship of spontaneity. Workers' thoughts
Faced with the climax of the workers' strike, "economists" publicized some wrong theories through their positions (workers' thoughts), such as "an increase of one gaby per ruble salary is more affordable and valuable than any socialism or any politics" and "workers should' fight' because they know that the struggle is not for future generations, but for themselves and their children". These unionists' remarks overwhelmed the Democratic Party's efforts to stay sober. Lenin pointed out that the reason is that our revolutionaries are increasingly taken away by the gendarmerie, and at the same time, those trade union members are increasingly on the stage.
As for the ideological system followed by the working people in the process of movement, Lenin pointed out: they are "either bourgeois ideological system or socialist ideological system." There is nothing in the middle here (because human beings have never created any' third party' ideology, and in a society where class contradictions are divided, there can be no classless or super-class ideology at any time) ". P326-327 So, why is the spontaneous ideological system in the workers' movement controlled by the bourgeois ideological system from the beginning? "The reason is very simple. The origin of bourgeois ideology is much longer than that of socialist ideology. It has undergone a more comprehensive treatment, and its communication tools are incomparable. " The workers' movement under the guidance of P328 spontaneous ideology is bound to show that "politics is always subordinate to economy".
3. Self-liberation Association and Workers' Cause
In 1899, in the article "workers' social declaration of self-liberation" published in Eve magazine (judging from the title, the article is a worship of spontaneity), Wawo mentioned: "Politics is a superstructure, so' political agitation should be the superstructure of economic struggle, and it should grow up on the basis of economic struggle and obey it'". P330 Then, Workers' Cause began to defend the "economic school": "We believe that the mass workers' movement in recent years is the most important phenomenon in Russian life, which will basically determine the task and nature of the federal books and periodicals work." P332 In this view, Lenin expanded the spontaneity of the worship movement for the workers' cause, and "the common cause was and is inclined to this understanding". P332, "Workers' Cause" holds that overthrowing the autocratic system cannot be regarded as the primary task of the mass workers' movement, but this task should be simplified as the task of striving for the realization of recent political demands. In this way, the "workers' cause" actually narrowed the scope of activities in the movement. This theory actually brought the party back.
At the end of the article, Lenin profoundly pointed out, "In short, we are convinced that the basic mistake of the' new school' in the Russian Social Democratic Party is to worship spontaneity and not understand the spontaneity of the masses, which requires us social Democrats to show great consciousness. The more the spontaneous climax of the masses grows, the more the movement expands, and the demand for the Social Democratic Party to show great consciousness in theoretical work, political work and organizational work will grow extremely rapidly. " P338-339
(3) Trade union politics and social democratic politics
This chapter includes five aspects: political agitation and economic factions narrowing the scope of political agitation; On how Mardin deepened plekhanov's viewpoint: political exposure and "cultivating revolutionary enthusiasm"; What do economism and terrorism have in common? The working class is an advanced fighter for democracy; "Slander" and "fabricator".
In this chapter, Lenin raised the struggle of worshipping spontaneity of the economists in the previous chapter to the height of different political views, profoundly revealing that the political view of trade unionism is essentially capitalist democracy, which is extremely harmful to the current workers' movement, and at the same time, it also puts forward a more arduous task to the Social Democratic Party.
1, political agitation and economic factions narrowed the scope of political agitation.
In this part, Lenin profoundly exposed the harm of economic school thought and pointed out the political task of Democrats. In the practice of the workers' movement, it is easy to slip on the road of unionism if we do not raise our vigilance. For example, distributing leaflets in the current workers' movement "is actually not an activity of social democracy, but only an activity of trade unionism." P342 Because only in the struggle with factory owners can people who sell their labor win the favor of selling their labor. Social Democrats "lead the working class not only to strive for favorable conditions for selling labor, but also to eliminate the social system that forces the poor to sell themselves to the rich." "Social Democrats can not only be confined to economic struggle, but also can not allow the disclosure of organizational economy as their main activity. We should actively carry out political education for the working class and cultivate their political consciousness. " P342 This paragraph should be the central idea of this section.
In this process, the editorial of Workers' Cause pointed out that "the political struggle of the working class is only the most developed, extensive and practical form of economic struggle." In essence, this narrows the scope of the social democratic party's political struggle to the economic scope, and in essence pulls the struggle back. Mardin also put forward the task of "endowing the economic struggle itself with political nature" to the Social Democratic Party (I didn't seem to have any mistakes in understanding this sentence at first, but the more I looked back, the more I felt wrong. For this sentence, Lenin profoundly pointed out that "economic struggle is a collective struggle for workers to win favorable conditions for selling their labor force and improve their working and living conditions." This kind of struggle must be a professional struggle, because the working conditions of various occupations are very different, so the struggle to improve these conditions cannot be carried out without the occupation. P346 This has been widely carried out in many capitalist countries such as Britain, but it is impossible to criticize the autocratic system instinctively. Therefore, this seemingly "extensive" struggle is actually harmful to the establishment of socialist democracy. As Lenin wrote at the end of the article, "the whole essence of' economism' is shown here in simple and clear language. It first called on workers to carry out "political struggle to safeguard common interests, that is, to improve the situation of all workers", then it talked about the stage theory, and finally it said "the most universal application" in the congressional resolution and so on. The economic struggle with the government is the politics of unionism, which is far from the politics of social democracy. "
2, talk about how Mardin deepened plekhanov's opinion.
In this passage, Lenin used Mardin's one-sided understanding of plekhanov's views in the Workers' Cause newspaper to illustrate that Xu Du's views publicized to workers through trade unionism seem to be the specific requirements of legislative and administrative measures that "put forward to the government" and "can produce some remarkable results", which is essentially to give up political struggle and political agitation.
3. Political exposure and "cultivating revolutionary enthusiasm"
Lenin pointed out in this section that "improving the enthusiasm of workers and the masses" can only be achieved if it is not limited to political agitation on the economic basis. One of the basic conditions for expanding political agitation to the necessary level is to organize a comprehensive political disclosure. Without such openness, it is impossible to cultivate the political consciousness and revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses. “P354
It is impossible to expect such a political disclosure to happen spontaneously among workers. "When workers haven't learned to observe all the manifestations of other social classes in their ideological, spiritual and political life according to various concrete (urgent) political facts and practices, when workers …" We need to train our revolutionaries and instill this awareness into them from the outside. However, at present, we have not reached the requirements of the reality of mass movements. "We should blame ourselves, blame us for lagging behind the mass movement, and blame us for failing to organize a very common, obvious and rapid exposure of all these ugly phenomena." P355
4. What do economism and terrorism have in common?
This section is easy to understand: the "economic faction" worships the spontaneity of the "pure workers' movement", while the terrorists worship the spontaneity of the most fanatical resentment of intellectuals who are not good at or impossible to combine revolutionary work with the workers' movement. These two tendencies, "whether calling for the use of terrorist means or calling for giving the economic struggle itself a political nature, are nothing more than shirking the most urgent responsibility that Russian revolutionaries should shoulder, that is, organizing different forms of comprehensive political agitation." P362
The working class is an advanced fighter for democracy.
This section is very long, but the meaning is very clear. There is only one point: to train our advanced fighters of social democracy! In the article, Lenin repeatedly debated the importance of advanced fighters, and proposed that "in order to instill political knowledge into workers, social Democrats should go to residents of all classes and exclude their own teams from all aspects." P363
Next, Lenin pointed out what our advanced soldiers should always do in their work: "The ideal of social Democrats should not be the secretary of the trade union, but the spokesman of the people. They should be good at responding to all arbitrary and tyrannical phenomena, no matter where they occur or which class they involve; They should be good at synthesizing all these phenomena into a picture of police brutality and capitalist exploitation; They should be good at using every hour to explain their socialist beliefs and their democratic requirements and explain the world historical significance of the proletarian liberation struggle. " P364-365 In the following paragraphs, Lenin also pointed out, "We should cultivate the practical workers of the Social Democratic Party into political leaders, that is, be good at leading all forms of this all-round struggle, and be good at' putting forward a positive action program' to excited students, dissatisfied local autonomy, angry sects, aggrieved teachers of ethnic schools and others when necessary." P369 Why did Lenin repeatedly emphasize? Because "one of the basic shortcomings of our movement in politics and organization is that we are not good at using all these forces to give everyone proper jobs." P370 In specific work, "the working class is the ideal audience for political disclosure, because they need comprehensive and vivid politics first, because they can best turn this knowledge into active struggle, even if this kind of struggle cannot produce' significant results'. Only all-Russian newspapers can become a forum for the whole people to expose. " P372
6. It is both a "slanderer" and a "fabricator".
In this section, Lenin criticized the Democrats' criticism of Workers' Cause. In this section, Lenin only explained why Workers' Cause was so angry. "In fact, as long as you think about it a little, you can understand why any act of worshipping the spontaneity of mass movements and any act of reducing social democratic politics to unionist politics are all tools for preparing the foundation for turning the workers' movement into bourgeois democracy. "P378" Poor Workers' Career "! Can it come up with this clever trick one day?