V. I. LENIN

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

Burning Questions of Our Movement

CORRECTION TO WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

The Group of Initiators of whom I speak in the pamphlet What Is To Be Done?, p. 141,[107] have asked me to make the following correction to my description of the part they played in the attempt to reconcile the Social-Democratic organizations abroad: Of the three members of this group, only one left the Union at the end of 1900; the others left in 1901, only after they had become convinced that it was impossible to obtain the Union's consent to a conference with the Iskra organization abroad and the Revolutionary Sotsial-Demokrat Organization, which is what the Group of Initiators had proposed. The Managing Committee of the Union first rejected this proposal, claiming that the persons making up the Group of Initiators were "not competent" to act as mediators and expressed the desire to enter into direct contact with the Iskra organization abroad. Soon after, however, the Managing Committee of the Union informed the Group of Initiators that after the appearance of the first number of the Iskra containing the report of the split in the Union, it had altered its decision and no longer desired to have communication with the Iskra. After this, how can one

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explain the statement made by a member of the Managing Committee of the Union that the latter's rejection of a conference was called forth entirely by its dissatisfaction with the composition of the Group of Initiators? It is true that it is equally difficult to explain why the Managing Committee of the Union agreed to a conference in June last; for the article in the first issue of the Iskra still remained in force and the Iskra's "negative" attitude to the Union was still more strongly expressed in the first issue of the Zarya, and in No. 4 of the Iskra, both of which appeared prior to the June Conference.

<"notes">

NOTES
[Chapters 4 and 5]

^<"n80">[80] Reference is to the "Labour Group for Struggle Against Capital." It had a small membership and its views were close to those of the "Economists." Formed in St. Petersburg in the spring of 1899, it issued a mimeographed leaflet entitled "Our Program," which, however, was not circulated owing to the group's arrest. [p.127]

^<"n81">[81] Narcissus is the name of a character in Greek mythology who was so proud of his beauty that he rejected the love of all the goddesses. To punish him, Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, caused him to fall in love with his own reflection in the water, at which he stared until he pined away and

page 251

died. Here it is in the sense of conceit that Lenin uses the word. [p.130]

^<"n82">[82] V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th Russ. ed., Vol. 5, p. 6. p. 132 [p.132]

^<"n83">[83] N. N. -- S. N. Prokopovich, an active "Economist" and later a Cadet. [p.135]

^<"n84">[84] lose (German) -- loose. [p.141]

^<"n85">[85] Afanasi Ivanovich and Pulkberia Ivanovna -- old-world small provincial landowners described by Gogol in Old-World Landowners. [p.142]

^<"n86">[86] overwhelmed by too much. [p.149]

^<"n87">[87] Lenin is referring to his revolutionary activity in St. Petersburg in 1893-95. [p.156]

^<"n88">[88] Cf. The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats, p. 21, polemics against P. L. Lavrov. (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th Russ. ed., Vol. 2, pp. 316-17.) [Transcriber's Note: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th Eng. ed., Vol. 2, pp. 323-51. The polemic is on pp. 339-49. -- DJR] [p.166]

^<"n89">[89] Reference is to the pamphlet Report on the Russian Social-Democratic Movement to tbe International Socialist Congress in Paris, 1900. The report was submitted to the Congress by the Editorial Board of the Rabocheye Dyelo on behalf of the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad and was issued in a separate pamphlet in Geneva in 1901. The pamphlet also contained the report of the Bund ("History of the Jewish Working-Class Movement in Russia and Poland"). [p.177]

^<"n90">[90] V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th Russ. ed., Vol. 5, pp. 1-12. [p.189]

^<"n91">[91] Augean stable means a place marked by a staggering accumulation of corruption and filth. According to a Greek legend the stable of Augeas was left uncleaned for 30 years until Hercules cleaned it in one day. [p.190]

^<"n92">[92] im Werden (German) -- coming into existence. [p.193]

^<"n93">[93] This footnote was inserted by Lenin for the sake of secrecy. The facts are enumerated here in the order in which they actually took place. [p.194]

^<"n94">[94] V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th Russ. ed., Vol. 2, pp. 299-326 and 243-91. [Transcriber's Note: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th Eng. ed., Vol. 2, pp. 323-54 and pp. 267-315. -- DJR] p. 194 [p.194]

^<"n95">[95] Reference is to the negotiations of the St. Petersburg League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class with Lenin, who in the second half of 1897 wrote the two pamphlets mentioned in the text. [p.194]

^<"n96">[96] The League -- reference is to the League of Russian Revolutionary Social-Democrats Abroad, founded in October 1901 on Lenin's initiative.

Affiliated to the League were the Iskra-Zarya organization abroad and the Sotsial-Demokrat organization (which included the Emancipation of Labour group). The League was the representative of the Iskra abroad. It published several issues of its Bulletin and a number of pamphlets, including one by V. I. Lenin, To the Village Poor. The Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. endorsed the League as the sole party organization abroad with the status of a Party committee. Following the Second Congress, the Mensheviks entrenched themselves in the League and from this position waged a struggle against Lenin and the Bolsheviks. [p.194]

^<"n97">[97] Reference is to the negotiations between the Central Committee of the Bund and V. I. Lenin. [p.195]

^<"n98">[98] V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th Russ. ed., Vol. 4, pp. 190-94, 195-200 and 201-06. [Transcriber's Note: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th Eng. ed., Vol. 4, pp. 210-14, 215-220 and 221-26. -- DJR] [p.195]

^<"n99">[99] In relating the "fourth fact," Lenin has in view the attempt of the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad and the Bund to convene the Second Congress of the Party in the spring of 1900. The "Member of the Committee" mentioned by Lenin is I. Kh. Lalayants (mernber of the Yekaterinoslav Social-Democratic Committee), who came to Moscow in February 1900 for talks with V. I. Lenin. [p.195]

^{<"n100">[100]} Lenin is quoting from D. I. Pisarev's article "Errors of Immature Thought." (Pisarev, Selected Works in Two Volumes, Russ. ed., 1935, Vol. 2, pp. 124-25.) [p.211]

^{<"n101">[101]} Lenin refers here to the following passage in Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte:
"Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce." (Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1951, Vol. I, p. 225.) [p.213]

^{<"n102">[102]} Janizaries -- elite rifle troops of the Ottoman Empire, abolished in 1826. The Janizaries were known for their plunder of the population and wanton brutality. Lenin uses the term to describe the tsarist police. [p.217]

^{<"n103">[103]} This appendix was omitted by Lenin when What Is To Be Done? was republished in 1907 in the collection Twelve Years. [p.226]

^{<"n104">[104]} See V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th Russ. ed., Vol. 4, pp. 353-54. [Transcriber's Note: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th Eng. ed., Vol. 4, pp. 378-79. -- DJR] [p.226]

^{<"n105">[105]} Ibid., Vol. 5, pp. 1-12. [p.228]

^{<"n106">[106]} Iskra, No. 18 (March 10, 1902), published in its section "From the Party" an item entitled "The Zarya's Polemics with the Vorwärts," which summed up the controversy. [p.232]

^{<"n107">[107]} See p. 227 of this book. [p.235]