I myself do not really view “What is to be Done?” as a great beginner work for Marxists, since it mentions a lot of obscure philosophers or groups that a modern audience (with their cursory knowledge of Russian history being from the lips of liberals, or worse, conservatives) would hardly know the context of, and I am reading a version that has notes on these people!

That is not to say that it is not an influential or essential work of Lenin (I think it might be up there with “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism” and “The State and Revolution” in terms of either factor), but one has to be willing to trudge through Russian names that you will likely never hear again.

  • LeninZedong@lemmygrad.mlOP
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    5 days ago

    I do think that it should really be taught in schools (under socialism because capitalism will reject it) because idealist thinking (as Faux) mentioned is really harmful in many ways, like the propagation of harmful beliefs (anti-vaccination) to misinformed ideologies about how capitalism works (“free market” is capitalism). Thank you for mentioning that it applies to all spheres of knowledge because I kind of forgot.