What Is To Be Done? (novel by Chernyshevsky)
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What Is To Be Done? is a novel written by the Russian philosopher, journalist and literary critic Nikolai Chernyshevsky. Within the framework of a story of a privileged couple who decide to work for the revolution, and ruthlessly subordinate everything in their lives to the cause, the work furnished a blueprint for the asceticism and dedication unto death which became an ideal of the early socialist underground of the Russian Empire. When he wrote the novel, the author was himself imprisoned in the Peter and Paul fortress of St.Petersburg, and he was to spend years in Siberia; the book was smuggled out from his cell. Lenin, Plekhanov, Alexandra Kollontay and Rosa Luxemburg were all highly impressed with the book, and it became an official Soviet classic.
