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'What is to be Done?' Exhibition

I was recently sent this by a friend. People
might find it worth
contributing to. Apologies if it has already
appeared on the Marxism list.




--------------------------------
We are
writing to let you know about a forthcoming
exhibition at the
Lenin
Museum in Tampere,

Finland. ?What is to be Done? Questions for the
21st Century?,

appeals
for
your response to

Lenin?s original question "what is to be done?"
posed in 1902. Your

response, along with those of
others
drawn from a local, national and international
public, will be

documented, archived and

displayed in the exhibition.


Lenin?s ideas about revolutionary change, the
relationship between
local

movements and universal
social
struggles, as well as his predictions about late
capitalism
and

imperialism seem surprisingly

relevant today. ?What is to be Done? Questions
for the 21st Century?

encourages you to write
down
any thoughts you might have about possible social
change today.
Your
response can be

something short, a slogan, an idea or a reference
to a specific

situation you feel is important. Under
late
capitalism?s all encompassing reach, it is our
very freedom to
think
that is being eroded. In the
spirit
of Lenin?s thought, we repeat the question ?what
is to be
done?
as a
sincere appeal for your
ideas
and thoughts on our future.

The
Lenin museum opened in January 1946 in the
Tampere Workers' Hall
where
Lenin had

pledged to further the cause of Finnish
independence. In the same

building, Lenin and Stalin met
for
the first time in 1905. The museum preserves,
exhibits and

researches the objects, documents
and
symbols of the Soviet era and has developed into
a widely

acclaimed

institute of culture and

research. The downfall of the Soviet Union has
left the museum the
last

regularly operating
museum
of its kind in the whole world.

In the
following e-mail there will be a series of short
statements
and

questions that we now ask you
to
respond to. We request that you e-mail your
response, which we
will
then
transfer to a time
card
format for the exhibition. All responses will be
gathered

together,

translated in Finnish and

Russian, documented and presented as an archive
at the Lenin Museum
in

January 2003. With
your
permission, multiple copies of your response will
be made so
that

visitors to the museum can
take
some ideas away. Please indicate in your e-mail
if you are

willing
to let
us make copies. We
need
to have all of our responses in by mid-November
2002, so that we
have
time to translate

everything!

This
question is asked of individuals and groups in
Tampere and

broader

national and international

constituencies in Finland, Russia, the US and
elsewhere. The

questions
also
currently appear in

several international art journals with
perforated response cards.
Please
feel free to pass on the

questions to any interested friends or
colleagues. We would like to

harness the energies of those
who
think about change today and put them into
dialogue in this

important public space.

Thank
you for your time and participation!

Yours
sincerely,

Susan
Kelly and Stephen Morton
===
WHAT
IS TO BE DONE?

Questions for the 21st CenturY


Lenin?s description of imperialism as the highest
stage of capitalism
now
seems like a self-fulfilling

prophecy. After the collapse of the Soviet bloc
the total spread of

unregulated global capitalism is
seen
as inevitable. With this spread, a third of the
world?s

population
lives
on less than $2 a day
and
the poorest countries in the world owe a $422
billion debt that
can
never
be paid. Yet, events
in
Seattle, Genoa and elsewhere show that global
capitalism can be

resisted. Do you think that

Lenin?s ideas are of any use today? What are the
burning social and

political questions of our
time?


****************

When
Lenin wrote What is to be Done? in 1902, he
mainly wanted to

distinguish between radical

revolutionary politics and the reformists who
just wanted to patch
things
up. Lenin was intolerant
of
questions that failed to really challenge the
dominant political
order.
How can we provoke

significant change today and do you think any
real shift can really
happen
under our present

system?


*****************

The
Lenin Museum in Tampere is the site of Lenin and
Stalin?s first

meeting. Lenin?s ideas are
often
seen as leading inevitably to Stalinism and the
terror of the
Soviet
Empire. This has been
called
the Leninist Tragedy. At the scene of their
meeting, is it

possible to rescue some of Lenin?s
ideas
from this fate? How can we prevent social change
from turning
into
a
situation where the
same
structures of power are re-established with
different players at
the
top?


*****************

In
Tampere, 1906 Lenin made a pledge to honour the
Finnish right to

self-determination after the

Bolshevik Revolution. Lenin believed that Marx?s
revolutionary ideas
had
to be
adapted to the
local
and national conditions of workers rather than
being imposed
from
above.
In Lenin?s time,
this
mobilisation of worker?s movements was the most
effective way of

achieving international

solidarity. The phrase ?workers of the world
unite? may now seem like
an

impossible ideal since
late
capitalism has crushed union power and pitted the
workers of the
world
against one another.

Despite this gloomy picture, from where you stand
right now, what are
the
possibilities for social
change
today?


****************

In
short, what is to be done?

Please
e-mail your response in not more than 300 words
to

whatistobedone@xxxxxxxxxx or mail
to:
What
is to be Done? The Lenin Museum

Hämeenpuisto 28, FIN-33200 Tampere, FINLAND
http://www.tampere.fi/culture/lenin/

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~~~~~~~
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