''What Is to Be Done?'', sometimes translated as ''What Then Must We Do?'' (Russian: ''Так что же нам делать?''), is a

non-fiction Nonfiction, or non-fiction, is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide information (and sometimes opinions) grounded only in facts and real life, rather than in imagination. Nonfiction is often associated with b ...

work by

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...

in which he describes the social conditions of

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

in his day. Tolstoy completed the book in 1886 and the first English language publication came in 1887 as ''What to Do?''. A revised translation with the current title was published in 1899. The English title was also used for two better-known works by

Nikolai Chernyshevsky Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky ( – ) was a Russian literary and social critic, journalist, novelist, democrat, and socialist philosopher, often identified as a utopian socialist and leading theoretician of Russian nihilism. He was ...

and

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

. Tolstoy's Russian title is similar, but not identical to Chernyshevsky's and Lenin's (''Что делать?''), both of them sharing the same Biblical reference (Luke 3:10–14).

External links

''What Is To Be Done?''
at TheAnarchistLibrary.org.
''What Shall We Do?''
at Revoltlib.com.

at Marxists.org
''What Then Must We Do?''
at Archive.org, OCR transcription needs work.
''What to Do?''
1887 English translation available on Google Books.
''What Is to Be Done?''
1899 English translation available on Google Books.
''What Then Must We Do?''
Complete English translation. 1886 non-fiction books Books by Leo Tolstoy Works about Russia {{Russia-culture-stub