In What Is to Be Done?, Lenin in 1901 argues that the working class will not spontaneously become political simply by fighting economic battles with employers over wages, working hours and the like. To convert the working class to Marxism, Lenin insists that Marxists should form a political party, or "vanguard", of dedicated revolutionaries to spread Marxist political ideas among the workers.

Lenin said that the article represented "a skeleton plan to be developed in greater detail in a pamphlet now in preparation for print".