What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats

This title was written in response to a series of anti-Marxist articles in a leading intellectual journal of the day. At only 24 years old, it was Lenin's first major work. In it he articulated the basic propositions of the Russian revolutionary Social-Democrats: on the role of the working class, the necessity of unity between the working class and the peasants, and on the leading role of the Marxist party in the struggle. Lenin's book was hectographed in three separate parts and was illegally circulated. Copies of the first and the third parts of the book were discovered in 1923. The second part of the book has still not been found. This is the complete text of the first and third parts.