French invasion of Russia French invasion of Russia The French invasion of Russia, known in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812 () and in France as the Russian Campaign (), began on 24 June 1812 when Napoleon's crossed the Neman River in an attempt to engage and defeat the Russian army. Napoleon hoped to compel Tsar Alexander I of Russia to cease trading with British merchants through proxies in an effort to pressure the United Kingdom to sue for peace. The official political aim of the campaign was to liberate Poland from the threat of Russia. Napoleon named the campaign the Second Polish
What Is to Be Done? (Tolstoy) the same Biblical reference (Luke 3:10–14). What Is to Be Done? (Tolstoy) What Is To Be Done? (sometimes translated as What Then Must We Do?) is a non-fiction work by Leo Tolstoy, in which Tolstoy describes the social conditions of Russia 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 and Vladimir Lenin; Tolstoy's Russian title is similar but not identical to Chernyshevsky's