LENIN ON ORGANIZATION 
VIII, 
ON THE ROAD. 
(From the “Social Democrat,” No. 2, Feb. 19, 1909). 
A year of disintegration lies behind us, a year of 
confusion in political ideas, for the Party a year 
of pathless wandering. The Party organizations 
have been steadily losing in membership, and some 
of them—those with the least proletarian member- 
ship—have altogether fallen to pieces. The semi- 
open Party institutions have suffered defeat after 
defeat. Things came to such a pass that certain 
elements in the Party, surrendering to the influ- 
ences of decay, began to ask whether it was neces- 
sary to preserve the old Social Democratic Party at 
all, whether its cause was to be continued, whether 
it was necessary to go underground, and if So, how. 
And to this the extreme right elements replied by 
advocating legalization at all costs, even at the 
price of the direct sacrifice of the Party program, 
its tactics and organization (the so-called liquida- 
tionist movement). The crisis was evidently not 
merely one of organization, but also one of political 
ideas. 
The recent National Conference of the Russian 
Social Democratic Labor Party brought the Party 
on to the road again and was apparently the turning 
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