LENIN ON ORGANIZATION
people boasting of their “sensitiveness to the demands
 of life,” who in such a situation insist—not
on the necessity for the strictest conspiracy, and
the strictest (and therefore the closest) selection
of members,—but on “the broad democratic principle”!

The position is no better as regards the second
requisite of democracy—election. This principle is
taken for granted in a country where political freedom
 prevails. “A person is regarded as a member
of the party who accepts the principles of the Party
program and supports the Party according to his
ability,”—runs the first paragraph of the statutes
of the German Social Democratic Party. And since
the political arena is open to the sight of all, as the
stage is to the audience of a theatre, everybody can
learn either from the newspapers or from public
meetings who accepts or who does not accept, who
Supports and who does not support. Everybody
knows that such-and-such a politician began in
such-and-such a way, passed through such-andsuch
 an evolution, that at a difficult moment of his
life he conducted himself in such-and-such a manner,
 and that he is distinguished by such-and-such
qualities—and therefore, of course, all the members
of the Party can, with full knowledge of what they
are doing, elect that person or not to a given Party
post. General control (in the literal sense of the
word) over every step made by a member of the
Party in the sphere of politics creates an automatic
mechanism, which in biology is called “the survival

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