LENIN ON ORGANIZATION 
mocracy. (Between 1900 and 1903 ‘“Iskra” [the 
Spark], which later became known as the “old 
Iskra,” expressed the revolutionary policy of the left 
wing of Social Democracy, whereas after 1903 “Is- 
kra’” was conducted by the Mensheviks.) At about 
this time Comrade Lenin’s remarkable pamphlet 
“What is to be Done?” (1902) appeared, which 
played a notable part in the history of the construc- 
tion and development of the Russian Communist 
Party. In this pamphlet Comrade Lenin delivered 
crushing blows to the opportunistic tendency in the 
Russian Social Democracy—the so-called econ- 
omists, who appeared in the middle of the ’90’s. The 
“economists,” who were kindred to the “legal Marx- 
ists,” were typical opportunists, akin to the West 
European revisionists. They gave way to the spon- 
taneity of the labor movement and actually reduced 
it to mere trade unionism. They denied the neces- 
sity for a centralized Social Democratic Party and 
argued that organizations for the protection of the 
economic interests of the workers (benefit societies, 
strike funds, etc.) were sufficient. In “Iskra’” and 
the pamphlet “What is to be Done?” Lenin was the 
first to give a profoundly reasoned argument in fa- 
vor of the plan of organization of so-called ‘“pro- 
fessional revolutionaries” which he had put forward 
already in 1901. We reproduce several chapters of 
this pamphlet devoted to the question of organiza- 
tion in the present book. 
The organizational forms which the Social Dem- 
ocratic organizations in Russia assumed at that 
time can be seen from Lenin’s “Letter to a Com- 
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