LENIN ON ORGANIZATION 
people boasting of their “sensitiveness to the de- 
mands 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 prin- 
ciple”! 
The position is no better as regards the second 
requisite of democracy—election. This principle is 
taken for granted in a country where political free- 
dom 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-and- 
such an evolution, that at a difficult moment of his 
life he conducted himself in such-and-such a man- 
ner, 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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