LENIN ON ORGANIZATION
carries on every kind of work, does not devote
himself to certain definite functions, is not responsible
 for some special duty, never carries a wellconsidered
 and well-prepared piece of work to an
end, and spends an enormous amount of time and
energy in simply running to and fro—and, on the
other hand, embrace a great mass of student and
workers’ circles, half of which are altogether unknown
 to the committee, and the other half are
huge unspecialized, accumulating no professional
experience, nor making use of the experience of
others, and, like the committee itself, engaged in
endless conferences about everything in general, in
elections and in the drawing up of statutes. In
order that the centre may be able to work properly,
the local committees must be re-formed; they must
become specialized and ‘business-like’ organizations
 which will be capable of achieving real “improvements”
 in some one or other practical sphere.
In order that the centre should do more than discuss,
 argue and wrangle (as has been the case
hitherto) but really conduct the orchestra, it is
necessary that it should know who is playing which
fiddle and where; who has learnt, or is learning to
play a certain instrument, and how and where; who
is playing a false note (that is, when the music
happens to go wrong) and where and why, and
who must be transferred, and where to in order
that the discord be corrected, etc. Let it be said
openly, at the present moment we either know
nothing about the real internal work of a given

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