Full text: Lenin on organization

LENIN ON ORGANIZATION 
able to embrace the whole, or nearly the whole of 
the working class. We would simply be deceiving 
ourselves, closing our eyes to the tremendousness 
of our tasks, and narrowing those tasks, if we 
allowed ourselves to forget the difference between 
the front rank and the masses which are straining 
towards it, or to forget that it is the permanent 
duty of the front rank to lift ever larger sections 
to its own level. It is by thus closing our eyes and 
forgetting that the border line between those who 
associate with and those who belong, between the 
conscious and active and the mere supporters, 
becomes effaced. 
To cite the fact that we are a class Party as a 
justification of organizational slovenliness and of 
the confusion of organization with disorganization, 
is to repeat the error of Nadezhidin (19), who con- 
fused the “philosophical and social-historical ques- 
tion of striking the ‘roots’ of a movement into ‘the 
depths’ ” with the technical question of organization 
(cf. “What is to be Done,” page 19 of this book). 
This confusion, to which Comrade Axelrod set the 
example, was repeated scores of times by the 
orators who supported the draft of Comrade Mar- 
tov. “The more widely the name of Party mem- 
bers is distributed the better,” said Comrade Mar- 
tov, failing to explain, however, what advantage 
is to be gained from the wide distribution of a 
hame which does not correspond with its denota- 
tion. Can it be denied that control over members 
who belong to no organization of the Party must 
127
	        
Waiting...

Note to user

Dear user,

In response to current developments in the web technology used by the Goobi viewer, the software no longer supports your browser.

Please use one of the following browsers to display this page correctly.

Thank you.