LENIN ON ORGANIZATION 
system of convictions, it does not express definite 
organizational relations. But we can and should 
forbid individuals, circles and persons “regarding 
themselves as part of the Party,” if such circles 
and persons do harm to the cause of the Party by 
distorting and disorganizing it. It would be ridicu- 
lous to speak of the Party as a whole, as a political 
magnitude, if it were unable to forbid a circle “by 
degree” a circle from “regarding itself as a part” 
of the whole! Why then lay down the method and 
conditions for exclusion from the Party? Comrade 
Axelrod has patently reduced the fundamental error 
of Comrade Martov to an absurdity he even trans- 
formed that error into an opportunist theory when 
mally, it would be enough to set up an “organization of 
agents of the Central Committee,” and pass a resolution in- 
cluding it in the Party, and the “difficulty” which ogcasioned 
Comrade Martov so much head-splitting thought would have 
at once disappeared. The idea of par. 1 in my draft con- 
sisted in the spur, “Organize yourselves!” in order to guaran- 
tee real control and guidance. From the standpoint of essen- 
tials, the very question as to whether the agents of the Cen- 
tral Committee would form part of the Party is ridiculous, 
since real control over them is fully and unconditionally 
secured by the very fact that they had been appointed agents, 
and are allowed to retain the post of agents. There can, 
therefore, be no question here of the confusion of the organ- 
ized and the unorganized (which is the root error of Comrade 
Martov’s formula), The unsuitability of Comrade Martov’s 
formula lies in the fact that anybody and everybody can 
declare himself to be a member of the Party, every oppor- 
tunist, every boaster, every “professor” and every “student.” 
Comrade Martov tries to gloss over this Achille’s heel of his 
formula by quoting examples where there is in fact no ques- 
tion of people who are not members of the Party declaring 
themselves such. 
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