LENIN ON ORGANIZATION
haps is revisionism in all countries, in spite of its
manifold forms and colors, so uniform as on the
question of organization.” The fundamental tendencies
 of orthodoxy and revisionism K. Kautsky
describes with the aid of “a terrible word”’—bureaucracy
 versus democracy. “We are told,” writes
K. Kautsky, “that to allow the Party leadership to
influence the selection of a candidate (to parliament)
 by the local electoral districts is a shameful
attack on the democratic principle, which demands
that all political activity should proceed from the
bottom upwards, by means of the independent action
 of the masses, and not from above downwards,
by means of bureaucracy. . . . But if there is
any real democratic principle, it is that the majority
should dominate over the minority, and not vice
versa. . . .” The election of members of parliament
 by any individual constituency is an important
question for the Party as a whole; it must influence
the selection of the candidates even though it be
through the appointed representatives of the Party
(Vertrauensménner). “Whoever thinks this too
bureaucratic or centralized, let him try to suggest
that candidates should be appointed by the direct
vote of all the members of the Party (Sdmmtliche
Parteigenossen). Since that is impossible, it is no
use complaining that there is too little democracy
when the function we have referred to, like many
others affecting the whole Party, are carried out
by one or more Party instances.” According to
“customary right” in the German Party, the indi-181