LENIN ON ORGANIZATION 
58, page 2, col. 3) but they would prefer at first to 
deal with “general questions of organization” (for 
the real radical form of our statutes, which in spite 
of par. 1 is still centralistic, if carried out in the 
spirit of the new “Iskra” would certainly lead to 
autonomism, and Comrade Martov, of course, does 
not like to admit his tendency to autonomism in 
principle, even to himself). Their “fundamental” 
position on the question of organization therefore 
displays all the colors of the rainbow: innocent and 
pathetic declamations against autocracy and bu- 
reaucracy, blind subordination, and screws and 
wheels, predominate—declamations so innocent 
that it is difficult to distinguish what is really funda- 
mental in them and what is really concerned with 
co-option. But the deeper we go into the forest, 
the thicker the trees become. Attempts to analyze 
and define exactly the so much detested “bureau- 
cratism” inevitably leads to autonomism, to the 
justification of backwardness, to “khvostism,” to 
Girondist phrasemongering. Finally, the only, real- 
ly definite principle in practice, and therefore the 
one that stands out most clearly (for practice al- 
ways precedes theory) is the principle of anarchism. 
Ridicule of discipline — autonomism — anarchism, 
that is the ladder upon which opportunism on ques- 
tions of organization ascends and descends, leaping 
from step to step and dexterously avoiding a defi- 
nite formulation of its principles.* The same grada- 
* Those who remember the discussion on par. 1 of the 
statutes will now clearly see that the error committed by 
187