LENIN ON ORGANIZATION 
conditions to establish and maintain the iron disci- 
pline the victory of the proletariat demands. 
The question arises first of all, how is the disci- 
pline of the revolutionary Party of the proletariat 
maintained? How is it being tested? How is it 
being strengthened? Firstly, by the consciousness 
of the proletarian vanguard and its devotion to the 
revolution, its steadfastness, its self-sacrifice and its 
heroism. Secondly, by its ability to maintain con- 
tact and to obtain approach, to fuse itself, if you 
like, with the wide mass of the toilers,—firstly and 
foremost with the proletarian toiling masses, but 
also with the non-proletarian toiling masses. Third- 
ly, by the correct political leadership exercised by 
the vanguard and its correct political strategy and 
tactics, which are conducted in such a way that the 
wide masses are able to convince themselves of 
their correctness by their own experience. Without 
these conditions, discipline cannot be maintained in 
a revolutionary Party really capable of being the 
Party of the class which is destined to overthrow 
the bourgeoisie and transforms the whole of society. 
Without these conditions, discipline must inevitably 
be an empty-sounding phrase, a crooked gesture. 
But such conditions cannot be created immediately. 
They are the result of long effort and painful expe- 
rience; their creation is facilitated by a correct 
revolutionary theory, a theory which is not a dog- 
ma, but which has been built up by close association 
with the experience of a real mass, revolutionary 
movement. 
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