LENIN ON ORGANIZATION 
solved that the election of delegates to the con- 
ference shall take place after the members of the 
party have discussed the question as to whether 
an alliance should be concluded with the Cadets, 
after all the members of the party have voted on 
this question. Elections are a business in which the 
masses directly take part. Hence, every Party mem- 
ber must intelligently decide the question as to 
whether we should vote for Cadets at the elections, 
or not. And only after an open discussion of this 
question, after all the members of the Party will 
have got together, will it be possible for each one 
of us to take an intelligent and firm decision.” 
Here, as in many other places, Lenin particularly 
Stresses the activity and participation of the whole 
of the membership in the decision of Party ques- 
tions. It is they who at the conferences and con- 
gresses elect all the leading party bodies, which are 
responsible to their constituents. At the same time, 
the decisions of the higher party organs are obliga- 
tory for the subordinate Party organs. This is the 
application of the principle of democratic central- 
ism, which, already at that time, was practised by 
Lenin, with some modifications made necessary by 
the factional struggle between the Bolsheviks and 
the Mensheviks. We shall refer to this again. 
In the severely illegal conditions in the period of 
the reaction and of the imperialist war, it was im- 
Possible normally to convene Party congresses and 
conferences. In the period between the Fifth Con- 
gress (1907) and the Sixth Congress (1917) confer- 
21