LENIN ON ORGANIZATION 
ences had sometimes to take the place of con- 
gresses. Such was the case for example with the 
Bolshevik Conference, held in January 1912. It was 
not always possible to elect the local committees. 
The principle of cooption of committeemen had to 
be applied again. 
This illustrates the flexibility of the Bolshevik 
Party. Democracy for it did not present a principle 
applicable to all times and all conditions. The guid- 
ing factor in this was revolutionary expediency. The 
Bolshevik Party at one moment extends democracy 
in its ranks and at another it diminishes it (in 
periods of reaction). In the period of the civil war, 
and of war communism, the whole of the Bolshe- 
vik Party was converted into a military camp, and 
frequently, the decisions of the Central Committee 
were carried out as military orders. But, when the 
Civil War ended and the immediate danger of mil- 
itary intervention passed away, the Bolshevik Party 
again adopted the principle of democratic central- 
ism. 
The Fight Against the Liquidators. 
With the inception of the reaction after the revo- 
lution of 1905-06, the intellectuals left the Party. 
The Menshevik hangers-on of the Party revealed 
their true petty-bourgeois physiognomy and com- 
menced to liquidate the revolutionary slogans and 
the revolutionary proletarian Party. For the latter, 
they proposed to “substitute an amorphous body 
within the limits of legality even at the price of 
abandoning the program, the tactics and tradi- 
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