LENIN ON ORGANIZATION 
part in some peasants’ revolt. Today, we must 
take advantage of the strained political situation 
created by the government’s offensive against the 
zemstvos. Tomorrow, we have to support the 
population in their protest against the outbreak of 
some Czarist Bashi-Bazak and help, by boycott, 
agitation, demonstrations, etc., to teach him such 
a lesson that he will be forced to beat an open 
retreat. This stage of military preparedness can be 
achieved only by means of the constant activity of 
a regular army. If we unite our forces for the 
conduct of a common paper, that work will prepare 
and bring forward not only the most courageous 
propagandists, but also the most skilled organizers 
and the most talented political Party leaders, who 
will know the right moment to issue the call to 
battle and will be capable of conducting that bat- 
tle’. % 
The Newspaper as Collective Organizer. 
(From “What is to be Done?”, 1902). 
If we could manage to bring it about that all, or 
the great majority of the local committees, groups 
and circles shall take up the common task, we could 
in the very near future establish a weekly news- 
paper which would be regularly distributed in tens 
of thousands of copies, all over Russia. This news- 
paper would become a part of an enormous pair of 
bellows, blowing every spark of the class struggle 
and of popular discontent into a general conflagra- 
tion. Around this, what is in itself a very innocent 
and inconsiderable but regular and common task in 
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