LENIN ON ORGANIZATION
THE AMATEURISHNESS OF THE ECONOMISTS
AND AN ORGANIZATION OF
REVOLUTIONARIES.
(From “What Is to Be Done?”’—February, 1902).
a) Why “Amateurish”?
_... We will attempt to answer this question
by giving a brief description of the activities of a
typical Social Democratic circle during the years
1894-1901. We have already described the unbounded
 enthusiasm displayed for Marxism by the
student youth of that period. This enthusiasm
Marxism aroused not only, indeed not so much, as
a theory, or because it was a reply to the question,
what is to be done?—but as a call to arms. The
new soldiers went into the fight armed with amazingly
 primitive weapons and with astonishingly
little preparation. Indeed, in the majority of cases
there were neither weapons nor preparation of any
kind. They went to war like peasants from the
plough, armed with simple cudgels. A circle of
students, unconnected with the older active members
 of the movement, unconnected with groups
in other places or even in other districts of the

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