LENIN ON ORGANIZATION 
cratic movement. Such people perhaps argue that 
the later a country appears in the arena of capital- 
ism, the more may the Socialists of that country 
take part in and support the trade union movement, 
and the less reason is there for non-Social Demo- 
cratic trade unions. So far the argument is abso- 
lutely right; but unfortunately it goes beyond that 
and hints at the complete fusion of Social Demo- 
cracy with trade unionism. We shall soon see 
from the example of the statutes of the Petersburg 
Fighting Union (3) what a harmful effect this has 
upon our plan of organization. The workers’ 
organizations for carrying on the economic struggle 
should be trade union organizations; every Social 
Democratic worker should as far ag possible support 
and actively work within these organizations. That 
is true. But it would be far from our interests to 
demand that the members of “craft” unions should 
be exclusively Social Democrats. The effect of that 
would only be to narrow our influence over the 
masses. Let every worker who understands that 
a union is necessary in order to carry on the strug- 
gle against the masters and the government take 
part in the craft unions. The very objects of the 
craft unions would be unattainable unless they 
united all who were open to even this elementary 
level of understanding, and unless they were 
extremely wide organisations. The wider these 
organizations are the wider our influence over them 
will be. The influence will be exerted not only by 
the “elemental” development of the economic strug- 
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