LENIN ON ORGANIZATION 
gle, but also by the direct and conscious action of 
the Socialists in the union upon its members. But 
a wide organization cannot be a strictly conspira- 
torial organization (since the latter demands far 
greater preparatory work than is required for the 
economic struggle). How is the contradiction be- 
tween the necessity for a large membership and 
the necessity for strictly conspiratorial methods to 
be reconciled? How are we to make the craft 
unions as little conspiratorial as possible? General- 
ly speaking, there are perhaps only two ways to 
this end: either the craft unions become legalized 
(which in some countries precedes the legalization 
of the Socialist and political unions), or the organ- 
ization is kept a secret one, but so “free” and 
“loose” that the need for conspiratorial methods 
become almost negligible as far as the mass of the 
members are concerned. 
The legislation of the non-Socialist and non- 
political workers’ union in Russia has already 
begun, and there is no doubt that every step made 
by our rapidly growing Social Democratic working 
class movement will increase and encourage the 
attempts at legalization. These attempts proceed 
for the most part from supporters of the existing 
order, but they must proceed also from the workers 
themselves and from the liberal intellectuals. The 
banner of legality has already been unfurled by the 
Vasilievs and the Zubatovs (4), support has been 
Promised by the Ozerovs and the Bormsams; and 
followers of the new tendency are to be found even 
67