LENIN ON ORGANIZATION
from functions which are essentially legal (the
distribution of legal books, mutual aid, etc.) and
the development of which will inevitably provide us
with increasing material for agitation. Looked at
from this point of view, we may say, and we should
say, to the Zubatovs and the Ozerovs, “Do your
best, gentlemen. To the extent that you are seeking
 to place a trap in the path of the workers
(either by way of direct provocation or by the
“honest” corruption of the workers with the aid of
‘Struvism’) (5) we shall take care to expose you.
But to the extent that you are making a real step
forward—in a rather timid and zig-zag fashion, it
is true—we say, Please, go on!” A real step forward
 can only result in a real, if small, extension
of the field of action of the workers. And every
Such extension must result to our advantage and
help to hasten the advent of legal societies of the
kind in which agent-provocateurs will not catch
Socialists, but the Socialists will catch supporters.
In a word, our task is to fight down the tares. It
is not our business to grow wheat in window pots.
By pulling up the tares we clear the soil for the
Wheat. And while the old gentlemen are tending
their flowerpot cultures, we must prepare reapers,
hot only to cut down the tares of today, but also
to harvest the wheat of tomorrow. *
* The campaign of “Iskra’ against the tares evoked the
following angry outbreak on the part of ‘“Rabochie Delo”:
“For ‘Iskra’ the signs of the times lie not in the great events
of the spring, but in the miserable attempts of the agents of
Zubatov to ‘legalize’ the working class movement. It fails

69