LENIN ON ORGANIZATION
By means of legalization, therefore, we cannot
solve the problem of creating a trade union organ-
ization which will be as little conspiratorial and as
widely extensive as possible (but we should be
extremely glad if the Zubatovs and the Ozerovs
provided even the slightest opportunity for such a
solution,—to which end we must fight them as ener-
getically as possible!) There only remains the path
of secret trade union organizations; and we must
offer every possible assistance to the workers, who
(as we know) have already adopted this path.
Trade union organizations may not only be of tre-
mendous value in developing and consolidating the
economic struggle, but may also become a very
useful auxiliary to the political, agitational and
revolutionary organizations. In order to achieve
this purpose, and in order to guide the beginnings
of the trade union movement in the direction desired
by the Social Democrats, we must first fully under-
stand the foolishness of the plan of organization
with which the Petersburg economists have been
occupying themselves for nearly five years. That
plan is described both in the “Statutes for a Work-
ers’ Fund” of July, 1897, and in the “Statutes for
to see that these facts tell against it and prove that the
working class movement is assuming menacing proportions
in the eyes of the government.” (Two Congresses,” D. 27%).
For this we have to blame the “dogmatism” of the “blind
and perverted” orthodox. They obstinately refuse to see the
yard-high wheat and are fighting down the inch-high tares!
Does this not reveal a “distorted sense of perspective with
regard to the Russian working class movement?” (idem.
D. 27).
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