LENIN ON ORGANIZATION
for each district, for each industrial quarter, and
for each educational institution (I know that exception
 will be taken to my “undemocratic” views, but
to such unintelligent objections I shall reply in detail
later). The centralization of the more conspiratorial
 functions in an organization of revolutionaries
will not diminish, but rather increase the extent and
the quality of the activity of a great number of
other organizations which are based on a wide
public and can therefore be as loose and as little
conspiratorial as possible, as for example, workers’
trade union secretary than a people’s tribune, who
and the reading of illegal literature and Social
Democratic circles of all other sections of the population,
 etc., etc. Such unions and organizations to
the greatest possible number and with the most
varied functions are necessary everywhere, but it
is foolish and dangerous to confuse them with
organizations of revolutionaries, to erase the borderline
 between them, to still further darken the
already unbelievably dim realization among the
masses of the fact that for the purpose of “serving”
the mass movement we require people who will
devote themselves exclusively to Social Democratic
activities, and that such people must train themselves
 patiently and steadfastly to be professional
revolutionaries.
Ay, the realization of this fact has become unbelievably
 dimmed. From the point of view of organization,
 our chief sin has been that by our amateurishness
 we have lowered the prestige of the revolu-R5