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of the fittest." The "natural election" exercised by complete publicity, election and universal control guarantees that in the long run every active member will be engaged in his "speciality," will occupy himself with matters best suited to his powers and capacities, and that he will suffer in his own person all the consequences of his blunders, and will reveal to all whether he is capable of admitting his blunders and avoiding them in the future.

Just try to fit this picture into the framework of our autocracy! Is it thinkable in our country that everybody "who accepts the principles of the Party program and supports the Party according to his ability" should control every action of the revolutionary conspirators, and that everybody should elect persons among the latter to given posts,—when every revolutionary is obliged in the interests of the cause to conceal from nine out of ten of "the electors" who he really is? One has only to reflect ever so little upon the real meaning of the fine-sounding phrases uttered by the "Rabochie Delo" in order to realize that "broad democracy" in a Party organization which exists under the eye of the gendarmes is a foolish and dangerous game. A foolish game because, as a matter of fact, no revolutionary organization has ever, or can ever, base itself on broad democracy, however much it may desire to! A dangerous game, because any attempt to introduce "the broad democratic principle" would merely assist the police in affecting widespread arrests, would perpetuate our pre-