Page:Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - On Organization (1926).pdf/109
LENIN ON ORGANIZATION
of professional revolutionaries. If these conditions exist, something more than "democracy" is guaranteed, namely, complete fraternal confidence among revolutionaries. For us this is absolutely essential, since in Russia there can be no question of its replacement by general democratic control. It is a great mistake to think that because real "democratic" control is impossible, the members of a revolutionary organization remain uncontrolled. They have no time to think of the game of democratic forms (democracy within a compact body of comrades enjoying mutual confidence in each other), but they are keenly alive to their responsibility, knowing from experience that in order to get rid of an undesirable member, an organization of true revolutionaries will stop at nothing. Ay, we have a fairly developed Russian (and international) revolutionary public opinion, already with a history behind it, which punishes with merciless severity every abuse of duty by a comrade (and real "democracy," not the game of democracy, is a part of the conception 'comrade'!) Bear all this in mind, and you will notice the unpleasant odor of the foreign game of general elections, which hangs about the idle chatter and resolutions on "anti-democratic tendencies"!
It should be said that the second source of the idle chatter, i. e. naivete, is fed by a prevalent vagueness as to what democracy really means. In the Webbs' book on British Trade Unionism there is a curious chapter entitled "Primitive Democracy."
107