Page:Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - On Organization (1926).pdf/69

gle, but also by the direct and conscious action of the Socialists in the union upon its members. But a wide organization cannot be a strictly conspiratorial organization (since the latter demands far greater preparatory work than is required for the economic struggle). How is the contradiction between the necessity for a large membership and the necessity for strictly conspiratorial methods to be reconciled? How are we to make the craft unions as little conspiratorial as possible? Generally speaking, there are perhaps only two ways to this end: either the craft unions become legalized (which in some countries precedes the legalization of the Socialist and political unions), or the organization is kept a secret one, but so "free" and "loose" that the need for conspiratorial methods become almost negligible as far as the mass of the members are concerned.

The legislation of the non-Socialist and non-political workers' union in Russia has already begun, and there is no doubt that every step made by our rapidly growing Social Democratic working class movement will increase and encourage the attempts at legalization. These attempts proceed for the most part from supporters of the existing order, but they must proceed also from the workers themselves and from the liberal intellectuals. The banner of legality has already been unfurled by the Vasilievs and the Zubatovs (4), support has been promised by the Ozerovs and the Bormsams; and followers of the new tendency are to be found even