Page:Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - On Organization (1926).pdf/78

"It is a bad thing when the crowd is mute and unenlightened, and when the movement does not proceed from the depths. For instance: the students of a university town leave for the holidays or go home for the summer, and the movement at once comes to a standstill. Can an organization which is pushed on from outside be a real force? It has still not learnt to walk, it is still in leading strings. So it is everywhere. The students go off, and everything comes to a standstill. The best of the cream is removed, and the milk turns sour. The 'committee' is arrested, and until a new one can be formed everything comes to a halt. Indeed, one never knows what sort of committee will be set up next—it may be quite different from the old one. The first preached one thing, the second may preach the very opposite. The sequence between yesterday and tomorrow is broken, the experience of the past does not enlighten the future. And all this comes about because roots have not been struck in the depths, in the crowd, because there are not a hundred fools at work, but ten wise men. Ten wise men can be caught up at a snap; but if the organization embraces the masses everything proceeds from the masses and nobody, however zealous, can stop the cause." (Page 63).