Page:Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - On Organization (1926).pdf/87
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-
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