Page:Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - On Organization (1926).pdf/94

reactionary nature of the "pedagogy" with which we are so often regaled in discussions on our duties towards the masses. It proves that our first and most urgent duty is to assist in training working class revolutionaries, who with regard to Party activities will be on the same level as intellectual revolutionaries (we emphasize the words "with regard to Party activities," for although it is necessary for the worker to attain a similar level also in other respects, it is not so easy, nor is it so urgent). Therefore our main attention should be devoted to raising the workers to the level of revolutionaries, and not to lowering ourselves to the level of the "working masses," as the economists advocate, or to the level of the "average worker" as "Svoboda" advocates, (whereby raising itself to the second stage of economic "pedagogy"). I am far from denying the necessity for popular literature for the workers and of especially popular literature (provided, of course, it be not puerile) for the more backward workers. But the perpetual intrusion of pedagogy in questions of politics and organization makes me ill. As a mater of fact, you gentlemen who are so concerned about the "average worker" insult the worker by your greater readiness to condescend than to discuss working class politics or working class organization. Speak of serious things, straighten your backs and leave pedagogy to the pedagogues, not to politicians and organizers! Are there not advanced people, "average" people and the "mass" among the intellectuals themselves?