Page:Vladimir Ilyich Lenin - On Organization (1926).pdf/96

In order to prepare himself fully for his work the worker revolutionary should also become a professional revolutionary. Therefore B-v. is wrong when he says that because a worker is engaged in the factory for 11½ hours a day, other revolutionary functions (apart from agitation) "willy-nilly fall mainly upon the shoulders of an extremely limited number of intellectuals," This happens by no means "willy-nilly," but solely because of our own backwardness, because we fail to recognize that it is our duty to assist every worker who distinguishes himself by his capacities to become a professional agitator, organizer, propangadist, distributor, etc., etc. We are indeed in this respect shamefully profligate of our forces; we do not know how to preserve that which we should be looking after and developing with every possible care. Look at the Germans! Their forces are a hundred times greater than ours; yet they perfectly understand that real agitators are by no means frequently thrown up out of the "average" mass. They therefore at once endeavor to place every capable worker under such conditions as will insure his capacities receiving the fullest development and the fullest employment. They make him a professional agitator, he is encouraged to widen his sphere of activities, and to extend it from the factory to the whole industry, from one locality to the whole country. He acquires experience and skill in his own profession, he broadens his vision and knowledge, he observes at close range outstanding leaders from other local-