V. I.

Lenin

A Letter to a Comrade on Our Organisational Tasks [4]

Dear Comrade, It is with pleasure that I accede to your request for a criticism of your
draft for the “Organisation of the St. Petersburg Revolutionary
Party.” (Most likely you meant the organisation of the work of the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party in St. Petersburg.) The question you have
raised is so important that all members of the St. Peters burg Committee,
and even all Russian Social-Democrats in general, should take part in its
discussion.

First of all, let me express my complete agreement with your explanation
of the unsuitableness of the former (“league type,” as you term it)
organisation of the “League.” You refer to the lack of serious
training and revolutionary education among the progressive workers, to the
so-called elective system, which Rabocheye Dyelo supporters are
championing so proudly and stubbornly on the grounds of
“democratic” principles, and to the workers’ alienation from
active work.

That precisely is the case: 1) the lack of serious training and
revolutionary education (not only among the workers, but among the
intellectuals as well), 2) the misplaced and immoderate application of the
elective principle, and 3) the workers’ alienation from active
revolutionary work— that is where the main shortcoming of
the St. Petersburg organisation and of many other local organisations of
our Party really lies.

I fully share your basic view on the organisational tasks, and also
subscribe to your organisational plan, so far as I understand its general
outlines from your letter.

Specifically, I wholly agree with you that special stress should be laid
on the tasks connected with the work on an all-Russian scale and with the
work of the Party as a whole; in your draft this is expressed in Clause One, which reads: “The
newspaper Iskra , which has permanent correspondents among the
workers and close contact with the work within the organisation, is the
leading centre of the Party (and not only of a committee or a
district).” I should merely like to remark that the newspaper can and
should be the ideological leader of the Party, evolving
theoretical truths, tactical principles, general organisational ideas, and
the general tasks of the whole Party at any given moment. But only a
special central group (let us call it the Central Committee, say) can be
the direct practical leader of the movement, maintaining
personal connections with all the committees, embracing all the
best revolutionary forces among the Russian Social-Democrats, and
managing all the general affairs of the Party, such as the
distribution of literature, the issuing of leaflets, the allocation of
forces, the appointment of individuals and groups to take charge of
special undertakings, the preparation of demonstrations and an uprising on
an all-Russian scale, etc. Since the strictest secrecy of organisation and
preservation of continuity of the movement is essential, our Party can and
should have two leading centres: a C.O. (Central Organ) and a
C. C. (Central Committee). The former should be responsible for
ideological leader ship, and the latter—for direct and practical
leadership. Unity of action and the necessary solidarity between these
groups should be ensured, not only by a single Party programme, but also
by the composition of the two groups (both groups, the C.O. and
the C.C., should be made up of people who are in complete harmony with one
another), and by the institution of regular and systematic joint
conferences. Only then will the C.O., on the one hand, be placed beyond
the reach of the Russian gendarmes and assured of consistency and
continuity, while, on the other hand, the C.C. will always be at one with
the C.O. on all essential matters and have sufficient freedom to
take direct charge of all the practical aspects of the movement.

For this reason it would be desirable that Clause One of the Rules
(according to your draft) should not only indicate which Party organ is
recognised as the leading organ (that, of course, is necessary), but
should also state that the given local organisation sets itself the task
of working actively for the creation , support, and consolidation of those central
institutions without which our Party cannot exist as a party.

Further, in Clause Two, you say that the committee should “direct
the local organisation” (perhaps it would be better to say:
“all local work and all the local organisations of the Party”;
but I shall not dwell on details of formulation), and that it should
consist of both workers and intellectuals, for to divide them into two
committees is harmful. This is absolutely and indubitably correct. There
should be only one committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour
Party, and it should consist of fully convinced Social-Democrats who
devote themselves entirely to Social-Democratic activities. We should
particularly see to it that as many workers as possible become fully
class-conscious and professional revolutionaries and members of the committee. [1]

Once there is a single and not a dual committee, the matter of
the committee members personally knowing many workers is of
particular importance. In order to take the lead in whatever goes on in
the workers’ midst, it is necessary to be able to have access to all
quarters, to know very many workers, to have all sorts of channels, etc.,
etc. The committee should, therefore, include, as far as possible, all the
principal leaders of the working-class movement from among the
workers themselves; it should direct all aspects of the local
movement and take charge of all local institutions, forces and
means of the Party. You do not say how the committee should be set
up—most likely, here too we shall agree with you that it is scarcely
necessary to have special regulations about this; how to set up the
committee is a matter for the Social-Democrats on the spot to
decide. However, it should perhaps be pointed out that new members should
be added to the committee by decision of a majority (or two-thirds, etc.)
of its members, and that the committee should see to it that its list of
contacts is placed in hands that are reliable (from the revolutionary
standpoint) and safe (in the political sense), and that it prepares
candidate-members in advance. When we have the C.O. and the new committees
should be set up only with their co-operation and their consent. As far as
possible, the committees should not have very many members (so that they
consist of well-educated people, each well versed in the technique of his
particular branch of revolutionary activity), but at the same time they
should include a sufficient number to take charge of all aspects
of the work, and to ensure full representation and binding
decisions. Should it hap pen that the number of members is fairly large
and that it is hazardous for them to meet frequently, it might then be
necessary to select from the committee a special and very small
executive group (consisting of, say, five, or even fewer
persons), which should without fail include the secretary and those most
capable of giving practical guidance to the work as a whole. It is
particularly important that candidate-members be provided for
this group so that the work should not have to stop in case of
arrests. The activities of the executive group, its membership, etc.,
should be subject to approval by a general meeting of the committee.

Further, alter the committee, you propose the following institutions under it: 1)
discussion meetings (conferences of the “best” revolutionaries), 2) district circles with 3) a propagandists’ circle
attached to each of these, 4) factory circles, and 5) “meetings of
representatives” of delegates from the factory circles of a given
district. I fully agree with you that all further institutions
(and of these there should be very many and extremely diversified ones,
besides those mentioned by you) should be subordinated to the committee,
and that it is necessary ·to have district groups (for the very big
cities) and factory groups (always and everywhere). But I do not quite
agree with you, it seems, on several details. For instance, with regard to
“discussion meetings” I think that these are wholly unnecessary. The “best revolutionaries” should all be on
the committee, or engaged in special work (printing, transport,
agitational tours, the organisation, say, of a passport bureau, or of
combat squads to deal with spies and agents provocateurs , or of
groups in the army, etc.).

“Conferences” will be held in the committee and in each
district, in each factory, propagandist, trade (weavers, mechanics, tanners. etc.), student, literary, etc., circle. Why should conferences be
made a special institution?

Further. You quite justifiably demand that the opportunity to write to
Iskra directly should be given to “every one who wants it."
Only “directly” should not be understood to mean that “everyone who wants it” should be given access to the
editorial office or its address, but that it should be obligatory to hand
over (or forward) to the editors letters from all who so desire.
The addresses should, of course, be made known to a fairly wide circle; however, they should not be given to everyone who wants them,
but only to revolutionaries who are reliable and known for their ability
to observe the conditions of secrecy—perhaps even not to one person
in each district, as you suggest, but to several. It is also necessary
that all who take part in our work, each and every circle, should have the right to bring their decisions, desires and requests to the
attention of the committee, as well as of the C.O. and C.C. If we
ensure this, then all conferences of Party functionaries will
have the benefit of full in formation , without instituting
anything so cumbersome and contrary to the rules of secrecy as
“discussion meetings." Of course, we should also endeavour to
arrange personal conferences of the greatest possible number of
all and sundry functionaries—but then here everything hinges on the
observance of secrecy. General meetings and gatherings are possible in
Russia only rarely and by way of exception, and it is necessary to be
doubly wary about allowing the “best revolutionaries” to
attend these meetings, since it is easier in general for agents provocateurs to get into them and for spies to trail some participant
of the meeting. I think that perhaps it would be better to do as follows:
when it is possible to organise a big (say, 30 to 100 people) general
meeting (for instance, in the summer-time in the woods, or in a secret
apartment that has been specially secured for this purpose), the committee shou]d send one or two of the “best revolutionaries” and make sure that the meeting is attended by the proper people, i.e., for
example, that invitations should be extended to as many as possible of
the reliable members of the factory circles, etc. But these meetings
should not officially go on record; they should not be put in the Rules,
or held regularly; matters should not be arranged in such a way that everyone who attends the meeting knows everyone else
there, i.e., knows that everyone is a “representative” of a
circle, etc.; that is why I am opposed, not only to “discussion
meetings” but also to “meetings of representatives.” In place
of these two institutions I would propose a rule to the following
effect. The committee must see to the organisation of big meetings of as
many people as possible who are practical participants in the movement,
and of the workers in general. The time, place, and occasion for the
meeting and its composition are to be determined by the committee, which
is responsible for the secret arrangement of such affairs. It is
self-evident that the organisation of workers’ gatherings of a less formal
character at outings, in the woods, etc., is in no way restricted by
this. Perhaps it would be even better not to say anything about this in
the Rules.

Further, as regards the district groups, I fully agree with you that it is
one of their most important tasks to organise the distribution of
literature properly. I think the district groups should for the main part
act as intermediaries between the committees and the factories,
intermediaries and even mostly couriers. Their chief task should
be the proper distribution of the literature received from the committee
in accordance with the rules of secrecy. This is an extremely important
task, for if we secure regular contact between a special district group of
distributors and all the factories in that district, as well as
the largest possible number of workers’ homes in that district,
it will be of enormous value, both for demonstrations and for an
uprising. Arranging for and organising the speedy and proper delivery of
literature, leaflets, proclamations, etc., training a network of agents
for this purpose, means performing the greater part of the work
of preparing for future demonstrations or an uprising. It is too late to
start organising the distribution of literature at a time of unrest, a
strike, or turmoil; this work can be built up only gradually, by making
distributions obligatory twice or three times a month. If no
newspapers are available, leaflets may and should be distributed, but the
distributive machine must in no case be allowed to remain idle. This
machine should be brought to such a degree of perfection as to make it
possible to inform and mobilise, so to speak, the whole working-class population of St. Petersburg over night. Nor is
this by any means a Utopian aim, provided there is a systematic
transmission of leaflets from the centre to the narrower intermediary
circles and from them to the distributors. In my opinion, the functions of
the district groups should not be extended beyond the bounds of purely
intermediary and transmission work, or, to put it more accurately, they
should be extended only with the utmost caution—otherwise this can
only increase the risk of discovery and be injurious to the integrity of
the work. Of course, conferences to discuss all Party questions will take
place in the district circles as well, but decisions on all
general questions of the local movement should be made only by the
committee. The district groups should be permitted to act independently
only on questions concerning the technical aspect of transmission and
distribution. The composition of the district groups should be determined
by the committee, i.e., the committee appoints one or two of its
members (or even comrades who are not on the committee) as delegates to
this or that district and instructs them to establish a district group , all the members of which are likewise installed in office, so
to speak, by the committee. The district group is a branch of the
committee, deriving its powers only from the latter.

I now pass on to the question of propagandists’ circles. It is hardly
possible to organise such circles separately in every district owing to
the scarcity of our propagandist forces, and it is hardly
desirable. Propaganda must be carried on in one and the same spirit by the
whole committee, and it should be strictly centralised. My idea of the
matter is therefore as follows: the committee instructs several of its
members to organise a group of propagandists (which will be a branch of
the committee or one of the institutions of the committee) . This
group, using for the sake of secrecy the services of the district
groups, should conduct propaganda throughout the town , and in all
localities “within the jurisdiction” of the committee. If
necessary, this group may set up subgroups, and, so to say, entrust
certain of its functions to the latter, but all this can be done only with
the sanction of the committee, which must always and unconditionally
possess the right of detailing its delegate to any group, subgroup, or circle which has any connection at all with the
movement.

The same pattern of organisation, the same type of branches of the
committee or its institutions, should be adopted for all the various
groups serving the movement—students’ groups in the higher and
secondary schools; groups, let us say, of supporters among government
officials; transport, printing, and passport groups; groups for arranging
secret meeting places; groups whose job it is to track down spies; groups
among the military; groups for supplying arms; groups for the organisation
of “financially profitable enterprises,” for example, etc. The whole
art of running a secret organisation should consist in making use of
everything possible , in “giving everyone something to do,”
at the same time retaining leadership of the whole movement, not
by virtue of having the power, of course, but by virtue of authority,
energy, greater experience, greater versatility, and greater talent. This
remark is made to meet the possible and usual objection that strict
centralisation may all too easily ruin the movement if the centre
happens to include an incapable person invested with tremendous power. This is, of course, possible, but it cannot be obviated
by the elective principle and decentralisation, the application of which
is absolutely impermissible to any wide degree and even altogether
detrimental to revolutionary work carried on under an autocracy. Nor can
any rules provide means against this; such means can be provided only by
measures of “comradely influence,” beginning with the resolutions of
each and every subgroup, followed up by their appeals to the C.O. and the
C.C., and ending (if the worst comes to the worst) with the
removal of the persons in authority who are absolutely incapable. The committee should endeavour to achieve the greatest possible
division of labour, bearing in mind that the various aspects of
revolutionary work require various abilities, and that sometimes a person
who is absolutely useless as an organiser may be invaluable as an
agitator, or that a person who is not good at strictly secret work may be
an excellent propagandist, etc.

Incidentally, while on the subject of propagandists, I should like to say
a few words in criticism of the usual practice of overloading
this profession with incapable people and thus lowering the level of propaganda. It is sometimes the habit among
us to regard every student as a propagandist without discrimination, and
every youngster demands that he should “be given a circle,”
etc. This must be countered, because it does a great deal of harm. There
are very few propagandists whose principles are invariably
consistent and who are really capable (and to become such one must put in
a lot of study and amass experience); such people should therefore be
specialised, put wholly on this kind of work, and be given the utmost
care. Such persons should deliver several lectures a week and be sent to
other towns when necessary, and, in general, capable propagandists should
make tours of various towns and cities. But the mass of young beginners
should be given mainly practical assignments, which are somewhat neglected
in comparison with the students’ conduct of circles, which is
optimistically called “propaganda.” Of course, thorough training is
also required for serious practical enterprises; nevertheless, work in
this sphere can more easily be found for “beginners” too.

Now about the factory circles. These are particularly important to us: the
main strength of the movement lies in the organisation of the workers at
the large factories, for the large factories (and mills) contain
not only the predominant part of the working class, as regards numbers,
but even more as regards influence, development, and fighting
capacity. Every factory must be our fortress. For that every
“factory” workers’ organisation should be as secret internally
as “ramified” externally, i.e., in its outward relationships,
it should stretch its feelers as far and in as many directions as any
revolutionary organisation. I emphasise that here, too, a group of
revolutionary workers should necessarily be the core, the leader, the
“master.” We must break completely with the traditional type of
purely labour or purely trade-union Social-Democratic organisation,
including the “factory” circles. The factory group, or the factory (mill) committee (to distinguish it from other groups of
which there should be a great number) should consist of a very small
number of revolutionaries , who take their instructions and
receive their authority to carry on all Social-Democratic work in the
factory directly from the committee. Every member of the factory
committee should regard himself as an agent of the committee, obliged to submit to all its orders and to observe
all the “laws and customs” of the “army in the field” which he has joined and from which in time of war he has no
right to absent himself without official leave. The composition of the
factory commitee is therefore a matter of very great importance, and one
of the chief duties of the committee should be to see to the proper
organisation of these subcommittees. This is how I picture it: the
committee instructs certain of its members (plus, let us say, certain
workers who for some reason or other have not been included in the
committee, but who can be very useful by reason of their experience,
knowledge of people, intelligence, and connections) to organise factory
subcommittees everywhere. This group consults with the district
representatives, arranges for a number of meetings, thoroughly checks
candidate-members of the factory subcommittees, subjects them to close
cross-examination, where necessary puts them to the test, endeavouring
personally to examine and verify the largest possible number of
candidate-members of the sub committee of the factory in question, and,
finally, submits a list of members for each factory circle to the
committee for approval, or proposes that authority be given to some
designated worker to set up, nominate or select a complete
subcommittee. In this way, the committee will also deter mine which of
these agents is to maintain contact with it and how the contact
is to be maintained (as a general rule, through the district
representatives, but this rule may be supplemented and modified). In view
of the importance of these factory subcommittees, we must see to it as far
as possible that every subcommittee is in possession of an
address to which it can direct its communication to the C.O. and of a
repository for its list of contacts in some safe place (i.e.,
that the information required for the immediate re establishment of the
subcommittee in the event of arrests is transmitted as regularly and as
fully as possible to the Party centre, for safekeeping in a place where
the Russian gendarmes are unable to get at it). It is a matter of course
that the transmission of addresses must be determined by the committee at
its own discretion and on the basis of the facts at its disposal, and not
on the basis of some non existent right to a “democratic”
allocation of these addresses.

Finally, it is perhaps not superfluous to mention that it may sometimes be
necessary, or more convenient , to confine ourselves to the
appointment of one agent from the commit tee (and an alternate for him) instead of a factory subcommittee consisting of
several members. As soon as the factory subcommittee has been formed it
should proceed to organise a number of factory groups and circles with
diverse tasks and varying degrees of secrecy and organisational form, as,
for instance, circles for delivering and distributing literature (this is
one of the most important functions, which must be organised so as to
provide us with a real postal service of our own, so as to possess tried
and tested methods, not only for distributing literature, but also for
delivering it to the homes, and so as to provide a definite knowledge of
all the workers’ addresses and ways of reaching them); circles for reading
illegal literature; groups for tracking down spies [2]

;

circles for giving special guidance to the trade-union movement and the
economic struggle; circles of agitators and propagandists who know how to
initiate and to carry on long talks in an absolutely legal way
(on machinery, inspectors, etc.) and so be able to speak safely and
publicly, to get to know people and see how the land lies, etc. [3]

The factory subcommittee should endeavour to embrace the whole factory,
the largest possible number of the workers, with a network of all kinds of
circles (or agents). The success of the subcommittee’s activities should
be measured by the abundance of such circles, by their accessibility to
touring propagandists and, above all, by the correctness of the regular
work done in the distribution of literature and the collection of
information and correspondence.

To sum up, the general type of organisation, in my opinion, should be as
follows: a committee should be at the head of the entire local movement,
of all the local Social-Democratic activities. From it should stem the
institutions and branches subordinate to it, such as, first, the network of executive agents embracing (as far as possible) the whole
working-class mass and organised in the form of district groups
and factory (mill) subcommittees. In times of peace this network will be
engaged in distributing literature, leaflets, proclamations and the secret
communications from the committee; in times of war it will organise
demonstrations and similar collective activities. Secondly, the committee
will also branch out into circles and groups of all kinds serving the
whole movement (propaganda, transport, all kinds of underground
activities, etc.). All groups, circles, subcommittees, etc., should enjoy
the status of committee institutions or branches of a committee. Some of
them will openly declare their wish to join the Russian Social-Democratic
Labour Party and, if endorsed by the committee, will join the Party, and
will assume definite functions (on the instructions of, or in agreement
with, the committee), will undertake to obey the orders of the Party
organs, receive the same rights as all Party members, and be regarded as
immediate candidates for membership of the committee, etc. Others will not
join the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, and will have the status
of circles formed by Party members, or associated with one Party group or
another, etc.

In all internal matters, members of all these circles are of course on an equal footing, as are all members of a committee. The
only exception will be that the right of personal contact with
the local committee (as well as with the G.C. and the C.O.) will be
reserved solely to the person (or persons) appointed for that purpose by
the committee. In all other respects, this person will be on an equal
footing with the rest, who will also have the right to present statements
(but not in person) to the local committee and to the C.C. and C.O. It
follows that the exception indicated will not at all be an infraction of
the principle of equality, but merely a necessary concession to the
absolute demands of secrecy. A member of a committee who fails to transmit a communication of his “own” group to the committee, the
C.C. or the C.O., will be guilty of a direct breach of Party
duty. Further, the degree of secrecy and the organisational form of the
various circles will depend upon the nature of the functions: accordingly,
the organisations will be most varied (ranging from the “strictest,”
narrowest, and most restricted type of organisation to the “freest,”
broadest, most loosely constituted, and open type). For instance,
strictest secrecy and military discipline must be maintained in the
distributing groups. The propagandists’ groups must also maintain secrecy,
but be under far less military discipline. Workers’ groups for reading
legal literature, or for organising discussions on trade-union needs and
demands call for still less secrecy, and so on. The distributing groups
should belong to the R.S.D.L.P. and know a certain number of its members
and functionaries. The groups for studying labour conditions and drawing
up trade-union demands need not necessarily belong to the
R.S.D.L.P. Groups of students, officers, or office employees engaged in
self-education in conjunction with one or two Party members
should in some cases not even be aware that these belong to the Party,
etc. But in one respect we must absolutely demand the maximum degree of organisation in all these branch groups, namely, that every
Party member belonging to such a group is formally responsible for the
conduct of work in the group and is obliged to take every measure
in order that the composition of each of these groups, the whole
mechanism of its work, and the content of that work should be
known as fully as possible to the C.C. and the C.O. That
is necessary in order that the centre may have a complete picture
of the whole movement, that the selection for various Party posts may be
made from the widest possible circle of people; that all groups of a
similar nature throughout Russia may learn from one another (through the
medium of the centre), and that warning may be given in the event of the
appearance of agents provocateurs or suspicious characters—
in a word, that is absolutely and vitally necessary in all cases.

How is it to be done? By submitting regular reports to the committee, by
transmitting to the C.O. as much of the contents as possible of as large a
number of reports as possible, by arranging that members of the C.C. and
the local committee visit the various circles, and, finally, by making it
obligatory to hand over the list of contacts with these circles,
i.e., the names and addresses of several members of each circle, for
safekeeping (and to the Party bureau of the C.O and the C.C.). Only when
reports are submitted and contacts transmitted will it be possible to say
of a Party member belonging to a given circle that he has done his duty;
only then will the Party as a whole be in a position to learn
from every circle that is carrying on practical work; only then will
arrests and dragnets lose their terror for us, for if contacts are
maintained with the various circles it will always be easy for a delegate
of our G.G. to find substitutes immediately and have the work
resumed. The arrest of a committee will then not destroy the whole
machine, but only remove the leaders, who will always have candidates
ready. And let it not be said that the transmission of reports and
contacts is impossible because of the need to maintain secrecy: once there
is the desire to do so, it is always, and will always , be
possible to hand over (or forward) reports and contacts, so long as we
have committees, a C.C. or a C.O.

This brings us to a highly important principle of all Party organisation
and all Party activity: while the greatest possible centralisation is necessary with regard to the ideological and
practical leadership of the movement and the revolutionary
struggle of the proletariat, the greatest possible decentralisation is necessary with regard to keeping the Party centre
(and therefore the Party as a whole) informed about the movement,
and with regard to responsibility to the Party. The leadership of
the movement should be entrusted to the smallest possible number of the
most homogeneous possible groups of professional revolutionaries with
great practical experience. Participation in the movement should extend to
the greatest possible number of the most diverse and heterogeneous groups
of the most varied sections of the proletariat (and other classes of the
people). The Party centre should always have before it, not only exact
information regarding the activities of each of these groups, but also the
fullest possible information regarding their composition . We must
centralise the leadership of the movement. We must also (and for that very reason , since without information centralisation is impossible)
as far as possible decentralise responsibility to the Party on the part of its
individual members, of every participant in its work, and of every circle
belonging to or associated with the Party. This decentralisation is an
essential prerequisite of revolutionary centralisation and an
essential corrective to it . Only when centralisation has been
carried through to the end and when we have a C.O. and a C.C., will it be
possible for every group, however small, to communicate with
them—and not only communicate with them, but to do so regularly as a result of a system established by years of
experience—only then will the possibility of grievous consequences
resulting from an accidentally unfortunate composition of a local
committee be eliminated. Now that we are coming close to actual unity in
the Party and to the creation of a real leading centre, we must well
remember that this centre will be powerless if we do not at the
same time introduce the maximum of decentralisation both with
regard to responsibility to the centre and with regard to keeping it
informed of all the cogs and wheels of the Party machine. This
decentralisation is nothing but the reverse side of the division of labour which is generally recognised to be one of the most urgent
practical needs of our movement. No official recognition of a given
organisation as the leading body, no setting-up of a formal C.G. will make
our movement really united, or create an enduring militant Party, if the
Party centre continues to be cut off from direct practical work
by the local committees of the old type, i.e., by committees such as are,
on the one hand, made up of a regular jumble of persons, each of whom
carries on all and every kind of work, without devoting himself to some
definite type of revolutionary work, without assuming responsibility for
some special duty, without carrying through a piece of work to the end,
once it has been undertaken, thoroughly considered and prepared, wasting
an enormous amount of time and energy in radicalist noise-making, while,
on the other hand, there is a great mass of students’ and workers’
circles, half of which are altogether unknown to the committee, while the
other half are just as cumbersome, just as lacking in specialisation, just
as little given to acquiring the experience of professional
revolutionaries or to benefiting from the experience of others, just as
taken

up with endless conferences “about everything,” with elections and
with drafting rules, as the committee itself. For the centre to be able to
work properly, the local committees must reorganise themselves;
they must become specialised and more “business-like” organisations, achieving real “perfection” in one or another
practical sphere. For the centre not only to advise, persuade, and argue
(as has been the case hitherto), but really conduct the orchestra, it is
necessary to know exactly who is playing which fiddle, and where and how;
where and how instruction has been or is being received in playing each
instrument; who is playing out of tune (when the music begins to jar on
the ear), and where and why; and who should be transferred, and how and
where to, so that the discord may be remedied, etc. At the present
time—this must be said openly—we either know nothing about the
real internal work of a committee, except from its proclamations
and general correspondence, or we know about it from friends or good
acquaintances. But it is ridiculous to think that a huge Party, which is
capable of leading the Russian working-class movement and which is
preparing a general onslaught upon the autocracy, can limit itself to
this. The number of committee members should be cut down; each of them,
wherever possible, should be entrusted with a definite, special and,
important function, for which he will be held to account; a special, very
small, directing centre must be set up; a network of executive agents must
be developed, linking the committee with every large factory, carrying on
the regular distribution of literature and giving the centre an exact
picture of this distribution and of the entire mechanism of the work;
lastly, numerous groups and circles must be formed, which will undertake
various functions or unite persons who are close to the Social-Democrats,
who help them and are preparing to become Social-Democrats, so that the
committee and the centre may be constantly informed of the activities (and
the composition) of these circles—these are the lines along which
the St. Petersburg, and all the other committees of the Party, should be
reorganised; and this is why the question of Rules is of so little
importance.

I have begun with an analysis of the draft Rules in order to bring out the
drift of my proposals more clearly. And as a result it will, I hope, have become clear to the reader that in fact it
would perhaps be possible to get along without Rules , substituting for them regular reports about each circle and every aspect
of the work. What can one put in the Rules? The committee guides the work
of everyone (this is clear as it is). The committee elects an executive
group (this is not always necessary, and when it is necessary it is not a
matter of Rules but of informing the centre of the composition of
this group and of the candidate-members to it). The committee distributes
the various fields of work among its members, charging every member to
make regular reports to the committee and to keep the G.O. and
C.C. informed about the progress of the work (here, too, it is more
important to inform the centre of whatever assignments have been made than
to include in the Rules a regulation which more frequently than not will go by the board because of scarcity of our forces). The
committee must specify exactly who its members are. New members are added
to the committee by co-optation. The committee appoints the district
groups, factory subcommittees and certain groups (if you wish to enumerate
them you will never be done, and there is no point approximately in
enumerating them in the Rules; it is sufficient to inform the centre about
their organisation). The district groups and subcommittees organise the
following circles.... It would be all the less useful to draw up such
Rules at present since we have practically no general Party experience
(and in many places none whatever) with regard to the activities of the
various groups and subgroups of this sort, and in order to acquire such
experience what is needed is not Rules but the organisation of Party
information, if I may put it in this way. Each of our local organisations
now spends at least a few evenings on discussing Rules. If instead, each
member would devote this time to making a detailed and well-prepared
report to the entire Party on his particular function, the work
would gain a hundredfold.

And it is not merely because revolutionary work does not always lend
itself to definite organisational form that Rules are useless. No,
definite organisational form is necessary, and we must endeavour to
give such form to all our work as far as possible. That is
permissible to a much greater extent than is generally thought, and achievable not through Rules but
solely and exclusively (we must keep on reiterating this) through
transmitting exact information to the Party centre; it is only then that
we shall have real organisational form connected with real responsibility
and (inner-Party) publicity. For who of us does not know that
serious conflicts and differences of opinion among us are
actually decided not by vote “in accordance with the Rules,” but by
struggle and threats to “resign”? During the last three or four
years of Party life the history of most of our committees has
been replete with such internal strife. It is a great pity that this
strife has not assumed definite form: it would then have been much more
instructive for the Party and would have contributed much more to the
experience of our successors. But no Rules can create such useful
and essential definiteness of organisational form; this can be done solely
through inner-Party publicity . Under the autocracy we can have no
other means or weapon of inner-Party publicity than keeping the Party
centre regularly informed of Party events.

And only after we have learned to apply this inner-Party publicity on a
wide scale shall we actually be able to amass experience in the
functioning of the various organisations; only on the basis of such
extensive experience over a period of many years shall we be able to draw
up Rules that will not be mere paper Rules .

---
Notes:
[1]
We must try to get on the committee revolutionary workers who have the
greatest contacts and the best “reputation” among the mass of
the workers.
— Lenin

[2]
We must get the workers to understand that while the killing of spies,
agents provocateurs , and traitors may sometimes, of course, be
absolutely unavoidable, it is highly undesirable and mistaken to make a
system of it, and that we must strive to create an organisation which will
be able to render spies innocuous by exposing them and tracking
them down. It is impossible to do away with all spies, but to create an
organisation which will ferret them out and educate the
working-class masses is both possible and necessary .
— Lenin

[3]
We also need combat groups, in which Workers who have had military
training or who are particularly strong and agile should be enrolled, to
act in the event of demonstrations, in arranging escapes. from prison,
etc.
— Lenin

[4]
A Letter to a Comrade on Our Organisational Tasks was a reply to
a letter from the St. Petersburg Social-Democrat A. A. Shneyerson
(Yeryoma) criticising the way Social-Democratic work was organised in that
city.

After the arrest of V. I. Lenin and his close associates in December 1895,
the “economists” gradually gained control of the League of
Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. Unlike the
revolutionary Marxists, who fought for the creation of an under ground and
centralised organisation of revolutionaries, the “economists”
derogated the significance of political struggle and came out for creation
of a broad working-class organisation based on the elective principle and
pursuing the primary aim of immediate defence of the workers’ economic
interests, formation of mutual aid banks, and the like. The
“economists’\thinspace" long control of the League of Struggle left an imprint on its organisational structure too: its working-class
membership (the so-called Workers’ Organisation) was artificially
separated from the intellectual members. The League’s clumsy organisation
was more adapted for a trade-union form of struggle than for leadership of
the workers’ mass revolutionary struggle against the autocracy and the
bourgeoisie. The struggle between the Iskra -ists and the
“economists” which developed in the St. Petersburg organisation
culminated in the St. Petersburg Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. going over to
the Iskra stand in the summer of 1902.

“Two questions were raised,” it was reported in Iskra’s
No. 30 of December 15, 1902, “at a meeting held in the outskirts of
St. Petersburg in June , which was attended by workers representing all five wards of the Workers’ Organisation (who
comprised the highest body of the then Workers’ Organisation). These
questions were: 1) the two trends in Russian Social-Democracy: the old
’economist’ trend, which hitherto obtained in St. Petersburg, and the
revolutionary, as represented by Iskra and Zarya , and 2)
principles of organisation (so-called ’democratism’ or an ’organisation of
revolutionaries’). On both issues all the workers came out
unanimously against ’economism’ and ’democratism’ and in favour
of the Iskra trend .”

To reconstruct the St. Petersburg League of Struggle in the spirit of
Iskra organisational principles, a committee was set up composed
of representatives of the Iskra organisation, the Workers’
Organisation, and the St. Petersburg Committee. However, the
“economists,” headed by Tokarev, stated that they disagreed with the
St. Petersburg Committee’s decision on support for the Iskra
stand, formed the so-called Workers’ Organisation’s Committee, and
launched a struggle against the Iskra -ists. The latter, with the
support of the workers, were able to retain their positions and fortify
their standing in the St. Petersburg organisation.

A Letter to a Comrade , in which Lenin developed and gave concrete
shape to his plan for the Party’s organisation, was received in
St. Petersburg at the height of the struggle against the
“economists.” It was hectographed, copied by hand, and distributed
among St. Petersburg Social-Democrats. In June 1903 it was illegally
published by the Siberian Social-Democratic League under the title of
On Revolutionary Work in the Organisations of the R.S.D.L.P. (A Letter to a Comrade). This Letter was published by the R.S.D.L.P.’s
Central Committee as a separate pamphlet, with a preface and postscript by
Lenin, who also prepared the pamphlet for the press. The Letter
was widely distributed in Social-Democratic organisations, police archives
for 1902-05 revealing that it was found during police raids in Moscow,
Riga, Rostov-on-Don, Nakhichevan, Nikolayev, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, and
elsewhere.

The Archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the C.P.S.U.’s
Central Committee contain only the first manuscript page of the
Letter , with the following inscription in Lenin’s hand: “To
the St. Petersburg Committee in general and to Comrade Yeryoma in
particular (from Lenin).”