Page:Lenin - What Is To Be Done - tr. Joe Fineberg (1929).pdf/132

 office when, in the very interests of the work, he must conceal his identity from nine out of ten of these "all"? Ponder a little over the real meaning of the high-sounding phrases that Rabocheye Dyelo gives utterance to, and you will realise that "broad democracy" in party organisation, amidst the gloom of autocracy and the domination of the gendarmes, is nothing more than a useless and harmful toy. It is a useless toy, because as a matter of fact, no revolutionary organisation has ever practiced broad democracy, nor could it, however much it desired to do so. It is a harmful toy, because any attempt to practice the "broad principles of democracy" will simply facilitate the work of the police in making big raids, it will perpetuate the prevailing primitiveness, divert the thoughts of the practical workers from the serious and i~nperative task of training themselves to become professional revolutionists to that drawing up detailed "paper" rules for election systems. Only abroad, where very often people who have no opportunity of doing real live work gather together, can the "game of democracy" he played here and there, especially in small groups.

In order to show how ugly Rabocheye Dyelo's favourite trick is of advancing the plausible principle of democracy in revolutionary affairs, we shall again call a witness. This witness, E. Serebryakov, the editor of the London magazine, Nakanunye [On the Eve] has a tenderness for Rabocheye Dyelo, and is filled with hatred against Plekhanov and the Plekhanovists. In articles that it published on the split in the League of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad, Nakanunye definitely took the side of Rabocheye Dyelo, and poured a stream of atrocious abuse upon Plekhanov. But this only makes this witness all the more valuable for us on this question. In No. 7 of Nakanunye [July, 1899], in an article, entitled, "The Manifesto of the Self-Emancipation of the Workers' Group," E. Serebryakov argues that it was "indecent" to talk about such things as "self-deception, priority, and so-called Areopagus in the serious revolutionary movement," and inter alia wrote:

Myshkin, Rogachev, Zhelyabov, Mikhailov, Perovskaya, Figner, and others never regarded themselves as leaders, and no one ever elected or appointed them as such, although as a matter of fact, they were leaders because both in the propaganda period, as well as in the period of the fight against the government, they took the brunt of the work upon themselves, they went into the most dangerous places and their activities were the most fruitful. Priority came to them not because they wished it, but because the comrades surrounding them had confidence in their wisdom, their energy and loyalty. To