Page:Lenin - What Is To Be Done - tr. Joe Fineberg (1929).pdf/77

 the masses in revolutionary activity." Svoboda advocates terror as a means of "exciting" the labour movement, and of giving it a "strong impetus." It is difficult to imagine an argument that disproves itself more than this one does! Are there not enough outrages committed in Russian life that a special "stimulant" has to be invented? On the other hand, is it not obvious that those who are not, and cannot be, roused to excitement even by Russian tyranny will stand by "twiddling their thumbs" even while a handful of terrorists are engaged in single combat with the government? The fact is, however, that the masses of the workers are roused to a high pitch of excitement by the outrages committed in Russian life, but we are unable to collect, if one may put it that way, and concentrate all these drops and streamlets of popular excitement that are called forth by the conditions of Russian life to a far larger extent than we imagine, but which it is precisely necessary to combine into a single gigantic flood. And this we must do. That this task can he accomplished is irrefutably proved by the enormous growth of the labour movement, and the greed with which the workers devour political literature, to which we have already referred above. Calls for terror, and calls to give the economic struggle itself a political character are merely two different forms of evading the most pressing duty that now rests upon Russian revolutionaries, namely, to organise an all-sided political agitation. Svoboda desires to substitute terror for agitation, although it openly admits that "as soon as intensified and strenuous agitation is commenced among the masses its excitative function will he finished." [The Regeneration of Revolutionism, p. 68.] This proves precisely that both the terrorists and the Economists underestimate the revolutionary activity of the masses, in spite of the striking evidence of the events that took place in the spring, and whereas one goes out in search of artificial "stimulants" the other talks about "concrete demands." But both fail to devote sufficient attention to the development of their own activity in political agitation and organisation of political exposures. And no other work can serve as a substitute for this work, either at the present time, or at any other time.

We have seen that the organisation of wide political agitation, and consequently, of all-sided political exposures are an absolutely necessary and paramount task of activity, that is, if that activity is