taneity seems to inspire a fear to take even one step away from what "can be understood" by the masses, a fear to rise too high above mere subservience to the immediate requirements of the masses. Have no fear, gentlemen! Remember that we stand so low on the plane of organisation, that the very idea that we could rise too high is absurd!
E. "Conspirative" Organisation and "Democracy"
There are many people among us who are so sensitive to the "voice of life" that they fear that voice more than anything in the world, and accuse those, who adhere to the views here expounded, of Narodovolism,[1] of failing to understand "democracy," etc. We must deal with these accusations, which, of course, have been echoed by Rabocheye Dyelo.
The writer of these lines knows very well that the St. Petersburg Economists accused the Rabochaya Gazeta of being Narodovolist (which is quite understandable when one compares it with Rabochaya Mysl). We were not in the least surprised, therefore, when, soon after the appearance of Iskra, a comrade informed us that the Social-Democrats in the town of X describe Iskra as a Narodovolist journal. We, of course, were flattered by this accusation, because the Economists would charge every real Social-Democrat with being a Narodovolist. These accusations are called forth by a two-fold misunderstanding. Firstly, the history of the revolutionary movement is so little understood among us that the very idea of a militant centralised organisation which declares a determined war upon tsarism is described as Narodovolist. But the magnificent organisation that the revolutionists had in the seventies and which should us all as a model, was not formed by the Narodovolists, but the adherents of Zemlya i Volya, who split up into Chernoperedeltsi [Black Redistributionists—i. e., of the land.—Ed.] and Narodovolists. Consequently, to regard a militant revolutionary organisation as something specifically Narodovolist is absurd both historically and logically, because no revolutionary tendency, if it seriously thinks of fighting, can dispense with such an organisation. But the mistake the Narodovolists committed was that they strove to recruit to their organisation all the discontented, and to hurl this organisation into the battle against the
- ↑ Adherents of Narodnaya Volya, the People's Will Party.—Ed.
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