wide, able to penetrate into all sorts of "state secrets" (about which the Russian government official is so puffed up, but which he so easily blahs), find its way "behind the scenes," an army of men and women whose "official duty" it must be to be ubiquitous and omniscient. And we, the party that fights against all economic, political, social and national oppression can and must find, collect, train, mobilise, and set into motion such an army of omniscient people—but all this has yet to he done! Not only has not a single step been taken towards this in the overwhelming majority of cases, but in many places the necessity for doing it is not even recognised. You will search in vain in our Social-Democratic press for lively and interesting articles, correspondence, and exposures of our diplomatic, military, ecclesiastical, municipal, financial, etc., etc., affairs and malpractices. You will find almost nothing, or very little, about these things.[1] That is why "I am always frightfully annoyed when a man comes to me and says all sorts of nice things" about the necessity for newspapers that will expose factory, municipal, and government evils "in every place where any considerable number of workers are collected!"
The predominance of the local press over the central press may be either a symptom of poverty, or a symptom of luxury. Of poverty, when the movement has not yet developed the forces for large-scale production, and continues to flounder in primitive ways and in "the petty details of factory life." Of luxury, when the movement, having already mastered the task of all-sided exposure and all-sided agitation, finds it necessary to publish numerous local newspapers in addition to the central organ. Let each one decide for himself as to what the predominance of local newspapers implies at the present time. I shall limit myself to a precise formulation of my own conclusion, in order to avoid misunderstanding. Hitherto the majority of our local organisations devoted their minds
- ↑ That is why even examples of exceptionally good local newspapers fully confirm our point-of-view. For example, Yuzhny Rabochy is an excellent newspaper, and is altogether free from instability of principles. But it was unable to provide what it desired for the local movement owing to the infrequency of its publication and to extensive police raids. What our party must do most urgently at the present time is to present the fundamental questions of the movement, and carry on wide political agitation, but this the local newspaper was unable to do. And that which it did exceptionally well, namely, articles about the mine-owners' congress, unemployment, etc., was not strictly local material, it was required for the whole of Russia, and not for the South alone. No articles like that have appeared in any of our Social-Democratic newspapers.
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