Anyone who has the slightest knowledge of the movement is aware that all thinking Social-Democrats have at last begun to regard these amateurish methods as a disease. In order that the reader who is not acquainted with the movement may have no grounds for thinking that we are inventing a special stage or special disease of the movement, we shall refer once again to the witness we have quoted. We trust we shall be forgiven for the length of the passage:

While the gradual transition to more extensive practical activity, writes B-v in Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 6, a transition that is directly dependent on the general transitional period through which the Russian working-class movement is now passing, is a characteristic feature, . . . there is, however, another, no less interesting feature in the general mechanism of the Russian workers revolution. We refer to the general lack of revolutionary forces t for action, [all italics ours Lenin] which is felt not only in St. Petersburg, but throughout Russia. With the general revival of the working-class movement, with the general development of the working masses, with the growing frequency of strikes, with the increasingly 65 THE PRIMITIVENESS OF THE ECONOMISTS AND THE ORGANIZATION OF THE REVOLUTIONARIES

Many strikes take place without any strong and direct inuence upon them by the revolutionary organisations.... A shortage of agitational leaets and illegal literature Is felt.... The workers study circles are left without agitators.... In addition, there is a constant dearth of funds. In a word, the growth of the working class movement is outstripping the growth and development of the revolutionary organisations. The numerical strength of the active revolutionaries is too small to enable them to concentrate in their own hands the inuence exercised upon the whole mass of discontented workers, or to give this discontent even a shadow of coherence and organisation.... The separate study circles, the sep

Admitting that the immediate organisation with proportionately developed parts. organization of fresh study circles to replace those that have been broken up merely proves the vitality of the movement ... but does not prove the existence of an adequate number of adequately prepared revolutionary workers, the author concludes: The lack of practical training among the St. Petershurg revolutionaries is seen in the results of their work. The recent trials, especially that of the Self-Emancipation Group and the Labour-againstCapital group, clearly showed that the young agitator, lacking a detailed knowledge of working class conditions and, consequently, of the conditions under which agitation can be carried on in a given factory, ignorant of the principles of secrecy, and understanding only the general principles of Social-Democracy [if he does], is able to carry on his work for perhaps fo