The precipitation polymerization of aniline in the presence of organic acids, including toluene‐4‐sulfonic acid, phenylphosphonic acid, 4‐aminophenylphosphonic acid, and acetophosphonic acid, led in one step to conductive polyaniline. The polyaniline showed very good affinity for water and was easily modified to be water‐soluble. In comparison with the widely studied postpolymerization of doped polyaniline, this reaction allowed reasonably good conductivity to be achieved at a lower acid/polyaniline ratio. Moreover, the easy in situ incorporation of the dopant into the polymer structure caused high stability of the created salt; that is, no dedoping was observed after it was washed with water, methanol, or other solvents. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 40: 3562–3569, 2002