23942
LETTER TO F. E. DZERZHINSKY
29/IV [1921]
Comrade Dzerzhinsky!
Ivan Ivanovich Skvortsov-Stepanov has arrived (from a tour of the localities).
He reports: a great threat to transport, both railway and water.
Firstly, bag traders are gaining dominance.
Secondly, Soviet officials on the railways are sending dozens of wagons of "commissions" everywhere. Pretext: official assignment.
In reality: they are bag trading. They are feeding the Soviet officials.
Railway employees are all, it seems, bag traders. Speculators. Extraordinary measures must be taken. Drop me a line or two.
Yours, Lenin

18550
AMENDMENTS AND ADDITION
TO THE DRAFT LETTER OF THE C.C., R.C.P.(B.) 1
[Between
May 1 and 4, 1921]
ON THE ATTITUDE TOWARDS NON-PARTY WORKERS.
TO ALL GUBERNIA COMMITTEES AND UYEZD COMMITTEES, TO ALL
COMMUNIST GROUPS AND TRADE UNIONS

The question of the relations between our Party and the broad masses of the workers is now the question of the relations between Communists and non-Party people.
The parties hostile to us, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks, insofar as they appear openly, are not having any significant success. The broad mass of workers feels itself to be non-Party. Hence the fact that the S.R.s and Mensheviks are increasingly disguising themselves as non-Party people.
Our task is to strengthen the connection of Communists with honest non-Party people at all costs. This is the only way in which it is possible to revive our sometimes withering Party cells. Where a wall of alienation has grown up between Communists and non-Party workers, that alienation must be destroyed at all costs. He is not a Communist who has not managed to group several honest non-Party workers around himself, to enter into daily contact with them, to visit them at home, to help them in their daily lives, to supply them with a newspaper, to promote workers from their midst to the trade unions and Soviet organs, etc.

1921

Communists working in the trade unions can and should do the most in this area. It would be best to involve broad circles of honest non-Party workers through the trade unions. But this is not the only way. Local Party organizations must be able to place a significant percentage of non-Party workers in Soviet work. Communists from Soviet institutions—to factories and plants, a portion of fresh non-Party proletarian forces—to Soviet institutions and to the boards of trade unions. Such is the slogan of the day. All Party organizations must discuss this question in a businesslike manner and, in relation to local conditions, find ways to implement this appeal of the Central Committee as quickly as possible.
[The activity of non-Party workers has increased. They want to participate in power. They] * **Non-Party workers** want to go to responsible positions in the Soviets and trade unions. The Party must meet them halfway. The Party must be able, through its cells and through the trade unions, to find the most valuable and steadfast non-Party workers (and also peasants) and place them in the proper positions (in particular, in the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection). This is the guarantee of our success and in the fight against bureaucracy.
Non-Party conferences can help to bring Communists and non-Party people closer together, facilitate the fight against bureaucracy, and provide an opportunity to promote new workers. But—only under certain conditions. The most important of the conditions is **serious, businesslike preparation** for such non-Party conferences.
The experience of non-Party conferences has shown that they become an arena for agitation and organization by the S.R.s and Mensheviks. Both of these parties have developed special directives on the use of non-Party conferences for counter-revolutionary S.R.-Menshevik purposes. Our Party organizations must take this into account.
To this end, local organizations, when organizing non-Party conferences, must: 1) be able to choose a suitable moment themselves and not allow such conferences to be imposed on us at moments that are [disorderly for our opponents] **advantageous for the enemies of the working class**, 2) be able, already in the course of preparing the non-Party conference, to tear the mask off the S.R.s and Mensheviks who are disguising themselves as non-Party people, 3) and most importantly, be able to prepare for success in the elections at each factory and plant.
In Petrograd, in connection with the last non-Party conference, four meetings were held in advance at each enterprise: 1) the collective plus sympathizers, 2) a delegates' meeting of the factory, 3) a delegates' meeting plus the collective, and 4) a general meeting of the factory, at which the list of candidates for the non-Party conference and the mandate were already prepared by the previous meetings.
The uyezd committee must report to the gubernia committee on the preparation, course, and outcome of each non-Party conference, and the gubernia committee to the Central Committee. Preparation must be carried out in the most thorough manner. In case of a shortage of forces, assistance should be requested from the center in advance.
To establish contact with non-Party people, it is further necessary to regularly convene not only general meetings for the mass of workers and peasants, but also to present business reports of all officials to the masses of workers.

* The text enclosed in square brackets, here and below, is crossed out and corrected by V. I. Lenin; Lenin's corrections are given in bold type.
8 *