NOTES ON THE DRAFT RESOLUTION OF THE VTsIK
ON THE PEOPLE’S COMMISSARIAT FOR WORKERS’ AND PEASANTS’ INSPECTION AND A LETTER TO I. V. STALIN
Draft
RESOLUTION OF THE ALL-RUSSIAN CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
The VTsIK resolves:
1)
To entrust the People’s Commissariat for Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection with the task of exercising oversight and surveillance over the activities of all public and private organizations, institutions, and enterprises—without exception—regarding their fulfillment of obligations assumed before state authorities.
2)

In furtherance of this mandate, the NK RPI is granted the following powers: 1) To conduct subsequent oversight of all monetary and material
3)

funds allocated by the state to the aforementioned organizations, enterprises, and institutions under schemes of financing, subsidization, or credit, as well as funds disbursed pursuant to contracts concluded between these entities and the state—and to scrutinize all actions arising from such obligations...
To Comrade Stalin, This will not do.
1) Instead of “to entrust,” we should clarify the existing laws and point out their shortcomings in this particular respect.
2) Not only from this perspective—but also from the standpoint of legality, from the vantage point of gathering materials for new legislation, and from countless other angles.
3) It is not merely a matter of “funds allocated by the state.”

Extremely urgent—We must revise this once more, pondering it three times more carefully. We must elaborate far more thoroughly! Detail it much more extensively. Present it in such a way that it appears not as a new decree, but rather as an elucidation and compilation of existing laws. Submit it for review by the Sovnarkom, and, upon any complaint, have it endorsed by the VTsIK. Urgent! Extremely urgent!! After revision, I request that you send me both this draft and the new version.
Lenin
Written between February 28 and March 16, 1922.
Published in Volume XXXVI of the Lenin Collection.
First published in 1959.

Printed from the manuscript.