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♦LETTER TO A. D. TSYURUPA ON A PROGRAM 
OF WORK IN A NEW WAY.
20 Feb. [1922]

Comrade Tsyurupa!

More on the subject of work in a new way.

I shall attempt to formulate its program thus:

(1) tighten up the Council of People's Commissars and the Council of Labor and Defense tenfold in the sense that the people's commissariats must not dare drag trifles into them, but must resolve these matters themselves and answer for them themselves; (2) make the apparatus of the Administrative Department of the Council of People's Commissars (now idle three-fourths of the time) responsible for this; have it carry this out; (3) the same regarding the Small Council of People's Commissars, plus its drastic reduction; (4) take a number of members of the Small Council of People's Commissars and its apparatus, as well as the apparatus of the Administrative Department of the Council, under your personal command for checking actual implementation (you assign to such-and-such a person: go, look, read, check—you will answer for any negligence); (5) You (and Rykov) should devote in the **first place** one or, if your health permits, two hours per day to personal verification of work: summon to yourself (or visit) not high officials, but members of collegiums and lower-ranking operational workers of the People's Commissariat X, Y, Z,—and verify the work, get to the bottom of things, train, teach, criticize seriously. Study people, seek out capable workers. This is the essence now; all decrees and resolutions are dirty scraps of paper without this.

Answer me. Let us think it over, consult with members of the Central Committee and quickly **consolidate** such a program (or another one).

Your Lenin.