V. I.

Lenin

Fortnightlyreports by all the Party organisations, especially all
the workers’ Party organisations, would contribute greatly towards
consolidating the membership and the organisational unity of the Party,
particularly towards read justing the Party’s representation (at congresses) in
conformity with the number of the organised workers.

The Central Organ of the Party could publish extracts from these reports which
would serve as valuable material on the actual and genuine state of affairs in
the Party.

Thenumber of members in the study circles, groups, etc., could also be
published by using one or two letters of the alphabet to denote this or that
group or organisation. Such reports concerning the membership of our Party
organisations would serve as useful material for control. (The objection that
they would occupy too much space is groundless. With two letters and two figures
to show the number of members—e.g., ab 13, cd 41, ef 17,
etc.— we would have eleven such reports to each line of column
space.)

The Congress should break up the interval between the Third and Fourth
Congresses (one year) into two parts. During the first half, every
Party organisation down to the lowest workers’ unit of our Party should
constitute itself and arrange without fail regular contact with the
centre and the regular submission of fortnightly reports. I say
“arrange”, because it is not enough to take the address and write;
it is necessary to check the addresses, to make sure that the reports are delivered, etc., etc. Four to five months [1] is quite
sufficient for organising this new practice of fortnightly reports with full
regularity. Without a doubt, given the will , this could be done in a
third of the time.

Afterthat, in the second half-year, the fortnightly reports of the Party
organisations could be placed on a constitutional basis, so to speak, i.e.,
they would be used directly to readjust the Party’s representation at the Fourth
Congress. Thus, let us say, the Third Congress decides in April 1905 that only
Party organisations submitting the regular fort-nightly reports to the centre
as of September 1, 1905, shall be entitled to consideration in the readjusted
Party representation for the Fourth Congress. The Party’s representation at
congresses pro rata to the number of workers organised in Social-Democratic
leagues in each area will be deter mined at the Fourth Congress only on the
basis of these reports for a period of not less than three months (a minimum of
six reports). The number of members, therefore, must be given in each report.

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Notes:
[1]
During this period every organisation should submit its cipher
(two or three letters=name of the organisation) to the centre and achieve
the publication of at least one of its reports in the Central Organ, so
that all the members of that organisation may convince themselves of its
connection with the centre.— Lenin