# Date: April 3, 1919

7.

* NOTES ON THE QUESTION OF REORGANIZING
STATE CONTROL 1), [April 3, 1919]
1) A workers’ body—or a body of workers’ participation—both at the central level and in the localities.
2) Jurors, as a systematic institution.
2b is: at least two-thirds women*).
3) The most immediate practical tasks:
(a) On-the-spot inspections, conducted in response to citizens’ complaints;
(b) Combating bureaucratic delays; (c) Revolutionary measures to combat abuses and bureaucratic inertia;
(d) Transportation; (e) Increasing labor productivity; (f) Expanding the collective output of goods.
‘ ) These notes were written by Lenin during a meeting of the Sovnarkom on April 3, 1919, while the question of reorganizing State Control was under consideration. The draft decree submitted by the People’s Commissariat for State Control (with I.V. Stalin as rapporteur) was largely adopted—with amendments proposed by Lenin, which he briefly outlined in these notes. The final clause of the draft, concerning the establishment of complaint bureaus within government institutions, was referred to a commission composed of Lenin, Stalin, and Kursky, with the understanding that if the commission reached a unanimous decision, the decree would be deemed adopted and published. The decree was published in Izvestia of the VTsIK on April 12, 1919 (“Collection of Laws and Decrees of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government,” No. 12, dated April 24, 1919).
*) Clause 2 bis represents a marginal note added in the author’s own hand. Ed.