LETTER TO O. V. KUUSINEN AND V. KÖNEN*
To Comrades Kuusinen and Könen
9/VII/1921.
Dear Comrades!
I read your draft of the organizational theses with great pleasure. In my view, the work is highly successful. I would suggest only two additions:
1) The Soviets—every party should establish control commissions composed of the finest, most tried and tested, most experienced workers;
2) On spies—a special paragraph, in connection with the question of illegal work.
The general tenor might be as follows: the bourgeoisie will inevitably send spies and provocateurs into clandestine organizations. Against this, we must wage the most thorough and relentless struggle—and, above all, we must recommend, as a crucial means in this struggle, the skillful combination and interweaving of legal work with illegal work, as well as the practice of subjecting candidates (to determine whether they are fit for clandestine work) to prolonged periods of legal activity.33
With communist greetings, Yours, Lenin
First published in 1958 in the journal “Problems of Peace
and Socialism,” No. 3

Printed from the manuscript

Translated from the German

* See the present volume, pp. 13–15. Ed.