Draft Secret Letter of the Central Committee of the RCP1

There is no doubt that monetary grants from the Communist International to the Communist Parties of bourgeois countries, while of course quite legal and necessary, sometimes lead to outrages and abominable abuses.

Waging a merciless struggle against these abuses, the Central Committee of the RCP addresses this secret letter to all members of the Party working abroad, who are there or who are acquainted (in one way or another) with this work.

The Central Committee declares that it recognizes as the greatest crime for which it will unconditionally expel from the Party (not to mention criminal prosecution and slander in the press at the slightest opportunity)

- not only any misuse of the money received from the Communist International (in the sense of supporting a direction which wishes to distinguish itself by its "leftism" or "revolutionism"; in the sense of providing itself or others with better than average living conditions for Party workers, etc.),

- but also the slightest concealment from the Central Committee of details about the expenditure of this money, meaning by concealment any evasion, direct or indirect, of the Central Committee's accurate and unconditionally truthful information about every penny of the money spent abroad and received from the Communist International.

All those guilty of this kind of concealment of the truth, whether deliberately or through negligence, will be condemned by the Central Committee as thieves and traitors, for the harm caused by the sloppy (not to mention dishonest) spending of money abroad is many times greater than the harm caused by traitors and thieves.

Anyone taking money from the Communist International is warned that he is obliged to carry out with absolute punctuality all the instructions of the ICCI and especially to punctually fulfill all the rules and conditions necessary for the unconditional complete, prompt and truthful information of the Central Committee of the RCP about every penny of the money spent.

The Central Committee instructs the members of the RCP working for the KICI1* to immediately draw up detailed instructions on the rules for spending the money received from the KICI and for reporting on this spending.

The main provisions of this instruction should be:

(1) spending money without the knowledge and consent of the Central Committee of a local Communist Party affiliated to the Communist International is declared theft; (2) anyone taking money, even if only for transportation, is obliged to give a receipt to the ICCI (or send it) certifying receipt and obedience to the rules of expenditure; (3) anyone receiving money is obliged to inform at least two comrades at the place of expenditure about every penny of the expenditure, of whom at least one must be completely legal, i.e. not to participate in the slightest illegal act; (4) at least once every three months, anyone receiving money must report in Moscow (or by one of the persons mentioned in par. 3) in detail and in writing every penny of it; The "controllers" should be: members of diplomatic (α) missions (β) sick (γ) various (5) the obligation to report in detail every penny spent is also obligatory at all times for all those receiving money to persons who have a special mandate from the Central Committee of the RCP (or who have a mandate from the ICCI) to demand a report; (6) anyone who has received money and has not submitted a report by the due date shall be brought before the Party Court, even if he has been arrested, and shall not be exempted from the suspicion of theft without the decision of the Party Court; (7) the Central Committee of the RCP, in agreement with the CCC (RCP), appoints a special committee to strictly supervise non-compliance with these rules (e.g. Solts + Kuchmenko + Krivov).

Published - "Izvestiya TsK CPSU", 1990, No. 4, pp. 181-182.

Fond 2, op. 1, d. 27065 - autograph.

1*Wouldn't it be better: to Zinoviev? Better! (Lenin's note).

1No information about the discussion of the draft of the published letter has been found in the minutes of the Central Committee and Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(b).