PROPOSALS REGARDING THE VERIFICATION AND PURGING OF RCP(b) PERSONNEL
The primary unit responsible for registration should be a group composed of veteran members of the RCP—those who have been in the Party for no more than 5–7 years—and, crucially, workers.
All RCP members who are even slightly suspect, unreliable, or who have failed to demonstrate their steadfastness must be expelled from the Party, with the right to re‑admission granted upon further verification and probationary review.
1) Those who joined from other parties after October 1917; 2) those who came from among officials and functionaries formerly serving under the old governments; 3) those who held positions entailing any form of privilege; 4) those affiliated with the state bureaucracy—these categories must undergo comprehensive, specialized scrutiny, including mandatory interviews with working-class individuals, both Party members and non‑Party members, who have encountered the given RCP member in the course of their professional duties.
Recommendations should be accompanied by precise, written endorsements, and among the recommenders there must be several workers who have already served 5–7 years in the Party.
Formalities should be kept to a minimum for genuine workers who are actually employed at their own factories, as well as for peasants engaged in cultivating their own plots of land, so as not to unduly burden such individuals with re-registration procedures.
Written in June, no later than June 21, 1921.
First published in 1959.
In Lenin’s Collected Works, Volume XXXVI

Printed from manuscript