V. I. Lenin

Letter to

J. V. Stalin

On the Functions of the Deputy Chairmen of the Council of People's Commissars and of the Council of Labour and Defence

March 21, 1922

I have had a talk with Tsyurupa and Rykov. I hope the work will
proceed smoothly. Incidentally, one of the questions concerns
your Commissariat. [1] Tsyurupa’s and Rykov’s main job is (must be now) to verify fulfilment and select
personnel.

Assistants are needed. The Executive Secretary’s staff at
the Council of People’s Commissars is much too small to
handle the work, but it would be irrational to enlarge it. I
expressed the idea that the Workers’ and Peasants’
Inspection should be used for the purpose (of directly helping
Tsyurupa and Rykov verify fulfilment and supervise the lower
echelons of the People’s Commissariats). I should like to
know if you approve of this; if you do, a written agreement is
necessary between you and the deputies, and I should like to
participate in drawing up that agreement.

The purpose is to train (by having them tested by you and the
two deputies on practical assignments) specially and unquestionably reliable people, from among the best workers of
the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, whom Tsyurupa and Rykov select by agreement with you, who would be able
quickly and unconditionally a) to secure fulfilment; b) to verify fulfilment; c) to check the correctness of the apparatus in the various People’s Commissariats, departments, the Moscow Soviet or the Petrograd Soviet, etc.; d) to issue instructions on how the work should be organised.

These people are to carry on their work in such a way as to
personally report on the course and results of it to the deputies and you They must be selected very gradually so that only after repeated tests they are made,
so to say, inspectors and instructors ’with special authority"; their number must be gradually brought up
to several dozen. In their turn, they will (actually) enlist non-Party workers and peasants into the work of the
Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection.

If you approve of the above, send a copy of this to Tsyurupa and
Rykov with your postscript. If you have objections, write me a
note (and telephone) immediately. I should like to speak of this
in the report to the Congress.

Lenin

Endnotes

[1] Lenin refers to
the People’s Commissariat of Workers’ and
Peasants’ Inspection. The Workers’ and
Peasants’ Inspection was set up in February 1920 on
Lenin’s initiative through the reorganisation of the
Peo-ple’s Commissariat. of State Control, which began functioning in the first months after the establishment of
Soviet rule.