V. I. Lenin

Conditions for Admiting New Members to the Party

Letters To V. M. Molotov

1

Comrade Molotov, I request that the following proposal be submitted to the
Plenary
Meeting of the Central Committee.

I consider it extremely important to lengthen the probation
period for new members of the Party. Zinoviev proposes that the probation period
should be six months for workers and twelve months for other categories. I
propose a period of six months only for those workers who have actually
been employed in large industrial enterprises for not less than ten years.
A probation period of eighteen months should be established for all other
workers, two years for peasants and Red Army men, and three years for
other categories. Exceptions are to be permitted in special cases with the
joint consent of the Central Committee and the Central Control
Commission.

I think it will be extremely dangerous to accept the short
periods of probation proposed by Zinoviev. There is no doubt that we constantly
regard as workers people who have not had the slightest real experience of
large-scale industry. There has been case after case of petty bourgeois,
who have become workers by chance and only for a very short time, being
classed as workers. All shrewd whiteguards are very definitely banking on
the fact that the alleged proletarian character of our Party does not in
the least safeguard it against the small-proprietor elements gaining
predominance in it, and very rapidly, too. In view of the lackadaisical and unsystematic methods that prevail in our ranks,
short probation periods will actually mean that no real test will be made
to ascertain whether the applicants are really more or less tried
Communists. If we have 300,000 to 400,000 members in the Party, even that
number is excessive, for literally everything goes to show that the level
of training of the present Party membership is inadequate. That is why I
strongly insist on longer probation periods, and on instructing the
Organising Bureau to draw up and strictly apply rules that will really
make the period of probation a serious test and not an empty
formality.

I think that this question should be discussed at the Congress
with special care.

Lenin

March 24, 1922

* * *

2

Comrade Molotov, Please give this to be read to all the members of the Central Committee before the question of the conditions for admitting new members to the Party is brought up at the Congress .

Having read the decision of the Plenary Meeting of March 25 on
the question of the probation periods for new Party members, I should like to
challenge this decision at the Congress. I am afraid, however, that I
shall not be able to speak at the Congress, and so I request that my
opinion be read.

There is no doubt that judged by the bulk of its present
membership our
Party is not proletarian enough. I do not think anybody can challenge
this, and a mere glance at the statistics will bear it out. Since the war,
the industrial workers of Russia have become much less proletarian than
they were before, because during the war all those who desired to evade
military service went into the factories. This is common knowledge. On the
other hand, it is equally undoubted that, taken as a whole (if we take the
level of the overwhelming majority of Party members), our Party is less
politically trained than is necessary for real proletarian leadership in
the present difficult situation, especially in view of the tremendous
preponderance of the peasantry, which is rapidly awakening to independent
class politics. Further, it must be borne in mind that the temptation to
join the ruling party at the present time is very great. It is sufficient
to recall all the literary productions of the Smena Vekh writers
to see that the types who have been carried away by the political
successes of the Bolsheviks are very remote from everything proletarian.

If the Genoa Conference results in further political successes
for us, there will be a big increase in the efforts of petty-bourgeois elements,
and of elements positively hostile to all that is proletarian, to
penetrate into the Party. Six months’ probation for workers will not
diminish this pressure in the least, for it is the easiest thing in the
world for anyone to qualify for this short probation period by fraudulent
means, the more so that it is not in the least difficult under present
conditions for very many intellectual and semi-intellectual elements to
join the ranks of the workers. From all this I draw the conclusion that we
must establish much longer probation periods and this opinion is
strengthened by the fact that the whiteguards are definitely banking on
the non-proletarian composition of our Party membership. If we agree to a
six months’ period for workers, we must without fail, in order-not
to deceive ourselves and others, define the term “worker” in
such a way as to include only those who have acquired a proletarian
mentality from their very conditions of life. But this is impossible
unless the persons concerned have worked in a factory for many years, not
from ulterior motives, but because of the general conditions of their
economic and social life.

If we do not close our eyes to reality we must admit that at the
present time the proletarian policy of the Party is not determined by the
character of its membership, but by the enormous undivided prestige
enjoyed by the small group which might be called the Old Guard of the
Party. A slight conflict within this group will be enough, if not to
destroy this prestige, at all events to weaken the group to such a degree
as to rob it of its power to determine policy.

Hence, it is necessary: 1) to lengthen the probation period for all
categories; 2) to define in great detail how the applicant is to pass the
probation period; what concrete and practical tests should be applied to
determine whether the probation period is really a period of probation and
not a mere formality; 3) to create a qualified majority on the bodies
which decide on the applications of new members; 4) to make it a rule that
the decision to admit new members be endorsed, not only by the Gubernia
Party Committees, but also by the Control Commissions; 5) to devise other
measures for the purpose of helping the Party to rid itself of those
members who are by no means Communists consciously implementing a
proletarian policy. I do not propose that a new general purging of the
Party be undertaken, because I think at the moment it is impracticable;
but I do think it is necessary to find some means of actually purging the
Party, i.e., of reducing its membership. I am sure that if the necessary
thought is given to the matter a number of suitable measures can be
devised.

I would ask the members of the Central Committee who will read this to
reply to me if possible, if only in a brief telephone message to one of
the secretaries of the Council of People’s Commissars.

Lenin

March 26, 1922