Materials for the Article “How Shall We Reorganize Rabkrin?”*
Outline for the Article “What Shall We Do with Rabkrin?”

1. — Our state apparatus, as a whole, remains most deeply entwined with the old order, most thoroughly permeated by its spirit.
It is precisely through this path that we can best renew it.

2. — The greatest dynamism of an apparatus of this kind—namely, one closely linked to the Central Committee—

3. — Its highest degree of authority.

4. — Might there then be too many members of the Central Committee?

5. — The character of Central Committee plenums—as conferences—has already evolved out of our earlier
party-building practices.

6. — It may be advisable to issue a resolution limiting the attendance of Central Committee members at meetings of the higher governmental bodies (the Sovnarkom, the Council of Labour and Defence, the VTsIK, and so on).

7. — A rotation system could be established for their attendance at these meetings.

8. — A rotation system might also be introduced for their participation in the sessions of the Rabkrin Collegium.

9. — A possible objection to this plan: too many inspectors, too much oversight, too many superiors empowered to demand immediate responses and to pull officials away from their direct duties—and so forth.

10. — The response: we do not envision the usual composition of staff within the RCP(b).

* See this volume, pp. 383–388. Ed.

Materials for the Article “How Shall We Reorganize Rabkrin”
11. — What explains the fact that the staff of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs is better composed? And what conditions must be met in order to secure from the RCP(b) an apparatus just as thoroughly renewed?

12. — The RCP(b) must now begin to reorganize its work anew, drawing upon the experience of five years.

13. — A new organizational approach, initiated by the Secretariat of the Central Committee—namely, the systematic training of new Central Committee members in all aspects of administrative management.

14. — The increasing regularity of Politburo meetings naturally follows from the ongoing course of our work.

15. — An important advantage of expanding the membership of the Central Committee lies in the reduction of personal, contingent factors in its decision‑making processes, and so forth.
Dictated in January, no later than the 9th, 1923.
First published in 1959.

In Lenin’s Collected Works, Volume XXXVI

Printed from the secretary’s record (a typewritten copy)

2. WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH RABKRIN?
There is no doubt that Rabkrin presents us with enormous difficulties. Nothing has yet emerged from it, and the question of its organization—even the question of its very viability—remains open.

I believe that those who doubt its necessity are mistaken. Yet I do not deny that the question of our state apparatus and its improvement is exceedingly complex and far from settled.

Our state apparatus—except for the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs—is, to the greatest extent, a relic of the old order, subjected to only the most superficial reforms. It has been merely smoothed over on the surface. In all other respects, in order to put it into proper working order, the workers’ and peasants’ state—a state built upon entirely new principles—has always required, and continues to require today, the concentration within its highest hierarchical ranks of Party members.

One need only recall how we acted during the perilous moments of the Civil War, how we concentrated our finest Party forces in the Red Army, how we resorted to mobilizing advanced Party workers—such examples serve to confirm what has been said.

And so, it seems to me that, despite all our attempts to reorganize the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, the conclusion we reach is that we have not yet made a single truly decisive attempt. Indeed, we have not even tried to entrust this task

Materials for the Article “How Shall We Reorganize Rabkrin”
to our workers and peasants, placing them at the head of our Party—as members of the Central Committee.

I envision the transformation of Rabkrin as follows: several dozen (from 50 to 75 individuals), workers and peasants who have been thoroughly tested in terms of integrity and loyalty, are elected to the Party’s Central Committee in addition to the existing Central Committee members. At the same time, Rabkrin is finally reduced (finally!) to a small cadre of perhaps a few hundred individuals—on the one hand, those who have been most thoroughly tested in the affairs of Rabkrin itself; that is, specialists who are most familiar with the overall oversight of our apparatus, both in terms of their technical expertise regarding our administrative machinery and in terms of their theoretical preparation for questions of labor organization within institutions, as well as in terms of their methods of inspection and investigation—and on the other hand, individuals belonging to the purely secretarial, auxiliary apparatus.

The new Central Committee members—completely equal in status to the other Central Committee members—are tasked with the long-term, painstaking work of studying and improving our state apparatus. All other Rabkrin employees are assigned the task of assisting them in this endeavor: some, as those most familiar with the apparatus and most experienced in the work of Rabkrin; others, as secretarial-type staff.

The People’s Commissariat for the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection could remain, in this regard, the same People’s Commissariat it has been until now. The new Central Committee members could be regarded as being on temporary assignment within it. The People’s Commissar for the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection could retain his title, his position, and his rights—just as the members of his collegium would likewise retain theirs.

So what benefits would we derive from such an organizational structure? First and foremost, we would once and for all abandon the practice of launching new reorganizations based on an insufficient understanding of our apparatus. Second, we would immediately elevate the authority of this People’s Commissariat—both by bringing Central Committee members into its ranks and by reducing its staff to but a few hundred individuals. For from the current state, in which the members of the People’s Commissariat for the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection generally live on handouts from the institutions they inspect, we would move directly to a situation in which

When the maximum degree of independence for employees of the Rabkrin would be guaranteed either through exceedingly high salaries—achieved by reducing the workforce to just a few hundred highly skilled, rigorously vetted senior officials—or through a corps of purely secretarial assistants who would remain under the constant oversight and supervision of both the aforementioned members of the Central Committee and the small number of specialists we have retained after a careful review of the Commissariat’s staffing levels.
The new members of the Central Committee would be tasked with scrutinizing our state apparatus in all its myriad branches—with particular attention paid to the trade unions and their affiliated organizations.
This undertaking cannot be accomplished overnight. Consequently, they would not be assigned any fixed deadline for completing their mission. On the other hand, they could expect to work for several years, with one group of Central Committee members being replaced by another cohort equally committed to this same task—thus, by resolution of the Party Congress, we would ensure that Central Committee members assigned to this post would have the opportunity to serve for several years before returning to their former positions.
Lenin
January 9, 1923. Recorded by M. V.
WHAT SHOULD WE DO WITH THE RABKRIN?
(continued)
I anticipate that such a plan will inevitably provoke a host of objections—most of which will be fueled by the malicious clamor of the worst remnants of our old-state apparatus, those elements that have truly remained “old,” that is, pre-revolutionary in character. Critics will claim that this approach will plunge our operations into utter chaos: that Central Committee members, unsure of what to do, will wander aimlessly from one People’s Commissariat to another, from one institution to the next, interfering with every aspect of work, demanding explanations at every turn, and so on ad infinitum.
It seems to me that the very nature of these objections reveals their true source—and that in response to such objections

MATERIALS FOR THE ARTICLE “HOW WE SHOULD REORGANIZE THE RABKRIN”
it hardly even merits a reply. Of course, if we were to assume a standard staffing structure, then perhaps some of these objections could be justified. But the fact remains that we are not assuming a conventional staffing model for this Commissariat; rather, we are deliberately assembling a cadre composed exclusively of the finest workers—those whom, following the Party Congress’s rigorous vetting process, deserve to be elected to the Central Committee. In my view, this ensures that the staff of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs will henceforth be no less distinguished in quality than the best of our People’s Commissariats—namely, the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs itself. What accounts for the superior caliber of personnel in the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs? First, because there was never any significant contingent of old-school diplomats left in its ranks; second, because we carefully selected comrades anew, choosing them solely according to fresh criteria aligned with the new tasks at hand; third, because the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs does not harbor the same profusion of “jack-of-all-trades” bureaucrats—essentially mere duplicates of the old-style officials found in other Commissariats—nor, fourth, because the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs operates under the direct guidance of our Central Committee. In fact, it is the only one of our People’s Commissariats that has been completely renewed within our ranks—a body that truly works in the spirit of, and for the benefit of, the worker-peasant state, rather than merely claiming to do so while in practice working against it or failing to embody its guiding principles.
Now, what conditions must we meet in order to forge from the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs an apparatus that is likewise genuinely renewed? The first condition is that integrity will be fully secured through the process of selection; the second is that workers must possess high standards of dedication to the cause and exceptional competence; and the third is that they must enjoy close proximity to the highest party organs—and equal standing with those who lead our Party, and through it, our entire state apparatus.
Some may argue that no amount of integrity, no matter how great a party’s authority, can substitute for what is, in this instance, the most fundamental requirement: a profound understanding of the subject matter, a thorough knowledge of our state apparatus, and a clear grasp of precisely how that apparatus must be reorganized.
To this I would respond that, in my proposal, one of the most crucial conditions is that we do not expect swift results from the new Commissariat—and we must anticipate from the outset that this work will extend over many years. Once that is understood, the question shifts entirely to the organization of the new Commissariat’s operations.
Here, I feel justified in assuming that both our Party cadres and the leaders of our current People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs have accumulated sufficient experience, adequate knowledge, proven skill, and a wealth of other qualities—enough, in short, to properly organize the training of new Central Committee members—training that is grounded in practical application, meaning that we should combine their familiarization with every detail of our state apparatus with their simultaneous engagement with the insights that modern bourgeois science has developed in the realm of optimizing the performance of all types of public servants.
Lenin
January 13, 1923. Recorded by L. F.
WHAT SHOULD WE DO WITH THE RABKRIN?
(continued, part two)
As a matter of course, I assume that the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs will now, drawing on the lessons of five years’ experience, begin to reorganize its operations anew; it will divide its new workforce into distinct groups, systematically allocating tasks among these groups; it will further subdivide these groups: some will be engaged in hands-on work, gaining practical exposure to foreign experience; others will devote themselves to theoretical study, familiarizing themselves with the latest findings of contemporary science in the field of labor organization more broadly—and specifically in the domain of managerial labor. It will assign all employees of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs to rotate through the various tasks entrusted to them, moving systematically from the lowest rungs to the highest, taking on diverse functions across different areas of administration, in varied locales, and under differing working conditions—including those shaped by national identity and other such factors.

MATERIALS FOR THE ARTICLE “HOW WE SHOULD REORGANIZE RABKRIN”
In a word, I assume that the comrades in the RCP have learned something over these five years and that they will be able to apply the knowledge they have acquired to the reorganization of the People’s Commissariat. Moreover, we must not forget that we seem to have three institutions of a scientific nature devoted to the study of labor organization: the Central Institute of Labor, the special group within the RCP tasked with this mission, and the group in the People’s Commissariat for Military Affairs. Recently, a congress was held bringing together all three of these groups,227 and one may hope that their work will now proceed more systematically, more harmoniously, and more purposefully than before.
What new organizational approach to work do I envision on the part of the Secretariat of our Central Committee? Of course, several dozen members of the Central Committee will require a new organizational framework. But I must point out that we have, in fact, already moved toward organizing our Central Committee plenums along the lines of high-level conferences. What remains is to ensure that these newly appointed members of the Central Committee are thoroughly trained in all aspects of Central Committee work—and in familiarizing themselves with the operations of the highest state organs. If we delay in taking these steps, we will fail to fulfill one of our most fundamental duties: namely, the duty to make use of our time in power to educate the best elements among the working masses in every detail of governance. Measures such as further streamlining the sessions of our Politburo—by scheduling them twice a week while reducing the total number of meeting hours; by ensuring that all documents are better prepared in advance and made available to all Central Committee members well ahead of time—these measures are already emerging naturally from the current course of our work and are urgently needed; indeed, it is hardly conceivable that anyone could raise serious objections to them. Of course, this will entail an increase in expenditures on secretarial staff—but to begrudge these expenses would be the height of imprudence.
Furthermore, I will not hide from my comrades that, in my view, a key advantage of increasing the number of Central Committee members lies in the reduction of the personal, contingent element in its decisions, in the greater degree of preparation that goes into those decisions, in the more thorough scrutiny of all assertions made at such meetings, and—consequently—in the enhanced stability of our Central Committee, both in terms of continuity in its work and in its resistance to splits that might arise from insufficient ties between this institution and the masses.
Lenin
January 13, 1923
Recorded by L. F.
Dictated on January 9 and 13, 1923
First published in 1959 in Lenin Collection, Volume XXXVI

Printed from the secretary’s record (a typewritten copy)