This document is the second part of Lenin’s letter to the
12th Congress How we Should Reorganise the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection. This is the last document written by Vladimir
Lenin.

In the matter of improving our state apparatus, the Workers’ and
Peasants’ Inspection should not, in my opinion, either strive after
quantity or hurry. We have so far been able to devote so little thought and
attention to the efficiency of our state apparatus that it would now be
quite legitimate if we took special care to secure its thorough
organisation, and concentrated in the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection a
staff of workers really abreast of the times, i.e., not inferior to the
best West-European standards. For a socialist republic this condition is,
of course, too modest. But our experience of the first five years has
fairly crammed our heads with mistrust and scepticism. These qualities
assert themselves involuntarily when, for example, we hear people dilating
at too great length and too flippantly on "proletarian" culture. For a
start, we should be satisfied with real bourgeois culture; for a start we
should be glad to dispense with the crude types of pre-bourgeois culture,
i.e., bureaucratic culture or serf culture, etc. In matters of culture,
haste and sweeping measures are most harmful. Many of our young writers and
Communists should get this well into their heads.

Thus, in the matter of our state apparatus we should now draw the
conclusion from our past experience that it would be better to proceed more
slowly.

Our state apparatus is so deplorable, not to say wretched, that we must
first think very carefully how to combat its defects, bearing in mind that
these defects are rooted in the past, which, although it has been
overthrown, has not yet been overcome, has not yet reached the stage of a
culture, that has receded into the distant past. I say culture
deliberately, because in these matters we can only regard as achieved what
has become part and parcel of our culture, of our social life, our habits.
We might say that the good in our social system has not been properly
studied, understood, and taken to heart; it has been hastily grasped at; it
has not been verified or tested, corroborated by experience, and not made
durable, etc. Of course, it could not be otherwise in a revolutionary
epoch, when development proceeded at such break-neck speed that in a matter
of five years we passed from tsarism to the Soviet system.

It is time we did something about it. We must show sound scepticism for
too rapid progress, for boastfulness, etc. We must give thought to testing
the steps forward we proclaim every hour, take every minute and then prove
every second that they are flimsy, superficial and misunderstood. The most
harmful thing here would be haste. The most harmful thing would be to rely
on the assumption that we know at least something, or that we have any
considerable number of elements necessary for the building of a really new
state apparatus, one really worthy to be called socialist, Soviet, etc.

No, we are ridiculously deficient of such an apparatus, and even of the
elements of it, and we must remember that we should not stint time on
building it, and that it will take many, many years.

What elements have we for building this apparatus? Only two. First, the
workers who are absorbed in the struggle of socialism. These elements are
not sufficient educated. They would like to build a better apparatus for
us, but they do not know how. They cannot build one. They have not yet
developed the culture required for this; and it is culture that is
required. Nothing will be achieved in this by doing things in a rush, by
assault, by vim or vigour, or in general, by any of the best human
qualities. Secondly, we have elements of knowledge, education and training,
but they are ridiculously inadequate compared with all other countries.

Here we must not forget that we are too prone to compensate (or imagine
that we can compensate) our lack of knowledge by zeal, haste, etc.

In order to renovate our state apparatus we must at all costs set out,
first, to learn, secondly, to learn, and thirdly, to learn, and then see to
it that learning shall not remain a dead letter, or a fashionable
catch-phrase (and we should admit in all frankness that this happens very
often with us), that learning shall really become part of our very being,
that it shall actually and fully become a constituent element of our social
life. In short, we must not make the demands that were made by bourgeois
Western Europe, but demands that are fit and proper for a country which has
set out to develop into a socialist country.

The conclusion to be drawn from the above are the following: we must
make the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection a really exemplary institution,
an instrument to improve our state apparatus.

In order that it may attain the desired high level, we must follow the
rule: "Measure your cloth seven times before you cut."

For this purpose, we must utilise the very best of what there is in our
social system, and utilise it with the greatest caution, thoughtfulness and
knowledge, to build up the new People’s Commissariat.

For this purpose, the best elements that we have in our social system such as, first, the advanced workers, and, second, the really enlightened
elements for whom we can vouch that they will not take the word for the
deed, and will not utter a single word that goes against their conscience should not shrink from admitting any difficulty and should not shrink from
any struggle in order to achieve the object they have seriously set
themselves.

We have been bustling for five years trying to improve our state
apparatus, but it has been mere bustle, which has proved useless in these
five years, of even futile, or even harmful. This bustle created the
impression that we were doing something, but in effect it was only clogging
up our institutions and our brains.

It is high time things were changed.

We must follow the rule: Better fewer, but better. We must follow the
rule: Better get good human material in two or even three years than work
in haste without hope of getting any at all.

I know that it will be hard to keep to this rule and apply it under our
conditions. I know that the opposite rule will force its way through a
thousand loopholes. I know that enormous resistance will have to be put up,
that devilish persistence will be required, that in the first few years at
least work in this field will be hellishly hard. Nevertheless, I am
convinced that only by such effort shall we be able to achieve our aim; and
that only by achieving this aim shall we create a republic that is really
worthy of the name of Soviet, socialist, and so on, and so forth.

Many readers probably thought that the figures I quoted by way of
illustration in my first article [ How We Should Reorganise the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection ] were too small. I am
sure that many calculations may be made to prove that they are. But I think
that we must put one thing above all such and other calculations, i.e., our
desire to obtain really exemplary quality.

I think that the time has at last come when we must work in real earnest
to improve our state apparatus and in this there can scarcely be anything
more harmful than haste. That is why I would sound a strong warning against
inflating the figures. In my opinion, we should, on the contrary, be
especially sparing with figures in this matter. Let us say frankly that the
People’s Commissariat of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection does not at
present enjoy the slightest authority. Everybody knows that no other
institutions are worse organised than those of our Workers’ and Peasants’
Inspection, and that under present conditions nothing can be expected from
this People’s Commissariat. We must have this firmly fixed in our minds if
we really want to create within a few years an institution that will,
first, be an exemplary institution, secondly, win everybody’s absolute
confidence, and, thirdly, prove to all and sundry that we have really
justified the work of such a highly placed institution as the Central
Control Commission. In my opinion, we must immediately and irrevocably
reject all general figures for the size of office staffs. We must select
employees for the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection with particular care
and only on the basis of the strictest test. Indeed, what is the use of
establishing a People’s Commissariat which carries on anyhow, which does
not enjoy the slightest confidence, and whose word carries scarcely any
weight? I think that our main object in launching the work of
reconstruction that we now have in mind is to avoid all this.

The workers whom we are enlisting as members of the Central Control
Commission must be irreproachable Communists, and I think that a great deal
has yet to be done to teach them the methods and objects of their work.
Furthermore, there must be a definite number of secretaries to assist in
this work, who must be put to a triple test before they are appointed to
their posts. Lastly, the officials whom in exceptional cases we shall
accept directly as employees of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection must
conform to the following requirements:

First, they must be recommended by several
Communists.

Second, they must pass a test for knowledge of our state
apparatus.

Third, they must pass a test in the fundamentals of the
theory of our state apparatus, in the fundamentals of management, office
routine, etc.

Fourth, they must work in such close harmony with the members of the Central Control Commission and with their own secretariat
that we could vouch for the work of the whole apparatus.

I know that these requirements are extraordinarily strict, and I am very
much afraid that the majority of the "practical" workers in the Workers’
and Peasants’ Inspection will say that these requirements are
impracticable, or will scoff at them. But I ask any of the present chiefs
of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, or anyone associated with that
body, whether they can honestly tell me the practical purpose of a People’s
Commissariat like the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection? I think this
question will help them recover their sense of proportion. Either it is not
worth while having another of the numerous reorganisations that we have had
of this hopeless affair, the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, or we must
really set to work, by slow, difficult and unusual methods, and by testing
these methods over and over again, to create something really exemplary,
something that will win the respect of all and sundry for its merits, and
not only because of its rank and title.

If we do not arm ourselves with patience, if we do not devote several
years to this task, we had better not tackle it at all.

In my opinion we ought to select a minimum number of the higher labour
research institutes, etc., which we have baked so hastily, see whether they
are organised properly, and allow them to continue working, but only in a
way that conforms to the high standards of modern science and gives us all
its benefits. If we do that it will not be utopian to hope that within a
few years we shall have an institution that will be able to perform its
functions, to work systematically and steadily on improving our state
apparatus, an institution backed by the trust of the working class, of the
Russian Communist Party, and the whole population of our Republic.

The spade-work for this could begin at once. If the People’s
Commissariat of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection accepted the present
plan of reogranisation, it could not take the preparatory steps and work
methodically until the task is completed, without haste, and not hesitating
to alter what has already been done.

Any half-hearted solution would be extremely harmful in this matter. A
measure for the size of the staff of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection
based on any other consideration would, in fact, be based on the old
bureaucratic considerations, on old prejudices, on what has already been
condemned, universally ridiculed, etc.

In substance, the matter is as follows:

Either we prove now that we have really learned something
about state organisation (we ought to have learned something in five
years), or we prove that we are not sufficiently mature for it. If the
latter is the case, we had better not tackle the task.

I think that with the available human material it will not be immodest
to assume that we have learned enough to be able to systematically rebuild
at least one People’s Commissariat. True, this one People’s Commissariat
will have to be the model for our entire state apparatus.

We ought to at once announce a contest in the compilation of two or more
textbooks on the organisation of labour in general, and on management in
particular. We can take as a basis the book already published by Yermansky,
although it should be said in parentheses that he obviously sympathises
with Menshevism and is unfit to compile textbooks for the Soviet
system.

We can also take as a basis the recent book by Kerzhentsev, and some of
the other partial textbooks available may be useful too.

We ought to send several qualified and conscientious people to Germany,
or to Britain, to collect literature and to study this question. I mention
Britain in case it is found impossible to send people to the U.S.A. or
Canada.

We ought to appoint a commission to draw up the preliminary programme of
examinations for prospective employees of the Workers’ and Peasants’
Inspection; ditto for candidates to the Central Control Commission.

These and similar measures will not, of course, cause any difficulties
for the People’s Commissar or the collegium of the Workers’ and Peasants’
Inspection, or for the Presidium of the Central Control Commission.

Simultaneously, a preparatory commission should be appointed to select
candidates for membership of the Central Control Commission. I hope that we
shall now be able to find more than enough candidates for this post among
the experienced workers in all departments, as well as among the students
of our Soviet higher schools. It would hardly be right to exclude one or
another category beforehand. Probably preference will have to be given to a
mixed composition for this institution, which should combine many
qualities, and dissimilar merits. Consequently, the tasks of drawing up the
list of candidates will entail a considerable amount of work. For example,
it would be least desirable for the staff of the new People’s Commissariat
to consist of people of one type, only of officials, say, or for it to
exclude people of the propagandist type, or people whose principal quality
is sociability or the ability to penetrate into circles that are not
altogether customary for officials in this field, etc.

I think I shall be able to express my idea best if I compare my plan
with that of academic institutions. Under the guidance of their Presidium,
the members of the Central Control Commission should systematically examine
all the paper and documents of the Political Bureau. Moreover, they should
divide their time correctly between various jobs in investigating the
routine in our institutions, form the very small and privately-owned
offices to the highest state institutions. And lastly, their functions
should include the study of theory, i.e., the theory of organisation of the
work they intend to devote themselves to, and practical work under the
guidance of other comrades or of teachers in the higher institutes for the
organisation of labour.

I do not think, however, that they will be able to confine themselves to
this sort of academic work. In addition, they will have to prepare
themselves for working which I would not hesitate to call training to
catch, I will not say rouges, but something like that, and working out
special ruses to screen their movements, their approach, etc.

If such proposals were made in West-European government institutions
they would rouse frightful resentment, a feeling of moral indignation,
etc.; but I trust that we have not become so bureaucratic as to be capable
of that. NEP has not yet succeeded in gaining such respect as to cause any
of us to be shocked at the idea somebody may be caught. Our Soviet Republic
is of such recent construction, and there are such heaps of the old lumber
still lying around that it would hardly occur to anyone to be shocked at
the idea that we should delve into them by means of ruses, by means of
investigations sometimes directed to rather remote sources or in a
roundabout way. And even if it did occur to anyone to be shocked by this,
we may be sure that such a person would make himself a laughing-stock.

Let us hope that our new Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection will abandon
what the French call pruderie, which we may call ridiculous
primness, or ridiculous swank, and which plays entirely into the hands of
our Soviet and Party bureaucracy. Let it be said in parentheses that we
have bureaucrats in our Party offices as well as in Soviet offices.

When I said above that we must study and study hard in institutes for
the higher organisation of labour, etc., I did not by any means imply
"studying" in the schoolroom way, nor did I confine myself to the idea of
studying only in the schoolroom way. I hope that not a single genuine
revolutionary will suspect me of refusing, in this case, to understand
"studies" to include resorting to some semi-humourous trick, cunning
device, piece of trickery or something of that sort. I know that in the
staid and earnest states of Western European such an idea would horrify
people and that not a single decent official would even entertain it. I
hope, however, that we have not yet become as bureaucratic as all that and
that in our midst the discussion of this idea will give rise to nothing
more than amusement.

Indeed, why not combine pleasure with utility? Why not resort to some
humourous or semi-humorous trick to expose something ridiculous, something
harmful, something semi-ridiculous, semi-harmful, etc.?

It seems to me that our Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection will gain a
great deal if it undertakes to examine these ideas, and that the list of
cases in which our Central Control Commission and its colleagues in the
Workers and Peasants’ Inspection achieved a few of their most brilliant
victories will be enriched by not a few exploits of our future Workers’ and
Peasants’ Inspection and Central Control Commission members in places not
quite mentionable in prim and staid textbooks.

How can a Party institution be amalgamated with a Soviet institution? Is
there not something improper in this suggestion?

I do not ask these questions on my own behalf, but on behalf of those I
hinted at above when I said that we have bureaucrats in our Party
institutions as well as in the Soviet institutions.

But why, indeed, should we not amalgamate the two if this is in the
interests of our work? Do we not all see that such an amalgamation has been
very beneficial in the case of the People’s Commissariat of Foreign
Affairs, where it was brought about at the very beginning? Does not the
Political Bureau discuss from the Party point of view many questions, both
minor and important, concerning the "moves" we should make in reply to the
"moves" of foreign powers in order to forestall their, say, cunning, if we
are not to use a less respectable term? Is not this flexible amalgamation
of a Soviet institution with a Party institution a source of great strength
in our politics? I think that what has proved its usefulness, what has been
definitely adopted in our foreign politics and has become so customary that
it no longer calls forth any doubt in this field, will be at least as
appropriate (in fact, I think it will be much more appropriate) for our
state apparatus as a whole. The functions of the Workers’ and Peasants’
Inspection cover our state apparatus as a whole, and its activities should
affect all and every state institution without exception: local, central,
commercial, purely administrative, educational, archival, theatrical, etc.-
in short, all without any exception.

Why then should not an institution, whose activities have such wide
scope, and which moreover requires such extraordinary flexibility of forms,
be permitted to adopt this peculiar amalgamation of a Party control
institution with a Soviet control institution?

I see no obstacles to this. What is more, I think that such an
amalgamation is the only guarantee of success in our work. I think that all
doubts on this score arise in the dustiest corners of our government
offices, and that they deserve to be treated with nothing but ridicule.

Another doubt: is it expedient to combine educational activities with
official activities? I think that it is not only expedient, but necessary.
Generally speaking, in spite of our revolutionary attitude towards the
West-European form of state, we have allowed ourselves to become infected
with a number of its most harmful and ridiculous prejudices; to some extent
we have been deliberately infected with them by our dear bureaucrats, who
counted on being able again and again to fish in the muddy waters of these
prejudices. And they did fish in these muddy waters to so great an extent
that only the blind among us failed to see how extensively this fishing was
practised.

In all spheres of social, economic and political relationships we are
"frightfully" revolutionary. But as regards precedence, the observance of
the forms and rites of office management, our "revolutionariness" often
gives way to the mustiest routine. On more than one occasion, we have
witnessed the very interesting phenomenon of a great leap forward in social
life being accompanied by amazing timidity whenever the slightest changes
are proposed.

This is natural, for the boldest steps forward were taken in a field
which was long reserved for theoretical study, which was promoted mainly,
and even almost exclusively, in theory. The Russian, when away from work,
found solace from bleak bureaucratic realities in unusually bold
theoretical constructions, and that is why in our country these unusually
bold theoretical constructions assumed an unusually lopsided character.
Theoretical audacity in general constructions went hand in hand with
amazing timidity as regards certain very minor reforms in office routine.
Some great universal agrarian revolution was worked out with an audacity
unexampled in any other country, and at the same time the imagination
failed when it came to working out a tenth-rate reform in office routine;
the imagination, or patience, was lacking to apply to this reform the
general propositions that produced such brilliant results when applied to
general problems.

That is why in our present life reckless audacity goes hand in hand, to
an astonishing degree, with timidity of thought even when it comes to very
minor changes.

I think that this has happened in all really great revolutions, for
really great revolutions grow out of the contradictions between the old,
between what is directed towards developing the old, and the very abstract
striving for the new, which must be so new as not to contain the tiniest
particle of the old.

And the more abrupt the revolution, the longer will many of these
contradictions last.

The general feature of our present life is the following: we have
destroyed capitalist industry and have done our best to raze to the ground
the medieval institutions and landed proprietorship, and thus created a
small and very small peasantry, which is following the lead of the
proletariat because it believes in the results of its revolutionary work.
It is not easy for us, however, to keep going until the socialist
revolution is victorious in more developed countries merely with the aid of
this confidence, because economic necessity, especially under NEP, keeps
the productivity of labour of the small and very small peasants at an
extremely low level. Moreover, the international situation, too, threw
Russia back and, by and large, reduced the labour productivity of the
people to a level considerably below pre-war. The West-European capitalist
powers, partly deliberately and partly unconsciously, did everything they
could to throw us back, to utilise the elements of the Civil War in Russia
in order to spread as much ruin in the country as possible. It was
precisely this way out of the imperialist war that seemed to have many
advantages. They argued somewhat as follows: "If we fail to overthrow the
revolutionary system in Russia, we shall, at all events, hinder its
progress towards socialism." And from their point of view they could argue
in no other way. In the end, their problem was half-solved. They failed to
overthrow the new system created by the revolution, but they did prevent it
from at once taking the step forward that would have justified the
forecasts of the socialists, that would have enabled the latter to develop
the productive forces with enormous speed, to develop all the
potentialities which, taken together, would have produced socialism;
socialists would thus have proved to all and sundry that socialism contains
within itself gigantic forces and that mankind had now entered in to a new
stage of development of extraordinarily brilliant prospects.

The system of international relationships which has now taken shape is
one in which a European state, Germany, is enslaved by the victor
countries. Furthermore, owing to their victory, a number of states, the
oldest states in the West, are in a position to make some insignificant
concessions to their oppressed classes- concessions which, insignificant
though they are, nevertheless heard the revolutionary movement in those
countries and create some semblance of "class truce."

At the same time, as a result of the last imperialist war, a number of
countries of the East, India, China, etc, have been completely jolted out
of the rut. Their development has definitely shifted to general European
capitalist lines. The general European ferment has begun to affect them,
and it is now clear to the whole world that they have been drawn into a
process of development that must lead to a crisis in the whole of world
capitalism.

Thus, at the present time we are confronted with the question- shall we
be able to hold on with our small and very small peasant production, and in
our present state of ruin, until the West-European capitalist countries
consummate their development towards socialism? But they are consummating
it not as we formerly expected. They are not consummating it through the
gradual "maturing" of socialism, but through the exploitation of some
countries by others, through the exploitation of the first of the countries
vanquished in the imperialist war combined with the exploitation of the
whole of the East. On the other hand, precisely as a result of the first
imperialist war, the East has been definitely drawn into the revolutionary
movement, has been definitely drawn into the general maelstrom of the world
revolutionary movement.

What tactics does this situation prescribe for our country? Obviously
the following. We must display extreme caution so as to preserve our
workers’ government and to retain our small and very small peasantry under
its leadership and authority. We have the advantage that the whole world is
now passing to a movement that must give rise to a world socialist
revolution. But we are labouring under the disadvantage that the
imperialists have succeeded in splitting the world into two camps; and this
split is made more complicated by the fact that it is extremely difficult
for Germany, which is really a land of advanced, cultured, capitalist
development, to rise to her feet. All the capitalist powers of what is
called the West are pecking at her and preventing her from rising. On the
other hand, the entire East, with its hundred of millions of exploited
working people, reduced to the last degree of human suffering, has been
forced into a position where its physical and material strength cannot
possibly be compared with the physical, material and military strength of
any of the much smaller West-European states.

Can we save ourselves from the impending conflict with these imperialist
countries? May we hope that the internal antagonisms and conflicts between
the thriving imperialist countries of the East will give us a second
respite as they did the first time, when the campaign of the West-European
counter-revolution in support of the Russian counter-revolution broke down
owing to the antagonisms in the camp of the counter-revolutionaries of the
West and the East, in the camp of th Eastern and Western exploiters, in the
camp of Japan and the U.S.A.?

I think the reply to this question should be that the issue depends upon
too many factors, and that the outcome of the struggle as a whole can be
forecast only because in the long run capitalism itself is educating and
training the vast majority of the population of the globe for the
struggle.

In the last analysis, the outcome of the struggle will be determined by
the fact that Russia, India, China, etc., account for the overwhelming
majority of the population of the globe. And during the past few years it
is this majority that has been drawn into the struggle for emancipation
with extraordinary rapidity, so that in this respect there cannot be the
slightest doubt what the final outcome of the world struggle will be. In
this sense, the complete victory of socialism is fully and absolutely
assured.

But what interests us is not the inevitability of this complete victory
of socialism, but the tactics which we, the Russian Communist Party, we the
Russian Soviet Government, should pursue to prevent the West-European
counter-revolutionary states form crushing us. To ensure our existence
until the next military conflict between the counter-revolutionary
imperialist West and the revolutionary and nationalist East, between the
most civilised countries of the world and the Orientally backward countries
which, however, compromise the majority, this majority must become
civilised. We, too, lack enough civilisation to enable us to pass straight
on to socialism, although we do have the political requisites for it. We
should adopt the following tactics, or pursue the following policy, to save
ourselves.

We must strive to build up a state in which the workers retain
leadership of the peasants, in which they retain the confidence of the
peasants, and by exercising the greatest economy remove every trace of
extravagance from our social relations.

We must reduce our state apparatus to the utmost degree of economy. We
must banish from it all traces of extravagance, of which so much has been
left over from tsarist Russia, form its bureaucratic capitalist state
machine.

Will not this be a reign of peasant limitations?

No. If we see to it that the working class retains its leadership over
the peasantry, we shall be able, by exercising the greatest possible thrift
in the economic life of our state, to use every saving we make to develop
our large-scale machine industry, to develop electrification, the hydraulic
extraction of peat, to complete the Volkhov Power Project [A], etc.

In this, and in this alone, lies our hope. Only when we have done this
shall we, speaking figuratively, be able to change horses, to change from
the peasant, muzhik horse of poverty, from the horse of an economy designed for a ruined peasant
country, to the horse which the proletariat is seeking and must seek
— the horse of large-scale machine industry, of electrification, of
the Volkhov Power Station, etc.

That is how I link up in my mind the general plan of our work, of our
policy, of our tactics, of our strategy, with the functions of the
reorganised Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection. This is what, in my opinion,
justifies the exceptional care, the exceptional attention that we must
devote to the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection in raising it to an
exceptionally high level, in giving it a leadership with Central Committee
rights, etc.,etc.

And this justification is that only by thoroughly purging our government
machine, by reducing it to the utmost everything that is not absolutely
essential in it, shall we be certain of being able to keep going. Moreover,
we shall be able to keep going not on the level of a small-peasant country,
not on the level of universal limitation, but on a level steadily advancing
to large-scale machine industry.

These are the lofty tasks that I dream of for our Workers’ and
Peasants’
Inspection. That is why I am planning for it the amalgamation of the most
authoritative Party body with an "ordinary" People’s Commissariat.

March 2, 1923

## Endnotes

[A] The Volkhov
Power Project was the first of the big hydroelectric power stations the
Soviet Union built on the River Volkhov. Its’ construction began in 1918,
but made little progress until after the Civil War ended in 1920. It was
commissioned in 1926.