V. I.   Lenin

Proposals on
A Check-Up and Purge of the R.C.P.(B.) Membership[1]


Written: Written in June, not later than 21, 1921
Published: First published in 1959 in Lenin Miscellany XXXVI. Printed from the manuscript.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, 3nd English Printing, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Volume 42, pages 315b-316a.
Translated: Bernard Isaacs
Transcription\Markup: D. Walters
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (2003). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.README


The chief group responsible for registration should be made up of old Party members (not less than 5-7 years in the Party), necessarily workers.

All members of the R.C.P. who are in any way dubious, unreliable, or who have failed to prove their stability, should be removed from the Party, with the right of re-admission upon further verification and test.

1) People who joined from other parties after X.1917; 2) members from among officials and functionaries who had   held office under the old governments; 3) people who had held posts involving any privileges; 4) state employees—these categories should all be subject to a thorough check-up, and workers, both Party and non-Party, who have had contact with the given member of the R.C.P. at his work, should be questioned.

Recommending members should be required to give an accurate, written testimonial and should have among them several workers with a length of Party membership of 5-7 years.

Formalities should be reduced to a minimum in the case a of real workers, actually working at their factory, and in the case of peasants engaged on their allotments; such people should not be troubled with reregistration.


Notes

[1] Lenin’s proposals were adopted at a meeting of the Politbureau on June 21, 1921, as directives for the Party Purge Commission. They were included, with certain amendinents, in the decision of the Politbureau of June 25 concerning the check-up, revision and purge of the Party. In connection with the drafting of this decision Lenin jotted down notes concerning the conditions of admission to the Party (see Collected Works, Fifth [Russian] Edition, Vol. 43, p. 362). Lenin’s remarks were also taken into consideration in the decision adopted by the Central Committee.


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