Notes on the Question of Reorganising State Control

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The notes may have been written by Lenin at a sitting of the Council of People’s Commissars on March 8, 1919, during the discussion of the question of reorganising state control. Lenin’s directions, briefly stated in these notes, were taken as the basis for the CPC decision of March 8, 1919, on the reorganisation of state control. It stressed the need to amend the draft decree by adding the following points:

“a) Systematic participation of workers’ organisations; = b) systematic participation of witnesses from among proletarian elements; = c) inspection raids and other revolutionary measures to eliminate red tape; = d) exact delimitation of rights and duties in respect of other Commissariats; = e) strict demarcation of inspection and control functions from auditing functions which are to remain with the Commissariats Concerned. ”

The revised decree with Lenin’s amendments was approved by the All-Russia Central Executive Committee on April 2, 1919, and published in Izvestia No. 79, April 12, 1919 (see Sobraniye Uzakoneny i Rasporyazheny Raboche-Krestyanskogo Pravitelstva [Collection of Laws and Decrees of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government] No. 12, April 24, 1919).

1) A workers’ organ, or an organ enlisting workers’ participation, at the centre and in the localities.

2) Voluntary inspectors as a system.

2 bis: Two-thirds women mandatory.

3) Immediate practical tasks:

(α) inspection raids, on citizens’ complaints

(β) fight against red tape

(γ) revolutionary measures of struggle against abuses

and red tape

(δ) transport

(ε) raising labour productivity

(ζ) increasing food output.