V. I.   Lenin

Proposals Concerning the Work Routine of the Deputy Chairmen and the Chairman of the C.P.C.


Written: Written December 9, 1922
Published: First published in 1945 in Lenin Miscellany XXXV. Printed from the manuscript.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1971, Moscow, Volume 42, pages 430b-432a.
Translated: Bernard Isaacs
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (2004). 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


 

Work Routine of the Deputy Chairmen and the Chairman of the C.P.C.

1. Working hours: 11-2, 6-9; together with the C.P.C. chairman on Monday and Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

2. Special meetings of all the deputies and the chairman of the C.L.D. (minus the Politbureau, C.P.C. and C.L.D.) on these days and at these hours whenever there is need, but generally not less than twice a week for one hour. This hour to be fixed on the eve not later than 9 p.m.

3. All the work of the deputies is divided into:

(a) close supervision over the work of the Narrow C.P.C.;

(b) similar supervision over the work of the business meetings of the C.L.D.

(it is necessary to resume the business meetings of the C.L.D. in order to disengage the deputies for other more important work. The business meetings are not chaired by the deputies but their signatures alone endorse the decisions of these meetings);

(c) chairmanship at those parts of the C.P.C. and C.L.D. meetings where the chairman of the C.P.C. does not preside;

(d) participation in the Financial Committee (plus Sokolnikov and his deputy and the chairman of the Narrow C.P.C.; the latter need not attend all meetings of the Financial Committee).

(Perhaps arrange a meeting of the Financial Committee once a week for one hour chaired by the C.P.C. chairman? Think this over.);

(e) determining the agenda of all bodies, including the Narrow C.P.C., and the order of priority, the most important questions being chosen by all four under the chairmanship of the C.P.C. chairman;

(f) close supervision of the various People’s Commissariats and their apparatus both by means of instructions to the People’s Commissars and their deputies personally and by means of studying their apparatus top and bottom;

(g) the commissariats, for this purpose (Point f), are allocated among the deputies, such allocation to be endorsed by the chairman of the C.P.C.

4. All the above-mentioned work is distributed among the deputies in such a way that each of the three (and if need be their assistants from among the business managers) handles a definite job for two months and afterwards changes it for another.

(This is necessary in order that all the deputies may acquaint themselves with the entire apparatus and in order to achieve real unity of management.)

5. The draft of such a distribution among the three deputies is to be drawn up by them immediately and approved by all four.

6. Since the work of improving and correcting the whole apparatus is far more important than the work of chairman ship and the chatting with Deputy People’s Commissars and   People’s Commissars, which has up till now fully occupied all the deputies’ time, it is necessary to arrange and strictly carry out a practice under which each deputy, for not less than two hours a week, “goes down to the bottom”, makes a personal study of all the various parts of the apparatus, top and bottom, and the most unexpected ones at that. The official record of such a study, made, confirmed and communicated (in certain cases) to all government departments, should lead to a reduction in staff and tighten up discipline throughout our state machinery.

Lenin


Notes


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