On the Conditions for Admitting New Members to the Party

Three letters from Lenin to Molotov, which were written on March 24 and 26 of the year1922. The first letter was published in Vol. 45 of the fifth edition of the Russian edition of the Complete Works of Lenin, and the last two letters were published in Evening Newspaper of Moscow in the issue No. 293, December 23, 1925. The Chinese translation is included in Vol. 33 of the first edition and Vol. 43 of the second revised edition of the Complete Works of Lenin.

During the preparation of the Eleventh Congress of All-Russian Communist Party (B), Zinoviev was entrusted by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of All-Russian Communist Party (B) to prepare the initial outline draft of “On Consolidating the Party” for the upcoming Congress.

Regulations: It was stipulated that three party members with three years’ experience shall be eligible for introducing peasants and Red Army soldiers to join the party, while five party members with five years’ experience shall be eligible for the introducing government staff and others to join the Party. Lenin agreed with the basic principles and rules for joining the party in the draft but held a different attitude towards the provisions of the probation period for the new party members. To this end, Lenin wrote these three letters and exchanged views with Molotov, who was a member of the Central Committee and an alternate member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee. To admit new party members, Lenin strongly advocated that:

(1) To lengthen the probation period for all categories; (2) To define in great detail how the applicant is to pass the probation period; what concrete and practical tests should be applied to determine whether the probation period is really a period of probation and not a mere formaIity; (3) To create a qualified majority on the bodies which decide on the applications of new members; (4) To make it a rule that the decision to admit new members be endorsed, not only by the Gubernia Party Committees, but also by the Control Commissions; (5) To devise other measures for the purpose of helping the Party to rid itself of those members who are by no means Communists consciously implementing a proletarian policy.

In these three letters, Lenin expounded the conditions and inspection regulations for the development of the Communist Party members, enriched and developed the Marxist theory of Party building, which is of great significance both in theory and practice.