wide a growth of the Party, as place-seekers and adventurers, who deserve only to be shot, do their utmost to get into the ruling Party. The last time we opened wide the doors of the Party for workmen and peasants only was in the days (winter, 1919) when Yudenitch was a few versts from Petrograd, and Denikin was in Orel (about 350 versts from Moscow); that is, when the Soviet Republic was in mortal danger, and when the adventurers, place-seekers, charlatans and unreliable persons generally could in no way rely upon making a profitable career (in fact could sooner expect the gallows and torture) by joining the Communists. The Party, which convenes annual Conferences (the last on the basis of one delegate for each 1,000 members), is directed by a Central Committee of 19, elected at the Conference; while the current work in Moscow has to be done by still smaller boards, viz., the so-called "Orgbureau" (Organizing Bureau) and "Politbureau" (Political Bureau), which are elected at the plenary sessions of the Central Committee, five members of the C. C. for each Bureau. This, then, looks like a real "oligarchy." Not a single important political or organizing question is decided by any State institution in our Republic without the guiding instructions of the C. C. of the Party.
In carrying on its work, the Party rests directly on the Trade Unions, which, at present, according to the data of the last Conference (April, 1920), comprise over 4,000,000 members, who are formally non-party. In reality, all the controlling bodies of by far the greater number of unions, and primarily, of course, of the All-Russian Center or Bureau (A.R.C.C.T.U. All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions) consist of Communists, who carry out all the directions of the Party. Thus is obtained, on the whole, a formally non-Communist, flexible, comparatively extensive and very powerful proletarian apparatus, by means of which the Party is closely connected with the class and the masses, and by means of which, under the guidance of the Party, class dictatorship is realized. Without the closest connection with the Trade Unions, without their hearty support and self-sacrificing work, not only in economic but also in military organization, it would have been, of course, impossible to govern the country and to maintain the dic-
