Rabkrin Established

Worker and Peasant Inspection (Rabkrin). November 12, 1923

 

The Commissariat for Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection (RKI) was originally created by decree of February 7, 1920, it became a Commissariat of the All-Union Sovnarkom by decision of the Central Executive Committee in November 1923. It was to work in close cooperation with the Central Control Commission of the Party. In 1934, Rabkrin was replaced by the Commission of State (Soviet) Control, which was elevated to full ministry status on September 6, 1940.

Original Source: Sistematicheskoe sobranie deistvuiushchikh zakonov Soiuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik (Moscow: [Kontora “Sobraniia zakovov SSR], 1926), pp. 179-186.

Chapter 1. General Provisions

In conformity with chapter VIII of the fundamental law (constitution) of the USSR, there shall be established the RKI of the USSR.

The RKI is the main organ of the soviet authority concerned with carrying out all measures taken to improve the state apparatus, to manage it properly, and to adjust it to the final ends of socialist construction.

In conformity with this, the RKI is entrusted with the following:

Chapter II. Duties of the RKI

1. The practical and theoretical study of the administration; criticism of the defects and emphasis on the positive side of the working of the existing administrative organs; removal of the former and furthering the latter; carrying out experimental tests and taking practical measures to rationalize the technique of administration, office routine, and records; working out of the most effective methods of accounting, bookkeeping, and balances; drafting new plans of desirable changes on the structure of state organs in order to improve their work, as well as to create simultaneously such normal working conditions as to facilitate supervision by the state.

2. Directing the state, administrative, and economic organs toward the improvement of the organization; lending them all possible assistance in this respect, recording their experiments, and coordinating and unifying all measures taken by them.

3. General supervision. over and unification of the activity of all institutions engaged in the scientific organization of labor, production, and technique of the administration through their representation in the RKI acting on the basis of a special act; organization, in certain cases, of experimental centers which may be of state importance, as well as the organization of institutions and nuclei which would assist in improving the governmental machinery.

Note. The nuclei promoting the improvement of the governmental apparatus shall be established on the basis of a statute especially provided for and worked out by the RKI, subject to approval by the Sovnarkom of the USSR

4. Detailed examination of the quarterly and yearly budgets of the USSR, of the union and local republics, and analysis of the working of same from the point of view of their financial reality and economic rationality; giving opinions on the working of state appropriations made by the people’s commissariats for finance of the USSR and of the union republics; examination and analysis of the plans of production and of their execution by the economic organs, as well as carrying out the plans of administrative and cultural- educational organs; revision of the activity of all state and other organs enumerated in article 12 of this act from the point of view of the actual results of their work, as well as systematic inspection thereof on the basis of collected materials and scientific data.

5. Appraisal and examination of the work of the heads and assistants of the administrative and economic organs of the USSR; lending them assistance in the form of selecting for them the necessary personnel; taking necessary measures for the practical training of workers and peasants for holding responsible offices, as well as helping the party workers most devoted to the cause.

6. Examination and study of the causes of offenses and negligence by superior officials and agents of the state organs; fight against bribery by issuing appropriate directions which shall be in conformity with legal and administrative provisions.

7. Give special and careful attention to improving the governmental apparatus and economic organs where they come into immediate contact with: the population; systematic and planned utilization of the soviet, party, and trade press, for the purpose of carrying out a merciless struggle against all officials in the state organs who neglect the interest and needs of workers and peasants, especially illiterate ones, as well as the workers of the nationalities; struggle against all kinds of offenses, economic as well as those connected with official duty, neglect, bureaucracy, etc.

8. Studying the methods of bookkeeping and office routine in the state and communal organs of the USSR, as well as control and supervision over workers in this field. Establishment of proper methods of bookkeeping, of drawing up balance ledgers, and also the enforcement of uniform units of measure. Establishment in the RKI of a body of expert state bookkeepers.

9. Carrying out special orders and directions of the supreme organs of the USSR, as well as control and supervision over the gradual execution of decrees and decisions of these organs, and first of all of those aiming to improve the state apparatus.

10. Publication of a large scale of information about questions concerning the scientific organization of labor, production, and administration, as well as the achievements of revision and inspection.

11. Supervision over the work of the RKI in the union republics in matters concerning the carrying out of the work entrusted to them.

Chapter III. The Prerogatives of the RKI

To carry out its duties, the RKI shall enjoy the following prerogatives:

12. Complete or partial revisional-inspectional investigations of all central, regional, and local, state, and communal organs and establishments, as well as of unions thereof, including cooperative and trade organs of the USSR, stock and miscellaneous companies, concessional enterprises, and any kind of communal organizations which receive a subsidy from the state or which operate with the assistance of state capital; communal taxes, or other revenues.

Note. State enterprises leased to private individuals or organizations, as well as privately owned or concessional enterprises, are examined by the RKI only within the limits provided for in the agreements between the state and the owners of such enterprises,

13. The right to request from all state and communal organizations of the USSR all kinds of information, materials, documents, acts, memoranda, reports, and other data illustrating the condition and activity of the institution, enterprises, and organizations; the right to request the personal appearance of the persons in charge, as well as of officials of the investigated organs, for giving personal testimony, or for participation in joint meetings, sessions, or sub- commissions, in order to discuss questions which may arise in the course of such investigation.

14. The right to propose to all state organs, enterprises, or organizations under investigation; (a) to remove all defects observed, (b) to take necessary measures to rationalize the whole apparatus, (c) to discharge and recall officials for serious offenses and neglect, (d) to fix disciplinary punishment within the limits determined by law.

Note. In case of disagreement with the proposals of the RKI, the heads of organs and enterprises enumerated in article 12 must immediately submit their objections to the RKI. In case these objections are not accepted by the RKI as sufficient, the matter is submitted to the appropriate legislative organs. (As adopted by the Central Executive Committee and Sovnarkom of the USSR, November 14, 1924.)

15. To submit to the central and local organs of the USSR and to the central organs of the union republics all concrete proposals worked out on the basis of inspections concerning the simplification of the administrative apparatus and the removal of overlapping and inefficiency; to submit concrete proposals concerning the forms of coordination of the activity of individual commissariats or their local organs, as well as the reorganization of the whole system of routine procedure in the institutions or individual departments thereof.

16. The organization and ratification, either directly or through the people’s commissariats of the RKI of each union republic, of acts on the organs for the rationalization of the departmental apparatus (bureaus of planning and organization experimental center, nuclei promoting the improvement of the state apparatus); approval of forms for permanent official reports of those organs on the work and condition of the institution, as well as the discharge of the personnel of these organs.

17. The closing and complete liquidation of departmental organs for the rationalization of the state apparatus of the USSR, of individual scientific research, labor and administrative institutions, and of controlling and inspectional organizations and groups in case their work or their personnel are insufficient.

Source: Walter Russell Batsell, Soviet Rule in Russia (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1929), pp. 611-618.

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