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htm
DOCUMENT 8
*
To c. Moskvin
23/I-36
Top secret
ON THE POLICY OF CADRES AND MEASURES TO RAISE THE VIGILANCE
OF THE CP LITHUANIA.
1. On the system of selection and admittance to the USSR of the political migrs
from Lithuania.
Beginning in 1928, as a rule, political migrs from Lithuania were being sent to
Germany and partly to Latvia and other bourgeois countries and, only as an exception, to the
USSR. But there have been too many of these exceptions. These measures have reduced
emigration from Lithuania. After the fascist coup in Germany, political emigration to the
capitalist countries almost stopped, but political emigration to the USSR has hardly increased.
However, the number of escapees from prisons has increased (1935), which creates among us
doubts regarding the escapees.
Suggestions:i[i]
1) In the future, send political migrs to the USSR only as exception, in order that
those coming to the USSR would go back after some time.
2) Send to the USSR only the more active party members, who need to be hidden
from the eyes of the police.
3) As a rule, after release from prison, keep [them] in the country [Lithuania], as has
been the case until now. After 6-12 months, send a portion [of them] to study in the
reorganized KUNMZ.
4) As a rule, the so-called "failures should not be sent to the USSR, since precisely
this category has provided the largest percentage of the suspicious element, and frequently the
so-called failures turn out to be fictitious.
5) Those escaping from Lithuania to the USSR are to be sent back, after they have
been verified.ii[ii]
6) For the verification of the political migrs coming to the USSR from Lithuania,
create a commission composed of [ECCI] Cadres Department representatives, a representative
of the CC CPL[ith] and [one from] the MOPR CC.iii[iii]
7) Political migrs can only be sent to the USSR with the consent of the Secretariat of
the CC CPL[ith]. Local [party] organizations may not give permission to leave the country.
8) If there exists any kind of suspicion about anybody, that person may not be sent into
political emigration.

2. About the verification of political migrs from Lithuania who are already in the
USSR.
1) With the cooperation of the ECCI and CC MOPR, the Lithuanian section should
collect all data on the political migrs in the USSR, their work, party affiliation, etc. Take
[the years] 1926-1935 as a starting point.
2) Check the political identity of all suspicious political migrs. The Lith[uanian]
section should send all of its concerns regarding suspicious political migrs to the Cadres
Department.
3) Political migrs who have already transferred to the VKP(b) or been admitted to
the VKP(b) on the regular basis [i.e. under the old rules] should be checked especially
carefully. It is important to present to the ICC issues concerning those party members about
whom there may be doubts, those whose recommendations may have been mistaken, and
those doubtful political migrs who were admitted to the VKP(b) on the regular basis.
3. On utilizing the political migrs in training the CPL[ith] reserve [cadres].
1) Send the best political migrs to study in a 2-3 year special program in the
reorganized KUNMZ so that after the course is over, at least part of them, if not all of them,
can be sent to work in Lithuania.iv[iv]
2) For some political migrs already living in the USSR, Moscow, organize night
courses to study special subjects, i.e. history of the CP Lithuania, mass work and party
construction at the reorganized KUNMZ.
3) Involve certain political migrs in the work of the sections.
4. On measures in the struggle against the infiltration of alien elements and agents of
the class enemy from the CPL[ith] and Lithuanian emigration into the USSR and the VKP(b).
Referred to, in part, in sections 1 and 2. In addition:
1) Work out stricter rules on political emigration. Make it a rule that nobody can come
to the USSR as a political migr without consent of the ECCI Cadres Department and the CC
CPL[ith] representative.
2) Only tested [candidates] who have spent at least 2 years in the CPL[ith] (if a
worker) or 4 years (if not a worker) can be recommended to the VKP(b). Others should either
be expelled from the CPL[ith] or be considered as having automatically ceased their
membership in the party. Those living temporarily in the USSR are exceptions.
If a political migr received recommendation to the VKP(b) from the CC [of the
CPL[ith]], but the CC representative in the ECCI refuses to give a recommendation, the
interested party member has the right to appeal the conduct of the CPL[ith]s CC
representative.v[v]

5. On political measures in the struggle for the legalization of CPL[ith] activity and the
legalization of our cadres.
Until now, we have partially legalized our trade union activity by working in mass
organizations organized by the fascists, utilizing some of the fascists activities (e. g., the
question of the workers starostas,vi[vi] the workers chamber [palata]), etc. Also, by
organizing meetings at the enterprises on the spur of the moment, sending out workers
delegations on different occasions, etc. Most of our cadres are living illegally. Those released
from prison live legally and, if arrested again and there is no material evidence, usually get 13 months (if something is found, they get 10-15 years). As a rule, we send to the school
(MLSh)vii[vii] those who live legally. Therefore the course is short (7-8 months), so that after
they return it will be easier to live legally and easier to explain their temporary absence (e. g.,
by saying that he went to work in the countryside or other place after losing a job).
In addition it is essential to:
1) Try to organize various legal and semi-legal organizations.
2) To see to it that all secretaries of the regional committees are living legally.
3) To make broader use of various fascist activities among the workers, etc.viii[viii]
6. On the order of admission to the party.
As in many other countries, we have had a sectarian approach to admitting new
members to the party, and simultaneously have done a bad job of investigating those admitted
to the party. We in Lithuania have repeatedly given directives: admit more, investigate better.
It is essential to conduct work among the masses better and to better promote the non-party
activists. With this aim, meetings of the non-party activists in the town and in the country
should be called more frequently.
1) All party cells should be surrounded by non-party activists already involved in
struggle and work. New party members are to be recruited from among these activists.
2) Each party cell that admits a new party member must know him well. It is important
to verify with particular thoroughness those who have recently come to that particular region.
If nobody knows the candidates past, he should not be admitted to the party.ix[ix]
3) If someone recommends to the party a dubious person, knowing that there are
certain doubts about him, [the recommender] should be expelled from the party.x[x]
4) Former members of other parties, non-proletarian elements, and those workers who
have not yet been tested in the struggle and in practical work, are to be admitted as candidates
for at least 6 months.xi[xi] Candidates cannot become cell members. The cells can only be
formed of party members, while candidates work under the direction of the cells or
committees. Candidates to the party and others sympathetic to us can form special groups of
sympathizers or party assistance groups, in which, if possible, a party member should work.
Candidates and sympathizers should be introduced into various mass organizations.

5) It is obligatory for candidates and members of groups of sympathizers to participate

in some sort of work and to raise [the groups] political level.xii[xii]
7. Training young party members.
1) All those recently admitted to the party should be introduced to the rules of
conspiracy so that they know how to behave after being arrested and in court.
2) It is necessary to better organize political education work among young party
members.
COMMENT: Something is already being done in this respect, but it is still too little.xiii
[xiii]

8. On the system of investigating our cadres and the members of our party.
1) Oblige the CC and regional committees secretaries to continually investigate the
composition of the party committees, to check on activists and their pasts, to provide
information on the activists, to investigate how the committees members and other activists
joined the party, how they were promoted at work, etc. [They have to] carefully check
whether or not activists had been members of any political groups, had any connections to
Trotskyists, for example (especially in Kovno, where there is a Trotskyist organization), how
they behaved after being arrested, during the trial, etc. It is important to study indictments,
newspaper information on the arrested, [and] to collect information about the trials. If agent
provocateurs or other enemies of the party (Trotskyists) who sneaked into the party are
discovered, it is vital to investigate carefully who they brought into the party, who they
promoted to the leadership, in order to facilitate the purging of the undesirable elements.
At this time, it is important to know how the party members and activists understand
the tactics of the United [Popular] Front, how they conduct the work among the masses, how
they conduct the struggle against sectarianism, etc. In general, it is essential to carefully verify
all activists. The first steps are already being taken in this direction.
9. On the system of promotion.
Until now, we have had little order in promoting new cadres. Frequently, our
comrades would not look at the way the person works, but at the way he speaks. If the
leadership of local organizations was taken over by sectarian elements, as a rule, they
promoted not only sectarians, but frequently doubtful elements, as for example [happened] in
[19]34 and partly in [19]35 in Kovno and other places. [Our comrades] did not verify
carefully enough the past of the one being promoted, or would simply say there is no one to
be promoted in place of the arrested, and would sometimes promote those already removed
from the leadership.

Every committee, every committee member has to select in advance those activists
who, if necessary, could be promoted to the committee. Special attention should be paid to
these potential committee members: they have to be involved in active work and the work of
the committee, they should be politically fortified, and so forth. They should be thoroughly
and carefully verified well in advance. Here in Lithuania it has been repeatedly pointed out
that every committee member has to have his own deputies and assistants, to bring them up as
future leaders of the local organizations. It is also essential to organize special political
educational classes for them. Little has been done in this direction yet.
10. On the system of unmasking undesirable, suspicious elements and their isolation
from the workers movement.xiv[xiv]
To make the unmasking of suspicious elements easier, trials and indictments are to be
studied, [and] certain party members are checked in the card index ?. Hundreds of okhranka
agents, policemen, agent provocateurs, traitors have been announced in the press and some
pamphlets. Besides, several hundred agents of the tsarist okhranka, some of whom also
worked in the Lithuanian okhranka, have been announced in the press (and in pamphlets). For
the purposes of isolation, certain party members are being removed from underground work,
or being gradually removed, first from responsible work, later from underground work and
eventually expelled from the party. The okhranka is trying to confuse us by arresting party
members whom they later expose as agent provocateurs in order to better conceal their most
valuable agents, e.g. by keeping an arrested provocateur in prison while releasing the rest so
that suspicion falls upon those released. Therefore, we sometimes had to remove from
underground work for several years those party members about whom nobody had any
suspicions of [being engaged in] provocation. Sometimes, whole organizations, not just
individual cells, are dissolved. (when? which?) Regarding agent provocateurs, there are
directives to boycott them in prison as well as on the outside.xv[xv] Traitors are expelled not
only from the party, but also from political prisoners organizations (in this respect mistakes
are also made, and some individuals have developed a liberal attitude toward provocation).
11. On the system of testing and verifying individuals whose loyalty and party honesty
raise suspicion.
To test those individuals about whom suspicions arise, after removing them from
leadership work, we send them to low-level work in their cells so that they cannot contact
others at their workplace who engage in underground work. Some of them later return to their
work, others are eventually expelled. Sometimes those under investigation [who have been]
removed from the underground work continue legal work among the masses. Or they are
advised to move to another region where there is either not yet a party organization, or it has
been destroyed, so that they can prove [their] loyalty to the party by their active work and

rebuild the organization there. This kind of probation is also applied to those comrades, about
whom there have been no suspicions, but who have systematically worked badly. At the same
time, their past is verified and material is collected. In the past, a whole series of such party
members were sent to the USSR where they made it into the VKP(b). This is to be recognized
as a grave error. Some of our comrades think in as follows: it is hard to investigate in our
country; it is easier to investigate in the USSR. As a rule, such investigations should be
prohibited.
CONCLUSION.
Finally, some words about what we have been doing to better verify our cadres,
political migrs and all those about whom there was some doubt or suspicion.
All materials are being reviewed and new ones are being collected; directives are
being given to verify the information about certain individuals.
The CC Secretariatxvi[xvi] should thoroughly verify all the CC apparatus (instructors,
technicians, etc.) as well as the secretaries and members of the regional committees. The
secretaries and individual members of the regional committees should verify their own
apparatus as well as the sub-committees members and the cell secretaries. Likewise, every
person about whom there was the slightest doubt is subject to special investigation. Who
should be removed from responsible positions and underground work, or expelled from the
party, is being indicated.
Obviously, in the situation of illegality, we will not be able to investigate all the party
members. However, our measures will raise the vigilance of the cells.
A series of measures is to be taken in regard to the Komsomol and the Red Aid,
through which the Trotskyists and other agents of the class enemy attempted to infiltrate our
ranks.
25/I-36
Angaretis /Angaretis/
RGASPI, f. 495, op. 74, d. 369, ll. 1-8.
Original in Russian. Typewritten.
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Handwritten by Angaretis.

i[i]

Handwritten note in the margin: Who is responsible for sending political migrs to

the USSR? It is not pointed out that only absolutely tested comrades can be sent to
the USSR, and only in exceptional cases.
ii[ii]

Handwritten note in the margin: In this case, is it necessary to expel from the party?

iii[iii]

Handwritten note on the margins: The deadline is not indicated.

iv[iv]

Handwritten note in the margin:What kind of reorganization?

v[v]

Handwritten note in the margin: This is wrong. In such a case, the representative

himself should contact the CC.

vi[vi]

Starosta the head or elected representative selected by a group of workers (Trans.).

vii[vii]

MLSh -- Mezhdunarodnaia Leninskaia Shkola (International Leninist School), the

Cominterns political school, opened in 1926. Until 1928, it was called Mezhdunarodnye
Leninskiye Kursy. The leading cadres of the communist parties were trained there. The deans
were Nikolai Bukharin (1926-1930), K. I. Kirsanov (1930-1931, 1933-1937), Wilhelm Pieck
(1932), P. Chervenkov (1937-1938). The school was closed in 1938.
viii[viii]
ix[ix]

Handwritten note in the margin: This is not clear. <> of Angaretis.

Handwritten note in the margin: [What is] the role of higher party bodies in

admission to the party?

x[x]

Handwritten note in the margin: Who recommends?

xi[xi]

Handwritten note in the margin: The institute of candidates it is a Lithuanian

invention.
xii[xii]

Handwritten note in the margin: Thus, first [come] those activists who are not party

members, then sympathizers, and finally party members. This is wrong.

xiii[xiii]

Handwritten note in the margin: This kind of work [ought to be conducted] with all

party members.
xiv[xiv]
xv[xv]

Handwritten note in the margin: The whole section is written badly.

Handwritten note in the margin: It is not sufficient just to boycott agent

provocateurs.
xvi[xvi]

Handwritten note in the margin: And who is going to verify members of the CC

Secretariat?