The German biographer
Isaac Deutscher described Rabkrin as follows: "The Rabkrin... was set up to control every branch of the administration, from top to bottom, with a view to eliminating the two major faults, inefficiency and corruption, which the Soviet civil service had inherited from its Tsarist predecessor. It was to act as the stern and enlightened auditor for the whole rickety and creaking governmental machine; to expose abuses of power and red tape; and to train an élite of reliable civil servants for every branch of the government. The [Rabkrin] acted through teams of workers and peasants who were free at any time to enter the offices of any Commissariat and watch the work done there.... The whole bizarre scheme of inspection was one of Lenin's pet ideas. Exasperated by the inefficiency and dishonesty of the civil service, he sought to remedy them by extreme and ruthless "control from below," and the [Rabkrin] was to be the means.... The mill of officialdom, however, turned the workers themselves into bureaucrats. The Commissariat of the Inspectorate, as Lenin was to discover later on, became an additional source of muddle, corruption, and bureaucratic intrigue. In the end it became an unofficial but meddlesome police in charge of the civil service. During its first three years of operation, Rabkrin was crucial in the development of the growing communist state. The Central Bureau of Complaints (), founded in 1919, was a department of the Rabkrin whose sole purpose was to find and eliminate inefficiency within the state's administration. Any Soviet citizen could file a complaint against a government official through this bureau. Lenin saw this as giving a voice to the people and a say in their government. After failing its goals and having been severely criticized, such as by Lenin himself, it was merged with the
CPSU Party Control Committee in 1923 to become a joint control organ (PCC-WPI, TsKK-RKI) under a common chairman to oversee state, economy, and the
Russian Communist Party. After Lenin died in 1924, Stalin's rise to power saw the Complaints Bureau become a more sinister tool for the new leader. The Complaints Bureau was now used as a channel to encourage Soviet citizens to provide detailed accounts, including evidence and witnesses, of functionaries opposing the state or being part of
anti-communist organizations. Many complaints were followed by quick court hearings for the accused, and most cases were then decided upon with or without evidence. In 1929, the Complaints Bureau was combined with the
All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions Complaint Bureau, another Soviet administrative establishment that was in charge of worker unionization. The merger led to a rise in complaints from both agriculture and industrial sectors until 1934, Constant investigations into Vensenkha's industrial efficiency led to claims from Rabkrin of neglect and deception. However, many of the reports were falsified, which typified the chaotic nature of Soviet bureaucratic control. Within the
People's Commissariat of Agriculture, Rabkrin investigations led to departmental dissatisfaction. Many officials felt the overpowered Soviet institution to be abusing its power and making it difficult for
collectivized agriculture to succeed under strict procedures. Soviet peasants met the same criticism as internal departments reported peasants as drunks, debauchers, and saboteurs who opposed the Communist Party and its attempts at mass collectivization. Most of the reports were false and wrongly depicted the life of the peasantry, but they justified the authorities in placing extreme production quotas on the agriculture sector. They constantly kept the peasantry busy but made them less likely to take part in immoral behavior. ==End==