J.V. Stalin. Collected Works. 1-13 volumes. English edition.

chance, passive, careerist and directly hostile elements,
and in selecting the most staunch and loyal people. It
cannot be said that the purge was not accompanied
by grave mistakes. There were unfortunately more
mistakes than might have been expected. Undoubtedly,
we shall have no further need of resorting to the
method of mass purges. Nevertheless, the purge of
1933-36 was unavoidable and its results, on the whole,
were beneficial. The number of Party members represented
at this, the Eighteenth Congress is about
1,600,000, which is 270,000 less than were represented
at the Seventeenth Congress. But there is nothing
bad in that. On the contrary, it is all to the good,
for the Party strengthens itself by clearing its ranks
of dross. Our Party is now somewhat smaller in
membership, but on the other hand it is better in
quality.
That is a big achievement.
As regards the improvement of the day-to-day
leadership of the Party by bringing it closer to the
work of the lower bodies and by making it more concrete,
the Party came to the conclusion that the best way
to make it easier for the Party bodies to guide the
organizations and to make the leadership itself concrete,
alive and practical was to divide up the organizations,
to reduce their size, People's Commissariats
as well as the administrative organizations
of the various territorial divisions, that is, the Union
Republics, territories, regions, districts, etc., were
divided up. The result of the measures adopted is
that instead of 7 Union Republics, we now have 11;
instead of 14 People's Commissariats of the U.S.S.R.
401