In his discussion of the operation of the given works or plant’s party organization the author has pointed out the specific part it has to perform within the joint-control system, resulting chiefly from its attribute of political guidance. He has analysed its workings and the function of its internal operation, as well as the trends, functions, and methods of its external operation, i. e. its action in relation to the workers’ board, the Works’ trade-union organization and youth organization, to the administration and staff. The Works’ trade-union organization, combining representation and the care taken of the staff’s interests with the striving to get the best possible effects in production, carries out activities in three main direction: in its relations with the administration, with the workers’ board, and with the staff. When examining its functions the author simultaneously points out the occasional regrettable practice when that organization is made to take on the functions of administration. The last analysed organization is the Socialist Youth Union unit at the Works. The efficiency of its operation largely depends upon its authority and the support it gets from the party organization: thence the author has cited only the most fundamental of its functions and trends of both internal and external operation. The author then proceeds to draw a division between the assignments of the workers’ board and the socio-political organizations which he has shown to overlap to a considerable extent, comprising virtually the same spheres of action, with slight differences only as to competences. This brings about the risk that the same activities may be unnecessarily doubled; thence also the urgent call for their co-ordination. The „Economic Secretary” of the Workers’ Board Conference appointed to this end, in practice does not fulfill this function, which makes it necessary to look for other forms of co-ordination: diverse formal and informal bodies are formed to organize the co-operation between the workers’ board, and the socio-political units at the Works. These bodies have among their members the representatives of every organization at the Works, as well as of the Workers-Board and the administration; thus virtually a fourth organization (apart from the workers’ board) of administrative- -social character is established. This sort of procedure is actually equal to the doubling of work. It gives rise to a number of negative occurrences such as: an excessive uniformity of the methods of work, an extra growth of the number of people engaged in the respective bodies, waste of effort, concentration of all functional elements on the same activities, and, above all — the fact that the formal bodies are replaced in their basic functions. All this, as well as the cumulation of posts in the hands of the same persons tend to restrict the scope of social consultation; as a result the staff tend to identify the activities of the Workers’ Board and of the socio-political organi-^- zations with the administrative ones. Upon commenting on the relatively small activity — or one may even say, passivity — of the lowest links of the joint-control system, on the formal character of the activities of the bodies which serve as the platform for wider social consultation, on the concentration of decision-taking in bodies with a comparatively small number of members, on the formal character of the control exerted by the staff over their representatives’ activities, — the author has reached the conclusion that the now evolved system does not fully carry into effect one of its principal functions according to the pre-established conception: the function which consists in ensuring the staff’s participation in the management of the enterprise. Excessively developed, the system is too little flexible and not really adapted to the current scientific and technical developments. It has been evolved, in fact, for more than a quarter of a century in a period of rapid transformations in economy, technology, and social consciousness, by occasional additions — on the spur of the moment, as it were — of various functional elements according to the current politico-economic situation, not infrequently with the omission of the initial ideas and without any real analysis of their operation and usefulness. Thence the postulate that it would be pertinent to consider the possibility of a complex preparation of a system which would comprise all its component parts as well as a more flexible working of political action so that they would ensure both their efficient operation and the employees’ actual bearing upon the decisions taken at the works.