Written: Written on July 1, 1918
Published:
First published in 1931 in Lenin Miscellany XVIII.
Printed from the typewritten original corrected, amended and signed by V. I. Lenin.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
[1976],
Moscow,
Volume 35,
page 339.
Translated: Andrew Rothstein
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive.
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The Council of People’s Commissars has been informed of quite intolerable behaviour, damaging to Soviet power, by some requisitioning detachments. The detachments have been sent for responsible service on the railways, for the struggle against actual profiteering. Chiefs of detachments are instructed to maintain the most stringent discipline in their detachments, for the absence of which, as for all offences by the detachments, the chiefs will be held to strict account before the merciless judgement of the Revolutionary Tribunal. Detachments should be informed that the Council of People’s Commissars is convinced that class-conscious workers will not tolerate any breach of the strictest proletarian discipline, and will treat with the greatest severity those who by their behaviour are disgracing Soviet power. But if obvious hooligans have found their way into the detachments, and refuse to obey the instructions of the central authorities and their chiefs, or disgrace the Soviet Republic by taking bribes from grain speculators, they must be immediately arrested by their chiefs and the local Soviets of Deputies, and delivered under guard to Moscow for committal to most severe judgement by the Revolutionary Tribunal.
Ulyanov (Lenin)
Chairman, Council of People’s Commissars
[1] This telegram followed a discussion by the Council of People’s Commissars on July 1, 1918 concerning a report from V. I. Nevsky, People’s Commissar for Railways, about protests received from railwaymen over the illegal activities of certain requisitioning detachments. Lenin drafted the telegram and submitted it to the meeting. A typewritten copy with corrections and amendments in Lenin’s hand has been preserved.
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