Written:May, 1919
First Published: 1942; Published accordingto a typewritten copy
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972 Volume 29, pages 404-405
Translated: George Hanna
Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters & Robert Cymbala
Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002; Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
Whereas:
(1) The R,S.F.S.R., in alliance with the fraternal Soviet Republics of the Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Byelorussia, is compelled to wage a war of defence against the common enemy, world imperialism and the Black-Hun-dred, whiteguard counter-revolution which imperialism supports;
(2) an essential condition for success in that war is a single command for all contingents of the Red Army, the strictest centralisation of the command of all the forces and resources of the socialist republics, especially of the entire army supply apparatus and also of railway transport which is an important-material factor in the war, being of primary importance both for the conduct of operations and for the supply of munitions, equipment and provisions to the Red Army,
the C.C. of the R.C.P. resolves:
(1) to recognise as absolutely essential for the duration of the socialist war of defence the unification of everything connected with supplies for the Red Army under the single guidance of the Council of Defence and other central bodies of the R.S.F.S.R.;
(2) to recognise as absolutely essential for the duration of the socialist war of defence the unification of railway transport and the management of the railway network through-out the entire territory of fraternal socialist republics under the guidance and management of the People’s Com-missariat of Railways of the R.SF.S.R.;
(3) to recognise as incompatible with the interests of defence the existence of separate bodies supplying the Red Army and separate commissariats of railways in the frater-nal Soviet republics, and to insist on their being changed for the duration of the war into branches of the R.S.F.SR. bodies supplying the Red Army and of the People’s Commis-sariat of Railways of the R.S,F.S.R. that shall be under the jurisdiction of and fully subordinated to the central R.S.F.S.R. bodies supplying the Red Army and the People’s Commissariat of Railways of the R.S.F.S.R.;
(4) to recognise as subject to annulment all decrees concern-ing Red Army supplies and railway transport or concern-ing the management of the railway network wherever they contradict the orders and decrees of the R.SF.S.R. regulating supplies for the Red Army and the management of railway transport and the railway network of the R.S.F.S.R.
Lenin, Stalin