V. I.

Lenin

Draft Decision for the C.P.C. on The Question of Supplying the Workers with Clothes and Footwear [2]

The Narrow Council to be instructed immediately, but not
later than

Saturday, [1] to revise its decision, leaving its basic and general parts intact, but
changing the figures of issue to the workers in accordance with the new
military plans of army increase Comrade Rykov to issue an exactly worded
mandate to his representative and only be is to be admitted. [3]

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Notes:

[1]
January 3, 1920.— Ed .

[2]
On December 23, 1919, the Narrow Council of People’s Commissars
examined the question of supplying the workers with cloathes and
footwear. It decided to use for this purpose part of the stocks reserved
for the Red Army, but in a manner that would not be detrimental to the
army. At the end of December the Central Army Supply Administration was to
have issued to the Food Commissariat from army stores 30,000 pairs of
leather boots, while the S.E.C. undertook to deliver to the Food
Commissariat every fortnight 20 per cent of all the boots manufactured in
the country.

Apparently this decision of the Narrow Council met with
objection on the part of the Presidium of the S.E.C, as a result of which
the C.P.C. passed a decision based on this draft of Lenin’s.

[3]
This motion was adopted by the C.P.C. in the following wording
“Comrade Rykov shall give an exact mandate to his represeatative for all
meetings on the question of working clothes and delegate only him.”

The question was examined a second time by the Narrow
Council on January 3, 1920, this time in the presence of Chairman of the
S.E.C. A. I. Rykov, who was ordered to supply monthly to the Food
Commissariat’s agencies, as from January 1, 1920, not less than 40,000
pairs of men’s working boots, not counting clogs, bast sandals and felt
boots.