1919
14651
FROM THE RESOLUTIONS OF THE COUNCIL OF DEFENSE
APRIL 21, 1919
ON THE ACCOUNTING OF MILITARY PROPERTY

Appoint tomorrow at 6½ o'clock in the evening a commission consisting of comrades Stalin, Sklyansky, Lenin, and Krasin to inspect in the Extraordinary Commission for Supplying the Red Army how the accounting of military property is being conducted in the warehouses, with the provision that urgent decisions are made by the commission in the name of the Council of Defense.

Instruct Sklyansky tonight to conduct direct telephone negotiations with Rybinsk for the purpose of clarifying what military property is available in the warehouses of the Rybinsk SNKh.

ON THE TRANSPORTATION OF A DIVISION FROM ASTRAKHAN*

Instruct the commission consisting of the chairman of the Council for Transportation and representatives of the People's Commissariat of Communications and Glavvoda to work out tomorrow the most economical method with regard to material expenditure for the transportation of troops from the standpoint of combining land and water transport, with the provision that a sufficient portion proceeds by land route in accordance with the instructions of the Field Staff.

Chairman of the Council of Defense
V. Ulyanov (Lenin)

Published from protocol No. 30 of the session of the Council of Defense, April 21, 1919.

* This concerns the transfer of the 33rd Division of the XI Army to the Southern Front. See the present collection, pp. 127, 138.

14653
ON THE REDUCTION OF MILITARY TRANSPORTATION
IN CONNECTION WITH THE MOVEMENT OF FOOD CARGO
IN THE EASTERN FRONT SECTOR

(RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL OF DEFENSE, APRIL 21, 1919)

In clarification and supplement to previously issued resolutions and orders on the question of reducing military transportation, the following provision is affirmed:

1. Military cargo necessary for combat operations and for movement must be kept with the army. The quantity and categories of military property are determined by the military command. The correctness of the determination of these cargo categories is controlled by the superior military command with the direct participation of representatives of the State Control or specially authorized persons of the Council of Defense. All other property in the charge of the army is subject to evacuation to the center in specially designated places. The front command, together with representatives of the State Control, the People's Commissariat of Communications, and Tramot* must draw up a plan and inventory of military property subject to evacuation.

2. In the zone of direct combat operations, when evacuation is conducted under the immediate pressure of an advancing enemy, when there exists a real danger of loss of all cargo in general, military property in the charge of the army, in accordance with section 1, part 1 (weapons, combat property and supplies) are directed to the zone of normal evacuation. Evacuation of cargo is conducted in three stages: in the first stage, weapons, firearms ammunition and ammunition, suitable, valuable military property, suitable, serviceable military-technical property, uniforms, medicines and equipment are evacuated. In determining the value of this property and suitability, one proceeds from the standpoint of necessity for it and scarcity of it for the needs of the army. Grain cargo, butter, meat, railway rolling stock, valuable nonferrous metals, equipment of railway repair shops, lubricating and illuminating materials and certain other especially valuable products of industry, especially determined by Tramot.

* Tramot—the Transport and Material Section of the Supreme Council of the National Economy.