V. I.

Lenin

To Getsov, Chief Coal Board, Kharkov; copy to Bazhanov;
copy to Bogdatyan, Chairman of the Extraordinary
Committee for Supplies or Serebrovsky, Kharkov; copy to
Bogdatyan, Chairman of the Extraordinary Committee for
Supplies, Kiev; copy to Podvoisky, People’s Commissar for the
Army; copy to Trotsky, Kiev; to Kamenev wherever he may be

General cancellation of mobilisation of workers of the
Donets Basin, with the present situation at the front, is
absolutely impermissible. [1] The Council of Defence realises
the exceptional importance of the Donets Basin, and has therefore decided to defer mobilisation for hewers only,
even in those enterprises which for one reason or another
are not producing coal at the present time. Retaining the
hewers, at any rate, safeguards the coal industry against
disaster, and will permit the resumption of coal-getting
directly the emergency is over. No other deferments are
permissible.

Lenin
Chairman, Council of Defence

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Notes:
[1]
In view of the worsening of the position of the Red Army forces
on the Southern Front, the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.)
decided in early May 1919 to mobilise at least 20,000 workers
in the Ukraine to strengthen the armies on the Southern Front.
The C.C. directive of May 9, 1919 said: “The figure of 20,000
is to be taken as a minimum, and a fortnight as the maximum
to save our position on the Southern Front. The work must be
conducted with exceptional energy. Cable at once about all measures
you take. Every three days cable the C.C. on the results achieved. ”

On May 16, 1919, the Kharkov Chief Coal Board asked Lenin
that all miners be exempted from the draft. In reply, Lenin sent
the telegram in question the same day.