Date: 1920-06-13
Source: ru:LS/v34

In 1920, the Council of Labor and Defense of the Caucasus—particularly its representative—was entrusted with full responsibility for the supply of food to the oil-producing regions of Transcaucasia. The representative of the People’s Commissariat for Food was obligated to submit to the People’s Commissariat for Food (with a copy sent to the Council of Defense) every five days comprehensive reports detailing the progress of loading, dispatch, and arrival of food supplies in Baku. All other leading bodies in the Caucasus—especially the organs and authorized representatives of the Main Oil Administration and the North Caucasus Revolutionary Committee—were instructed to operate exclusively in coordination with the Council of Labor and Defense of the Caucasus and to conduct all matters related to the supply of food to oil workers—and to oversee this work—only through that body.
Chairman of the Council of Labor and Defense
Lenin
Printed from the original manuscript, signed by
V. I. Lenin.

NOTES ON THE DRAFT OF THE TURKESTAN COMMISSION
June 13, 1920
1. The Central Committee of the RCP regards the liquidation of the relations that have developed between the immigrant European population and the indigenous peoples as the primary task in Turkestan—a result of more than fifty years of imperialist policies pursued by the Russian autocracy. During the two and a half decades of Soviet power, which were in the hands of an exceedingly thin stratum of Russian workers deeply steeped in a colonialist mentality, these relations not only failed to improve but actually grew even more acute, thanks to certain “communist” measures that were perceived by the subjugated indigenous populations—as well as, in essence, were—nothing more than a continuation of the activities carried out by agents of the old tsarist regime.
2. In order to eliminate these relations, the following measures must be taken without delay:
a) All lands in the Kyrgyz districts that had been allocated to settlers by the Settlers’ Administration—or those that settlers had seized from the Kyrgyz on their own initiative—must be confiscated, while leaving settlers with plots equal in size to their labor allotments.
And what about the settlers, the kulaks?
Robbery?
And should their lands be leveled?
21*

And the kulaks…
One out of ten?
In agreement with the Turkestan Central Executive Committee and the Turkestan Revolutionary Committee—the supreme organ of all-Russian governance—the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (a)
The same (a)
The confiscated lands should be transferred to a fund for the allocation of land to Kyrgyz communities, artels, and individual households, and used to resettle Kyrgyz and Dungan refugees who had fled after the defeat of 1916.
b) All former police officers, gendarmes, Okhrana agents, and other tsarist officials whose continued presence in Turkestan was politically unacceptable, as well as speculators, former managers of large Russian enterprises, and all those who had aligned themselves with the Party, the Soviet organs, the Red Army, and the like, must be deported from Turkestan to concentration camps in Russia.
c) In order to reallocate Party forces, all Turkestani communists infected with colonialist tendencies and Great Russian nationalism should be reassigned to the Central Committee, while simultaneously mobilizing several hundred communists from the center to work in Turkestan.
d) The People’s Commissariat for Railways should be instructed to reassign and replace several hundred workers from the Central Asian Railway, the Tashkent Workshops, and the Tashkent Railway.
e) This resolution must be implemented with unwavering firmness, crushing any resistance encountered by the bodies charged with carrying it out, and making extensive use of the deportation system against individuals who, in any way, obstruct the actual implementation of this resolution.
Organizational Relations Between the Center and the Turkestan Republic
1)
It is essential to establish a permanent body in Turkestan—the representation of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Sovnarkom, and the Central Committee of the RCP—upon which the following responsibilities should be vested:
a) Direct administration of those areas that fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of federal authority.
b) Oversight of the implementation of directives and decrees issued by the central authorities, as well as the suspension or modification of such directives and decrees in order to adapt them to local economic and everyday conditions.
c)
Harmonization and delimitation of interests among the various national entities in Turkestan.
2) The exclusive competence of the all‑Russian authorities includes:
a) Foreign affairs; b) Foreign trade; c) Military affairs.
3) Commissioners for Railways, Posts, and Telegraphs are appointed by agreement between the Turkestan Central Executive Committee and the relevant People’s Commissariats to which they are subordinate.

1920
All decrees issued by the center concerning these commissioners are automatically extended to the emerging Turkestan Railway and Postal–Telegraph District.
4) The Finance Commissioner is elected by the Turkestan Central Executive Committee and approved by the People’s Commissariat for Finance. In the realm of budgetary law, the budget established by the Turkestan Republic and approved by the representation of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR is automatically incorporated into the all‑Russian budget.
Note: Before approving the budget, the Turkestan Commission must seek the consent of the People’s Commissariat for Finance of the RSFSR.
5) In the realm of economic affairs,
the Turkestan Sovnarkom and the food agencies operate within the framework of plans established by the Supreme Economic Council and the People’s Commissariat for Food of the RSFSR.
o\
b) In all other matters, full authority
The same (a)
belongs to the Turkestan Central Executive Committee and the Sovnarkom.
(ß) on the condition
► of testing and verification through experience
It should be added: a series of concrete, practical measures aimed at transitioning (ß) (1) toward greater participation in the governance of the Turkestan Communist Party
(ß) (2) likewise—toward the participation of Turkestan’s working peasants (ß) (3) likewise—toward the participation of the Turkestan National Council and the Turkestan Central Executive Committee.
In my view, Rysskulov’s draft should be rejected, while the commission’s draft should be adopted—with the following amendments:
(a) Insert the obligation for the Turkestan Commission to engage systematically with the Turkestan National Council and the Turkestan Central Executive Committee:
(1) to solicit their opinions; (2) to gradually involve them in the affairs of the Turkestan Commission;
(3) to participate in the Turkestan National Council and the Turkestan Central Executive Committee; (4) to “agree” with them, bringing all (or the principal) contentious issues before the Central Committee and the All‑Russian Central Executive Committee.
(ß) Add a series of practical measures designed to progressively expand rights—both in terms of participation in decision-making and otherwise—
for the Turkestan Communist Party (conditions: oversight of its composition; measures of control and verification).
Likewise—for the burgeoning mass of Turkestan’s peasant farmers and agricultural laborers (methods of participation,
strategies for combating clerical influence and pan-Islamism, as well as the specifically bourgeois-nationalist movement—these must be developed with particular care.
This is especially important.)
Likewise—for the Turkestan National Council and the Turkestan Central Executive Committee.
Lenin

+ 1) Commission the creation of a map of Turkestan—ethnographic and otherwise—divided into Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkestan itself.
2)
Further clarify the conditions under which these three parts might merge or separate.

LETTER TO THE FUEL DEPARTMENT OF THE MOSCOW COUNCIL
To the Fuel Department of the Moscow Soviet
June 16, 1920
Dear comrades! Enclosing herewith the resolution of the Council of Labor and Defense dated June 11*, I would like to ask you once again to give this matter your most serious attention.
We can—and indeed must—mobilize the population of Moscow, carefully and with great effort hauling sufficient quantities of firewood from the forests (let us say, one cubic meter per adult male over the course of three months—though specialists will calculate the precise amount; I am offering this as a rough estimate)—to railway stations and narrow-gauge lines.
If heroic measures are not taken, I myself will propose—not only the arrest of all responsible officials in the Council of Defense and in the Cheka—but also their execution. Inaction and negligence are simply intolerable.
With communist greetings,
Lenin

LETTER TO THE CHAIRMAN OF THE PETROGRAD EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
June 25, 1920
The renowned physiologist Pavlov has requested permission to travel abroad, citing his dire financial circumstances. It is hardly rational to grant Pavlov leave to go abroad, since he has previously stated that, as a man of integrity,
* See this collection, p. 321.