MANDATE TO B. S. WEISBROD
October 31, 1919
The bearer of this document, Boris Solomonovich Weisbrod, a member of the Board of the Moscow City Department of Public Health, is hereby appointed
Chairman of the Extraordinary Commission for the Fight Against Typhus in the
area of the Eastern Front, established pursuant to a resolution of the
Chairman of the County Food Council, who, in a telegram dated October 24,
1919, reported: “Food requisitioning has been carried out to 50%,”
and that “certain volosts have completed their deliveries in full.”

By virtue of the resolution of the Council of Workers’ and Peasants’ Defense dated October 24, 1919,
he is hereby dispatched to conduct inspections and surveys
of sanitary conditions in the aforementioned regions and to take the necessary measures to rectify the identified shortcomings in public health.
To effectively carry out the duties entrusted to him, he is granted the following powers:
1. To conduct unimpeded inspections of sanitary conditions
in all military units.
2. To remove from office, reassign, permit to assume new positions, or bring to trial personnel serving in the health service, regardless of their rank or position.
3. To issue all necessary directives for the reform of existing sanitary practices, as well as for the evacuation of the sick and wounded.
4. To utilize military-sanitary trains for transportation and as bases for supplying frontline medical facilities, with the authority to issue routing instructions to these trains in coordination with military railway authorities.
5. To requisition transport vehicles—automobiles, motorcycles, and horse-drawn carriages—for movement within cities and along dirt roads.
6. To make use of the designated carriage provided for his travel, which may, upon first request, be attached to the earliest departing passenger, military, or other trains.
7. This carriage shall be exempt from any form of inspection, and the items it contains shall not be subject to requisition.
8. To ensure that all supply agencies along the front and in the rear provide the necessary provisions—not only for himself, but also for the accompanying staff.
9. To communicate with the relevant military authorities via telegrams marked “military,” “out of turn,” encrypted, or transmitted directly over wire.

All local Soviet authorities and individual citizens are instructed to extend to Comrade Weisbrod their full cooperation in the performance of his assigned duties,
without any bureaucratic delays or other forms of procrastination—under penalty of liability under wartime laws for any obstruction of Soviet directives.
Chairman of the Council of Workers’ and Peasants’ Defense
V. Ulyanov (Lenin)
Printed from the original, signed by
V. I. Lenin.

1919
3