AND RIVER COMMERCIAL FLEET

January 18 (31), 1918

## DRAFT DECREE

1. The Council of People's Commissars finds that both the Central Committee** and the Central Volga are in complete agreement regarding the necessity to nationalize immediately and without compensation all maritime and river vessels serving commercial purposes.

2. Therefore the Council of People's Commissars resolves to carry out this nationalization immediately, entrusting a special commission composed of representatives of the Maritime Commissariat, two representatives from the Central Committee, two from the Central Volga, and a chairman appointed by the Supreme Council of the National Economy to work out the following bases of the decree on nationalization and present them to the Council of People's Commissars within two days.

3. The nationalization of the entire fleet is decreed.

4. Responsibility for maintaining order on ships, for their preservation, etc., is placed directly on the ship commands, and then on the unions of ship workers of each basin or sea*.

5. The Central Committees of all nationalized fleet are temporarily recognized as the Central Committee and the Central Volga**, pending a congress and until unification.

If unification is not achieved voluntarily, it will be carried out by Soviet power by force.

6. The Central bodies act in full subordination to the organs of local and central Soviet power.