Regarding Comrade Shlyapnikov's inquiry concerning the wage scale for higher officials of the SNK, the SNK hereby resolves:

1) to confirm that the decree establishing 500 rubles monthly salary for members of the Council of People's Commissars denotes an approximate norm for higher salaries, and contains no prohibition against paying specialists more than this amount;

2) to remind that the SNK decree contains a requirement to adopt revolutionary measures for the reduction of excessively high salaries{96};

3) to propose that all people's commissars immediately submit reports on what precisely has been done in fulfillment of this decree;

4) to propose that the commissar of finance submit a report on whether decisive measures have been adopted for the collection of income tax and the elimination of evasion of this tax;

5) to propose that local Soviets of workers', soldiers', and peasants' deputies adopt more energetic measures for the collection of emergency taxes on excessively high incomes.

Written January 2 (15), 1918.

First printed in 1933 in Lenin Collection XXI

Printed from the manuscript

First page of V. I. Lenin's manuscript "Declaration of the Rights of the Toiling and Exploited People." – Early January 1918. (Reduced)