V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:LS/v21; en:MT;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

[April 16, 1918]

In view of this, for the purpose of renewing the administrative machinery of the Post and Telegraph Department, [establishing] eliminating [consistency in the matter] interference by local organs of authority in the life of the department and subordinating their activities [to] the general [system] system of work of the latter, and also for the purpose of finally suppressing attempts by individual groups of post and telegraph employees to hinder the work of renewing the department, we decree:

5. At the head of the board for the administration of the post and telegraph district stands a commissar [elected] confirmed by the People's Commissar for Posts and Telegraphs from among the candidates presented by the regional or provincial organ of Soviet power.

6. The remaining members of the board for the administration of the district are confirmed by the People's Commissar for Posts and Telegraphs from among the candidates presented by the respective organisations of post and telegraph employees [or] and the local Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, these organisations having the right of reasoned [challenge] protest against the candidates presented and to be confirmed.

§ 8. The procedure for receiving and dispatching both postal and telegraphic correspondence, the execution of budget appropriations, the staffs and salaries of employees, and the hiring, dismissal and transfer of the latter must be regulated by definite rules established for the entire department as a whole, and in these rules cases must be precisely specified in which local organs of Soviet power are to be involved in deciding the said questions. Apart from these [instructions] cases, any interference by local authority in the activity of post and telegraph institutions, without prior communication with the authorised persons of the department, is absolutely impermissible.

§ 10 bis. In cases of obvious sabotage on the part of post and telegraph officials, as well as any counter-revolutionary actions by the reactionary section of post and telegraph officials, the local Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies are authorised to take the most decisive and merciless measures of suppression [up to and including shooting].

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars
V. Ulyanov (Lenin)