V. I. Lenin

Comments on the Draft “Regulations for the Management of the Nationalised Enterprises” {1}

Communism requires and presupposes the greatest possible
centralisation of large-scale production throughout the country. The
all-Russia centre, therefore, should definitely be given the right of
direct control over all the enterprises of the given branch of
industry. The regional centres define their functions depending on local
conditions of life, etc., in accordance with the general production
directions and decisions of the centre.

To deprive the all-Russia centre o. the right of direct control over
all the enterprises of the given industry throughout the country, as
follows from the commission’s draft, would be regional anarcho-syndicalism,
and not communism.

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Notes:
{1}
The draft “Regulations for the Management of the Nationalised
Enterprises” drawn up by the Supreme Economic Council were discussed on
May 28 and 30, 1918, at a meeting of the Organisation of Production Section
of the First All-Russia Congress of Economic Councils. After a lengthy
discussion, the section, under pressure from the “Left” Communists,
adopted the Regulations, which ran counter to the policy of the Party and
the Government. On learning of the speeches of the, “Left” Communists on
the question of management of the nationalised enterprises (see