ON THE TASKS AND ORGANIZATION OF THE WORK OF THE COUNCIL OF DEFENSE

1st Meeting of the Council of Labor and Defense

Agenda for General Review:
I 1. The Food Supply
2. The Railway System
3. Military Logistics
4. Mobilization of the Intelligentsia
5. The Mobilization of Technical Resources
1. XII. 1918.
1. General Overview of Tasks.
2. Add to this item from the trade unions.
3. Work Procedures.
6. Fuel.
7. State Control and the Supreme Military Inspection.

I. The task assigned to the Commissariat for Food Supplies is, within four days, to submit a plan for accelerating the pace and scale of procurement efforts, and to report to the Council of Defense on the militarization of production.

In the People’s Commissariat for Food Supplies, establish a Department for Improving the Distribution of Goods and Enhancing the Efficiency of the Distribution Apparatus.

Merge the Main Economic Administration with the Commissariat for Food Supplies, along with the Railway Commission for Food Supplies; entrust the Commissariat for Food Supplies with the task of elaborating, (a) the issue of delivering food supplies to the third shift at the Tula Cartridge Factory and the Simbirsk Cartridge Factory,

and (b) the introduction of Red Army rations for workers engaged in peat and coal mining around Moscow—and for those working in the timber industry.

ON THE TASKS AND ORGANIZATION OF THE WORK OF THE COUNCIL OF DEFENSE

II. The Commission on Bonuses.

The Commission on Joint Liability.

On the second issue, three commissions were established:
State Control; Mobile Inspection Teams.

III.

IV and V. To Krassin:
Krassin + Nevsky + Gorbunov

VI. The Fuel Commission: Lenin,
Rykov,
Volkovsky,
Nevsky,
Radchenko.

The question of authorized representatives versus contractors.

VII. The Supreme Military Inspection.

1) Within the shortest possible time, assign the Commissariat for Food Supplies the task of submitting a plan for an emergency intensification of procurement—both of grain and of fodder.

2) As the number of tripartite commissions increases, appoint local officials from the food supply agencies to serve on them.

3) Instruct Comrade Krassin to conduct an urgent investigation into the use of footwear reserves in Petrograd
(under the oversight of the Chief Commissar of Food Supplies**).

4) Establish the obligation to communicate brief demands or directives regarding irregularities to the Chairman, in concise form, without delay.

Written on December 1, 1918.

First published in 1931.

In the Eighteenth Volume of the Lenin Collection.

Printed from manuscript sources.

* - versus - in comparison with; in relation to. Ed.

** Ober (German: ober – “highest”). Refers to a warehouse directly under the jurisdiction of the People’s Commissariat for Food Supplies of the RSFSR. Ed.