April 9, 1918

The Extraordinary Commissar of the Council of People's Commissars, Comrade S. Ordzhonikidze, is entrusted with organising, under his chairmanship, a temporary Extraordinary Commissariat of the Southern Region, uniting the activities of the Crimea, the Don Region, the Terek Region, the Black Sea Province, the Black Sea Fleet and the entire Northern Caucasus as far as Baku.

Purpose of the Commissariat: the steadfast implementation of the directives of the central Soviet power on land and at sea, concentrated struggle against bourgeois counter-revolution, consolidation of Soviet power in the region of its activity, and maintenance of direct communication between the regions and the Council of People's Commissars.

The Extraordinary Commissariat is composed of the chairman and one representative from each of the regions and the fleet, by agreement between the plenipotentiary organs of the regions and the chairman of the Commissariat.

The Extraordinary Commissariat has the right of control over the activities of all Soviet institutions in the region. The Councils of People's Commissars, Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, Revolutionary Committees, Revolutionary Staffs of the region, as well as the plenipotentiary organ of the fleet, shall act in full contact with the Extraordinary Commissariat as the representative of the central Soviet power in the region.

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

People's Commissar
I. Stalin
April 9, 1918

Printed from the original, corrected by I. V. Stalin and signed by V. I. Lenin and I. V. Stalin.