Date: 1919-05-16
Source: ru:PSS/v50

Source: PSS, Volume 50

Kharkiv – to Getsov, a copy to Bazhanov; a copy to Kharkiv, to the Chairman of the Provisional Supply Committee, Bogdatyan or Serebrovsky; a copy to Kyiv, to the Chairman of the Provisional Supply Committee, Bogdatyan; a copy to the People’s Commissar for Military Affairs.

To Podvoysky, Kyiv – a copy to Trotsky and Kamenev, as circumstances permit.

The complete abolition of worker mobilization in the Donets Basin, given the current state of affairs on the front, is absolutely out of the question. The Defense Council recognizes the exceptional importance of the Donets Basin and has therefore resolved to exempt from mobilization exclusively those miners working at the coalface—even in those enterprises that, for one reason or another, are not currently engaged in coal extraction. In any event, retaining these miners will safeguard the coal industry from catastrophe and, once the extraordinary circumstances have passed, enable coal production to be resumed without delay. No other forms of exemption from conscription are feasible.

Chairman of the Defense Council, Lenin

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Written on May 16, 1919.

First published in 1925.

In the journal

“Proletarian Revolution,” No. 6 (41)

Printed according to the text of the telegraph form.