23 JULY 1919

Many factories and plants working for the Red Army are submitting petitions for a temporary suspension of work, in order to enable workers to go for food supplies. To grant these petitions at a moment of decisive struggle with the enemies of the Russian Soviet Republic, when all forces must be concentrated on supplying the Red Army and every second of work to meet its needs is precious, could have the most dangerous consequences.

But, on the other hand, it is necessary to place those who work for defence and are therefore the mainstay of the Red Army in its struggle, in privileged conditions with regard to food supply.

Therefore the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defence decrees:

1. To suspend leave for workers at defence-group factories; in individual cases, to grant the Extraordinary Plenipotentiary of the Council of Defence the right to permit exceptions to this rule, but in agreement with the All-Russian Council of Trade Unions.

2. To make it the duty of the institutions in charge of freight transport to ensure that all grain procurements by delegations of workers from factories working for defence are forwarded to the factories without delay, and that for this purpose the necessary wagons are provided to the delegations on an urgent basis.

3. To propose to the local food supply organs that workers' organisations of factories working for defence be supplied with food in the first instance.

4. At those factories and plants working for defence where leave has been suspended, members of the workers' families are granted the right to receive leave certificates for departure from Moscow and return, the number of travellers and the procedure for their travel being determined depending on transport capacity, by agreement between the relevant trade union and the People's Commissariat of Railways. Those travelling on the basis of this clause shall enjoy the same rights during travel as other workers travelling on the basis of the general law on leave.

5. To prescribe strict supervision to ensure that, in accordance with the tariff regulation of 2 May, workers deprived of leave receive the corresponding two weeks' compensation of their tariff earnings.

6. Any unauthorised absence of workers from factories working for defence is prohibited. Those guilty of violating this decree shall be equated with deserters and punished according to the laws on desertion.

7. Those workers of defence factories whose family members have not taken leave shall receive from state reserves 1½ poods of flour per family in September or early October of this year.

8. The number of workers subject to the operation of this decree shall not exceed 300,000 persons, and the list of factories shall be established by the Extraordinary Plenipotentiary of the Council of Defence for Army Supply in agreement with the representative of the All-Russian Council of Trade Unions and the Commissariat for Food.

Chairman of the Council of Defence
V. Ulyanov (Lenin)