Experience has shown that subbotniks are undoubtedly a good means of purifying the Party. It is not an all-washing means, but a means that produces great results. As for our inability to force people to work, we must not forget that the coercive apparatus of the bourgeoisie has been forged over centuries, while our state is still very young. Besides, in the present miserable situation of the masses, coercion will not raise the productivity of labor, but example can have a very good effect. The importance of the subbotniks lies in the fact that this is not forced, but voluntary labor, truly communist labor.

Fund 2, op. 1, d. 12124, fol. 17 - handwritten copy.

1The Moscow city-wide conference of the RCP(6) was held on December 20-21, 1919. It discussed the following issues: the All-Russian Party Conference, fuel, subbotniks, the typhus epidemic and measures to combat it, the food situation in Moscow, the All-Volunteer Army and special-purpose units.

V.I.Lenin made a report on the subbotniks (see: Lenin V.I. Complete Collected Works, vol. 40, pp. 32-38).

The conference also heard a report on the organizational side of the subbotniks. The Moscow Committee of the RCP(6) developed and approved the "Regulations on Subbotniks" (published in Pravda on December 27, 1919). A special Subbotniks Department was established under the Moscow Committee of the RCP(b) to directly manage the subbotniks.