FINANCING OF ECONOMIC CONSTRUCTION

to railway institutions to render all possible assistance
to the commissioner — head of the Factory, Comrade Minkin. Telegraph about the
execution and send accurate written reports about what has actually been done with opportunities.
Chairman of the Council of Defense Lenin.
People's Commissar Krestinsky.
*174
EXCHANGE OF NOTES WITH N. N. KRESTINSKY.
[December 1919]
NOTE FROM KRESTINSKY.
Chutskaev 1 reports that Larin and Co 2 have been discussing
a resolution on the monetary system for the third evening, intending to propose the abolition of money at the Congress of
Soviets. It seems this is happening even without Syromolotov, with whom we have agreement. Suggest to Rykov that all
resolutions be submitted for preliminary approval, not excluding Larin's future resolution.

REPLY FROM LENIN.
I agree. Remind me tomorrow by telephone].

1 S. E. Chutskaev — Deputy People's Commissar of Finance.

M. A. Larin — in 1919 member of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of National Economy and head of the Department of Financial Policy of the Supreme Council of National Economy.

E. COOPERATION AND TRADE
MARCH 1919 — MARCH 1920
12407
ON CONSUMER COMMUNES
a.
AMENDMENTS TO THE DRAFT DECREE ON CONSUMER COMMUNES.
[March 16, 1919]
The difficulty of the food situation requires urgent measures to save the country from hunger and for the greatest
economy of forces and resources.
In the field of distribution, therefore, the creation of a single
distribution apparatus is necessary. This is all the more imperative
and urgent because all distribution bodies (mainly divided into three groups: food authorities, Workers' Co
operation and civil cooperatives) receive the majority of products from one source, and friction between these three
groups has already become an unbearable obstacle to the cause in practice.

The unification of existing distribution bodies must be accomplished in such a way that the main apparatus of
proper mass distribution, namely cooperation, as the only
apparatus created and tested by many years of development
under capitalism and practical experience, is not destroyed and not rejected, but laid as the foundation of the new one, preserved,
developed and improved.

Based on these provisions, the Council of People's Commissars
decrees:
1. In all cities and rural areas, Consumer
Cooperation is united and reorganized into a single distribution
body — the Consumer Commune.
2. When creating a Consumer Commune, the basis to
be taken in cities is: — the existing workers' cooperation, and where it does not
exist — general-civil cooperation, in rural areas — the existing
rural consumer cooperation.
3. In cities and Factory-Plant centers, a single
Consumer Commune is formed. In rural areas, the population
of a number of villages can unite into one Regional Commune
(multi-shop cooperative).
4. The Consumer Commune includes the entire population of the
given locality. Every citizen is obliged to become a member of the

COOPERATION AND TRADE

commune and be assigned to one of the commune's shops (distribution
point).
[5. Every citizen, starting from the age of 18, joining the
Commune, if he has not previously been a member of a cooperative, pays a membership
fee. Payment of the share in accessible installments is permitted.]
10. The local food authorities transfer the entire business of
distributing products and essential items to the consumer communes
reorganized in this way.
All Soviet and cooperative shops, stores, warehouses and all
kinds of other distribution points, without any exception, pass to consumer communes.
11. The apparatus of the gubernial unions and Centrosoyuz, as they are being reorga
nized, is transferred to the implementation of state plans for
the distribution of food and essential items among individual consumer communes, according to plans
and under the control of the relevant food authorities.

•
•
•
•
•
13. Pending the elections of the boards of consumer
communes and their unions in accordance with this decree
(paragraphs 5 — 9), the former boards of worker or civil cooperation
remain temporarily at the head of the communes and their unions,
respectively, depending on which of them formed the basis of this
consumer commune. If necessary, the boards of both types of cooperation may be combined, by decision
of the provincial food committees or the People's Commissariat of Food.
Note: In large cities and Factory-Plant
centers, temporary boards, with the permission of the People's Commissariat
of Food, can be created by election at joint meetings of Factory-Plant committees, professional
unions and councils of authorized worker cooperatives. [In Petrograd and Moscow, during these
elections, the plenum of Soviets also participates in the electoral meeting.]
17. All officials of
cooperatives and consumer communes, from the day of this decree, do not have the right to leave
their positions without the permission of the Soviet authorities, on
an equal basis with employees of food authorities.
[18. Representatives of state bodies newly included in the temporary boards, having the same right to vote as other

.IKIIIIIKKIIII COLLECTION members, partly share with them the management of individual branches, partly carry out work to speed up the implementation of this reorganization.]
19. In order to speed up economic decisions; as well as in order to establish stricter and more precise responsibility of officials, all boards of communes and unions of communes are obliged to distribute [the present] permanent
work and temporary assignments completely accurately among their members.
20. The right of
representation in the head offices, centers and other central and
local government bodies, which belonged to the consumer
cooperation, is transferred to temporary boards and, in the future, to properly organized consumer
communes and their associations.
21. The implementation of this reorganization is entrusted
to the People's Commissariat of Food, to which the cooperative department
of the Supreme Council of National Economy is transferred, with the exception of [productive] production
cooperation.

3 NOTES
OF TELEPHONE CALLS.
16. III. 1919
Krestinsky. 9.49
Frumkin. 9.52
Milyutin. 9.53
Nogin. 9.55
Lenin. 9.58
Schmidt: 9.59
Kamenev: 10.00
Krestinsky: 10.01
Rykov:
Shmidt Nogin
Chegodaev2
Ryazanov
Schmidt
Shmidt
Shmidt
Krestinsky Kresvidersky
Kamenev
Schmidt
Nogin
Schmidt
Lenin
Krestinsky
Milyutin
Kamenev
L

Frumkin
Schmidt
Kamenev
Krestinsky
Ryazanov
Krestinsky
Milyutin
Schmidt
Ryazanov
Makom[o k
Kamenev
Rykov
Frumkin
Lenin]
Nogin
Kam[ene? v
Rykov
Milyutin
Ryaz[ano v stinsky

*
The entire entry, with the exception of the first eight surnames, was
crossed out by Lenin, apparently after the speeches. Ed.