Date: 1920-04-02
Source: ru:LS/v35

192)
YEAR
centered on questions of economic life and labor mobilization.
2) All production activities that are not directly aligned with the primary task of the economic period may be sustained only to the extent that their operations do not impede the fulfillment of that central objective. Production units auxiliary to the main task must be developed in accordance with actual, pressing needs. Consequently, the unified economic plan should not merely aggregate the production programs devised by industrial sections and local councils of national economy based on orders received from central and local institutions; rather, the unified economic plan must instead determine the scale of production programs for each individual section.
3) The mobilization of skilled workers, vocational education, labor mobilizations, the deployment of labor armies, and the conscription of communists must all be aligned with the overarching objectives of each economic period—while communists themselves must undergo specialized, pre‑service training. To this end, a dedicated body should be established under the Vth Congress of the Central Committee…
6) At provincial, county, and township executive committees, model labor brigades, regiments, battalions, and companies should be organized—serving local needs while simultaneously functioning as permanent cadre units into which conscripts mobilized for local labor duties can be integrated.
• •
NOTES ON A LETTER FROM A. M. PESHKOV
Late April 1920
Dear Vladimir Ilyich,
…I am enclosing a copy of the Ermitage Council’s petition regarding the urgent need to re-evacuate its treasures from Moscow to Petrograd. As a member of the Council, I too seek your assistance.
In addition, I would like to draw your attention to the pressing necessity of taking decisive action to combat juvenile delinquency. Now that I have become acquainted with the state of this issue, I know just how alarmingly rapidly the scourge of crime is spreading…
8*
N/under the appropriate
People’s Commissariat, in coordination with the CEC
+ first and foremost, the processing of Red Army soldiers and impoverished workers

(M. GORKY)
To Lunacharsky.
To Lunacharsky, for his comments.

To Tsentroutil.
Isolation fails to achieve its intended purpose. Other measures are required—and I propose establishing a “League for the Fight Against Juvenile Delinquency,” to which I will invite all the most authoritative figures engaged in the care and education of children with developmental disabilities, as well as experts in the field of combating child crime.
We must act swiftly on this matter.
Please forgive me for troubling you with what may seem trivial. You deliver truly fine speeches about the importance of work. It would be wonderful if, in one of your addresses, you could highlight the following fact: at the very moment when Yudenich’s forces advanced upon the streets of Petrograd, tens of thousands of canvas sacks filled with sand lay rotting in the streets—sacks that had been hastily repurposed into machine-gun nests and firing positions. The sacks were ruined, decayed, yet the paper mills still lacked sufficient rags.
In the ruins of destroyed wooden houses, more than a million poods of iron lie scattered and rusting away.
When demolishing buildings, window and door glass is not removed but smashed—today, window glass costs 1,000, even 1,200 rubles—resulting in the loss of tens of millions of rubles.
But of course, it is not merely a matter of money—it is a question of cultivating in people a sense of responsibility toward their own well‑being! The collection of sacks, rags, glass, and iron could easily be carried out using the labor of prisoners in the penal system.
I discuss these topics everywhere, but it is essential that you also speak out on the matter. After all, this is no trivial concern!
I send you my warmest regards and wish you good health!
A. Peshkov
April 2, 1920
RESOLUTION AND NOTES ON A LETTER
TO A. V. LUNACHARSKY
33826
April 17, 1920
To the Small
Council:
I request that this be brought to discussion—and indeed, even more than that: we must pay due respect to teachers.
Lenin
To the Chairman of the Sovnarkom, Comrade V. I. Lenin,
You forwarded to me a telegram from Kazan complaining of a shortage of currency. I have received similar telegrams from Vyatka and Vologda provinces as well… In all these regions, teachers, lacking funds, have gone three months without receiving their salaries.
Thus it becomes clear that in those provinces where hunger is absolute—teachers themselves are starving for lack of basic sustenance—while in the more productive regions, as…