(DECREE OF THE COUNCIL OF LABOUR AND DEFENCE, 21 AUGUST 1920)

For the purpose of the earliest possible commencement of work on the deep drilling exploration of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly region and the uninterrupted conduct thereof, the Council of Labour and Defence decrees:

1. To recognise all work connected with the exploration of the Kursk Magnetic Anomalies as being of especially important state significance.

2. In addition to the decree of the Council of Labour and Defence of 7 July of this year, to extend, in accordance with point 2 of this decree, to the administration and its organs engaged in the deep drilling of the Kursk Anomalies, according to the number of workers and employees as of 15 August of this year, the general regulation on militarisation of 28 November 1919, with those additions and amendments thereto which are provided for by the decree of the Council of Defence of 9 June of this year, with the exception of those specialists in mining and oil affairs who are exempted by a special decree of the STO.

3. Unskilled labour workers are to be assigned to the work by order of the Chief Committee for Labour.

4. All workers and employees, both at the work sites and in the deep drilling administration, are to receive enhanced food rations according to the norms for miners engaged in especially heavy work and are to be supplied with work clothing.

1920

5. The necessary living quarters for employees and workers, as well as for the administration, are to be provided by means of compulsory labour service of the population.

All freight consigned to the deep drilling administration must be transported by rail and water without any delays whatsoever, and this freight shall be given priority over all other freight, except operational freight, and in necessary cases, freight weighing up to 50 poods may in each individual case be transported as baggage in passenger trains, in view of the need to transport very fragile and valuable instruments and tools.

6. For the transport of freight, workers and employees, the deep drilling administration is to use, through the Department of Transport, horse-drawn compulsory service of the local population out of turn. To propose to the Chief Committee for Labour to submit to the STO a draft on exemption from mobilisation of horses, precisely indicating the minimum number of horses necessary for the drilling work of the Kursk Magnetic Anomalies.

7. To instruct the People's Commissariat for Food to place at the disposal of the drilling administration in the region of the magnetic anomalies a monthly fund amounting to a one-month supply of food for 115 persons.

8. In view of the exceptional significance for the Republic of the speedy completion of the work on the exploration of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly region, all Soviet, civil and military authorities are obliged to render full assistance to the said work, in no way permitting interdepartmental friction and red tape.

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

Printed from the original signed by V. I. Lenin.