TELEGRAM TO SIBREVKO

• Omsk, Sibrevkom.
To Smirnov, RVS. 5.
To Frumkin
Copy to Sverdlov
January 29, 1920

Paykes¹ reports that sabotage among railway workers on the Siberian Railway and its branches to the west is blatant. He has documented numerous egregious instances.
* Transport Department of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission. Ed.
** Above the text of the telegram: Lenin’s directive to the secretary: “File in the archives.” Send a telegram to Trotsky®. Ed.

Among other matters:
In the Omsk Railway Workshops, roughly 3,000 workers are employed. They were producing around 5–4 railcars per month, with zero locomotives. The workshops themselves were not destroyed; fuel shortages had been minimal. Suspicion falls on former Izhevsk workers who had been relocated to these very workshops. With the transfer of locomotives here, there has clearly been deliberate delay.
1 A. K. Paykes was a member of the Collegium of the State Control Commission.
ON THE CATASTROPHIC STATE OF TRANSPORTATION.
I.
47W
LETTER TO THE MEMBERS OF THE DEFENSE COUNCIL 1.
To the Members of the Defense Council.
1/II [1920]
The situation regarding railway transportation is utterly catastrophic. Grain shipments have come to a halt. To avert disaster, truly emergency measures are required. For two months—February and March—such measures must be implemented (and corresponding additional measures of a similar nature must be identified):
I. Reduce the bread ration for non-working individuals by 10%; increase it for those who are employed.
Let thousands more perish—if only the nation can be saved.
II. Assign 30–50 responsible workers from all departments except the Commissariat of Food Supply and the Military Commissariat to work on railway transport and maintenance for these two months. Accordingly, suspend—or reduce by a factor of ten—the operations of the other commissariats for two months.
III. Within a 30–50-verst zone on either side of the railway lines, institute military-style regulations for labor mobilization aimed at clearing the tracks; and transfer one-third of the responsible workers from volost and uyezd executive committees across the entire relevant guberniya to this task.

TRANSPORTATION

II.
NOTES FROM THE DEFENSE COUNCIL MEETING 2.
Meeting held on February 2, 1920*.
a.

Khalatov³
Svidersky
Markov⁶
Krasin
Trotsky
Dzerzhinsky
RECORD OF SPEECHES *.
Milyutin
Sklyansky
Avanesov
Krasin
Lenin
Markov (G.
Sklyansky
[Tomsky] Avanesov
Milyutin
Krasin
Dzerzhinsky
Trotsky
DRAFT RESOLUTIONS OF THE DEFENSE COUNCIL 7.
(1) Increase routes by 50–100%.
(2) The Kazan Railway.
(3) Samara – Zlatoust – Chelyabinsk
?
(4) Strengthen the flow of food supplies; (5) Intensify food loading in the Chelyabinsk district*;
(6) Dispatch highly responsible workers to repair shops in Petrograd and Moscow;
(7) Award workers with items of everyday necessity; (8) Repair trains on the Western Front
– (9) Send Arzhanov 8 (10) Provide compulsory assistance to railway chiefs
– (11) Allocate 16 days to the army; (12) Relieve workers from the VChK of transport duties
– (13) Treat repair factories as equivalent to transport facilities.
(14) Return the grain reserves of Chusovoy, transferred to the Kirov Region, to the workers of the transport sector; (15) Take from the KGS** and other departments of the VSNKh and other agencies the necessary equipment for railway workers—
– (16) Mobilize transport workers for this purpose.
*
Extraordinary Commissioner of the Defense Council for Supplying the Army. Ed.
** Committee of State Construction. Ed.

6V

(15) Increase the number of military forces (to 40,000) to combat snow drifts.
(16) Add 5’ + members of the VTsIK (17) Strengthen the sub-committee on repairs
(18) Restore the situation within a 30–50-verst radius (19) Reinforce the volosts near the railway lines with additional workers.
(20) Specifically intensify efforts to supply fuel to workers.
(21) Request the Organizational Bureau of the Central Committee to issue a circular on party affairs and to intensify work in the designated administrative districts; (22) Revise the transport plan in order to strengthen food and fuel supplies.
(23) Close certain factories and redirect them to repair work; (24) Issue instructions regarding shovels and gloves
(25) Deploy snowplows and distribute them appropriately; (26) Train track maintenance agents according to specific guidelines.
HI*
1,sh
RESOLUTIONS OF THE DEFENSE COUNCIL ON TRANSPORTATION, II. 1920’.
1.
— a) Bread delivered by trains assembled by railway workers shall be handed over to railway organizations in the amount of 100%.
Assign T. Svidersky to prepare a report on the quantity of bread to be procured.
b) Instruct the People’s Commissariat of Railways, the People’s Commissariat of Food Supply, and the Revolutionary Military Council of the Reserve Army to meet a daily loading quota of 140 railcars on the Kazan Railway and to take steps to accelerate their delivery.
Assign T. Markov and T. Svidersky to submit weekly reports to the Defense Council.
c) Direct the People’s Commissariat of Railways to expedite the movement of military convoys along the Samara–Zlatoust Railway and to adopt more energetic measures to advance the delivery of 10 food trains between Samara and Chelyabinsk.
d) Through direct negotiations, instruct the People’s Commissariat of Food Supply to take steps to increase food loading in Western Siberia and to bring this matter to the attention of the Revolutionary Military Council.
* See item 5. Ed.
** The heading was added by Lenin to the minutes of the Defense Council, typed on a typewriter. Amendments to the minutes were made in Lenin’s own hand. Ed.

TRANSPORTATION

The First Labor Army, offering it every possible form of support.
e) The Defense Council calls upon all departments to nominate suitable candidates from among their best and most responsible workers for temporary assignment to the railway workshops of Petrograd and Moscow, with the aim of improving repairs and overall management of railway transportation. These workers are assigned without being relieved of their regular duties, for a specified number of hours per week.
Propose that the Presidium of the VTsIK provide a certain number of workers—some to be used in the central offices, others to be dispatched to local areas.
Request the Organizational Bureau to provide every possible form of support for the intensified dispatch of workers to individual railways—and, in particular, to place them under the authority of the Political Railway Section. Instruct T. Rozenholts⁹ to publish in the newspapers both this resolution and the names of the workers dispatched, as well as the departments sending them.
f) Instruct the Chusosnabarm to agree with the People’s Commissariat of Railways, with the participation of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, to utilize a portion of military supplies as rewards for transport workers, thereby increasing their productivity by allocating a share of military provisions to the issuance of essential work clothing to railway employees.
The Chusosnabarm must carry out this operation—supplying work clothing—through the established bodies responsible for such tasks.
g) Propose that the People’s Commissariat of Food Supply, from the reserves transferred to the Chusosnabarm, prioritize the provision of transport workers with essential supplies.
Assign T. Svidersky to report on implementation at the next Defense Council meeting.
h) Extend the agreement between the People’s Commissariat of Railways and the Western Front to cover the other fronts.
i) Dispatch T. Arzhanov to the railway region serving the Caucasus Front, as the authorized representative of the People’s Commissariat of Railways and the People’s Commissariat of War in matters related to railway transportation and military communications. This region is subject to special designation through an agreement between the People’s Commissariat of War and the People’s Commissariat of Railways. In matters pertaining to track maintenance, subordinate T. Arzhanov entirely to the People’s Commissariat of Railways.
The People’s Commissariat of Railways is granted the right to assign its own representative to T. Arzhanov as a commissioner.
j) In accordance with the agreement between the People’s Commissariat of Railways and the People’s Commissariat of War, with the participation of B

Tsuvoso * appoints representatives of the military department as military assistants to railway chiefs.
l) Instruct the VChK and the Main Political Railway Section to develop an agreement on the temporary assignment of VChK workers and personnel from specialized departments to transport duties.
m) Equate workers engaged in locomotive repair and the production of spare parts for transport—with regard to their food supply—to workers and employees of railway organizations.
Coordinate the list of enterprises engaged in locomotive repair and the production of spare parts for transport with the People’s Commissariat of Railways and submit it to the Defense Council or to the Council of People’s Commissars.
Assign T. Krasin and T. Milyutin to present their reports to the Council of People’s Commissars on Thursday.
n) Instruct the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic to take the most energetic measures to intensify the dispatch of military units for clearing snow from railway tracks. Regarding regions where snowdrifts pose a significant threat, enter into agreements with the committee for combating snow drifts.
o)
Instruct the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions and the Commissariat of Railway Maintenance**, as well as the People’s Commissariat of Railways, to take steps to accelerate and intensify the use of Saturday workdays in the field of railway maintenance.
p) Instruct the People’s Commissariat of Railways to impose martial law within a 50-verst radius on either side of the railway line.
q) Instruct the People’s Commissariat of Railways to issue a circular to provincial executive committees, urging them to reinforce the ranks of responsible workers in the volost and uyezd executive committees located within the 50-verst railway zone.
r) Instruct T. Vladimirsky to gather the representatives of provincial executive committees present in Moscow, as well as the delegates to the congress of departmental administrations, to discuss the successful implementation of labor duty in combating snow drifts—and to request that T. Dzerzhinsky or his authorized representative provide appropriate instructions from the VChK. Assign T. Vladimirsky to report on implementation at the next Defense Council meeting.
t) Instruct
the military department, the People’s Commissariat of Railways, and the Internal Security Forces to develop measures for even more stringent protection of fuel trains.
* Central Military Communications Administration. Ed.
** Committee for Rolling Stock Maintenance. Ed.

TRANSPORTATION

Submit the agreement for signature to T. Lenin. In case of disagreement, bring it before the Council of People’s Commissars.
Instruct
the Chief Railway Department to intensify the supply of fuel to the railways.
u) Instruct the Supreme Council for Railway Transportation to revise the transport plan in order to maximize the strengthening of both fuel and food supplies, as well as fuel-based transport.
f) Require the People’s Commissariat of Railways to distribute its stock of shovels and gloves in accordance with available labor resources.
Require the VSNKh to increase its supply of shovels.
x) Instruct the People’s Commissariat of Railways, at the next Defense Council meeting, to present data on the actual progress of registering railway specialists (Decree of the Defense Council dated December 10, 1919) and on measures to ensure the full completion of this process.
c) Instruct the Chief Railway Department, at the next Defense Council meeting, to consider the possibility of establishing fuel reserves along the railways—even if only for seven days.
Chairman of the Defense Council, V. Ulyanov (Lenin;
I draw the utmost attention of all leading Soviet officials to these decisions. The state of transportation is critical. To avert disaster, we need measures that are truly heroic and revolutionary¹⁰.
February 2, 1920.
Lenin.
1 In the memoirs of V. Milyutin, the text of Lenin’s printed letter is presented under the following heading: “To Comrade Milyutin (due to the illness of Comrade Rykov). Kremlin. Moscow. February 1, 1920.” (V. Milyutin, “A Page from My Diary About Lenin,” Prozhektor, No. 4 (26), 1921.)
2 Both documents (1 and 2) were written by Lenin in parallel on a single sheet of large-format writing paper; the letter to the members of the Defense Council was penned in ink, while the notes from the Defense Council meeting were recorded in pencil.
3 Under the heading, Lenin added the following note: “XII. 2274 food wagons; I. 1415 food wagons.” This note appears to be a record of the number of food wagons received during December and January.
4 After each speaker took the floor, Lenin crossed out their names.
5 A. B. Khalatov was a member of the Collegium of the People’s Commissariat of Food Supply.
6 S. D. Markov was Deputy People’s Commissar of Railways.
7 After all items of the draft—except the 14th—were adopted by the Defense Council, Lenin crossed them out. The entire draft was fully reflected in the minutes of the Defense Council meeting held on February 2, 1920 (see below).

6 8

8 M. M. Arzhanov*, head of military communications for the republic, had been sent to Saratov to accelerate the advance of troops toward the Southern Front.
9 A. II. Rozenholts was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the republic.
10 Lenin added a postscript above the text of the Defense Council’s minutes.
Together with the edited minutes, it was distributed to all members of the Defense Council.
_____________