V. I. Lenin

Instructions of the Council of Labour and Defence To Local Soviet
Bodies [1]

—Draft—

The primary task of the Soviet Republic is to restore the
productive forces and revive agriculture, industry and transport. The ruin
and impoverishment caused everywhere by the imperialist war are so vast
that an economic crisis is raging throughout the world, and even in the
advanced countries, which before the war were way ahead of Russia in their
development and which suffered much less from the war than she did,
economic rehabilitation is proceeding with enormous difficulty and will
take many long years. This situation prevails even in many of the
“victor” countries, despite the fact that they are allied with
the richest capitalist powers and are exacting a fat tribute from the
defeated, dependent and colonial countries.

Backward Russia, which in addition to the imperialist war endured more
than three years of civil war, imposed upon the workers and peasants by the
landowners and capitalists with the help of the world bourgeoisie,
naturally finds the difficulties of economic rehabilitation so much more
formidable. The heavy crop failure in 1920, the lack of fodder and the loss
of cattle have had a disastrous effect on peasant farming.

In conformity with the law passed by the All-Russia Central Executive
Committee, a tax in kind has been substituted for the surplus appropriation
system. The farmer is free to exchange his surplus produce for various
goods. The tax rates have been announced by order of the Council of
People’s Commissars. The tax amounts to approximately one-half of the
produce obtained under the surplus appropriation system. The Council of
People’s Commissars has issued a new law on the co-operative
societies giving them wider powers in view of the free exchange of surplus
farm produce.

These laws have done a great deal for the immediate improvement of the
condition of peasant farming and stimulation of peasant interest in
enlarging the area under crop and improving methods of farming and
livestock breeding. They have also done much to help revive and develop
small local industry which can do without the procurement and
transportation of large state stocks of food, raw materials and fuel.

Particularly great importance now attaches to independent local
initiative in improving peasant farming, developing industry and
establishing exchange between agriculture and industry. Great opportunities
are being created for the application of new forces and fresh energy to the
work of restoring the country ‘s economy.

The Council of Labour and Defence, upon whom, in pursuance of the
decision of the Eighth All-Russia Congress of Soviets, devolves the duty of
co-ordinating and directing the activity of the People’s
Commissariats for the various sectors of the economy, insistently urges all
local bodies to do their utmost to develop extensive activities for the
all-round improvement of peasant farming and the revival of industry, in
strict conformity with the new laws and in the light of the fundamental
propositions and instructions given below.

We now have two main criteria of success in our work of economic
development on a nation-wide scale. First success in the speedy, full and,
from the state point of view, proper collection of the tax in kind; and
second—and this is particularly important—success in the
exchange of manufactured goods for agricultural produce between industry
and agriculture.

This is most vital, urgent and imperative. It will put all our efforts
to the test and lay the foundations for implementing our great
electrification plan, which will result in the restoration of our
large-scale industry and transport to such proportions and on such a
technical basis that we shall overcome starvation and poverty once and for
all.

We must collect 100 per cent of the tax in kind, and, in addition, an
equal quantity of food products through the free exchange of surplus farm
produce for manufactured goods. Of course, this will not be achieved
everywhere all at once, but it should be our short-term goal. We can
achieve it in a very short time if we take the right view of the state of
our economy and put our hearts into reviving it the right way. All local
authorities and bodies in every gubernia , uyezd, regional centre
and autonomous republic must join forces and co-ordinate their efforts to
stimulate the exchange of surplus produce. Experience will show how far we
can do this by increasing the output and delivery of goods made by the
state in the big socialist factories. It will show how far we succeed in
encouraging and developing small local industry, and what part will be
played in this by the co-operative societies and the private traders,
manufacturers and capitalists who are under state control. We must try out
every method, giving the utmost scope to local initiative. The new task
before us has never been tackled anywhere else before. We are trying to
solve it in the conditions of post-war ruin, which prevent any precise
estimation of our resources or of the effort we can expect of the workers
and peasants, who have made such incredible sacrifices to defeat the
landowners and capitalists. We must be bolder in widely applying a variety
of methods and taking different approaches, giving rein to capital and
private trade in varying degree, without being afraid to implant some
capitalism, as long as we succeed in stimulating exchange at once and
thereby revive agriculture and industry. We must ascertain the country
‘s resources by practical experience, and determine the best way to
improve the condition of the workers and peasants to enable us to proceed
with the wider and more fundamental work of building up the economy and
implementing the electrification plan.

The two main questions to which every Soviet official engaged in
economic work must pay attention are: how much of their surplus farm
produce, over and above the tax, have the peasants exchanged for the
manufactures of small industry and private trade, and how much for
manufactured goods provided by the state? These are the main lines to
follow over the short haul in order to achieve the greatest results. They
will provide the success indicators and enable us to decide on the
subsequent tasks. Every aspect of economic construction in general must be
geared to these two immediate tasks.

To attain this co-ordination, encourage local initiative, enterprise and
large-scale operations to the utmost, and make sure that central bodies are
guided by local experience and local supervision, and vice versa, thereby
eliminating red tape and bureaucratic practices, the Council of Labour and
Defence has ordered (see text of the order) that:

first, regular economic conferences should be convened in all districts
for the purpose of co-ordinating the work .of the local departments of all
the People’s Commissariats for the various sectors of the
economy; second, proper records of the local economic conferences should be kept
to facilitate the pooling of experience and the organising of emulation,
and mainly, to utilise the work of the local organisations and its results
as a means of checking up on the methods and organisation of the central
bodies.

The local economic conferences should be organised on the lines of the
C.L.D. (Council of Labour and Defence) and their relationship with the
local executive committees should be similar to those between the C.L.D.
and the Council of People’s Commissars. The C.L.D. functions as a
commission of the Council of People’s Commissars. The appointment of
members of the Council of People’s Commissars to the C.L.D. ensures
the fullest co-ordination of the work of both bodies, eliminates the
possibility of any friction between them, expedites matters and simplifies
procedures. Having no staff of its own, the C.L.D. utilises that of various
government departments, striving to simplify their procedures and
co-ordinate their operations.

gubernia economic councils should stand in the same relationship to the gubernia executive committees, and that is the
actual trend in practice. The C.L.D., in confirming the appointment of
members and chairmen of regional and territorial economic councils, strives
to take account of the experience of local workers and consults with them
on all its confirmations. The regional economic councils must certainly
strive, and will continue to strive, to co-ordinate their work with that of
the gubernia economic councils, securing their fullest co-operation, keeping them informed and stimulating their interest. This is
hardly the time to try to reduce these relationships to a set of
regulations, for experience is still very short and any such attempt might
result in a purely bureaucratic exercise. It is far more appropriate to
allow practice to determine initially the most suitable form of
relationship (the C.L.D. worked side by side with the Council of People
‘s Commissars for about a year, virtually without a constitution).
Let these forms be at first not absolutely stable: variety is desirable,
useful and even necessary to enable us to make a more precise study and a
fuller comparison of the various systems of relationships.

Uyezd and volost economic councils should-be organised on the
same lines, naturally with a lot of leeway in modifying the main type, that
is, the executive committees may assume all the functions and duties of the
economic conferences, convert their own “executive” or “economic” meetings into economic conferences, appoint (say, in
the volost s and sometimes in the uyezds ) special committees or even individuals to exercise all or some of the functions of
the economic conferences, and so on and so forth. The village committees
should be the bottom rung and should operate as the lower units of the
C.L.D. in the rural districts. The Council of People’s Commissars has
already passed a law, issued in May 1921, which gives the village committees wider powers and defines their relationship with the
village Soviets. The gubernia executive committees must draw up
provisional regulations suitable for the given locality which, however,
must not restrict, but give the greatest possible scope to
“local” initiative in general, and that of the lowest units
in particular.

In industrial uyezds and settlements, the district committees
and factory committees, or the management boards of factories, should serve
as the lower units of the C.L.D., depending on whether one or more branches
of industry are being dealt with. In any case, co-operation with
the uyezd executive committees, volost executive committees
and village committees in directing all local economic life is
absolutely essential in one form or another.

Furthermore, it is exceptionally important that local organisations
should submit to the C.L.D. regular and precise information on their
activity, for one of our main evils is the inadequate study of practical
experience, inadequate exchange of experience and mutual
control—putting orders from the centre to the test of local
experience, and subjecting local work to control by the centre. One of the
most important means of combating bureaucratic practices and red tape
should be to check the way the laws and orders from the centre are carried
out locally, and this requires the printing of public reports,
with non-Party people and people not working in the departments
necessarily taking a greater hand. Nashe Khozyaistvo , “the
fortnightly journal of the Tver gubernia Economic Council”
(No. 1, April 15, 1921; No. 2, April 30, 1921), is evidence that the local
need to study, elucidate and publicise the results of our economic
experience is being realised and satisfied the correct way. It will not be
possible, of course, to publish a journal in every gubernia , not
within the next few months, at any rate; nor will it be possible everywhere
to have a fortnightly printing of 3,000 copies, as is the case in Tver. But
every gubernia , and every uyezd even, can—and should—compile a report on local economic activities once every two
months (or initially at longer intervals, by way of exception) and issue it
in a printing of, say, 100 to 300 copies. The paper and the printing
facilities for such a small operation will surely be found everywhere,
provided we realise its urgency and importance, and see the necessity to
satisfy this need by taking the paper from many of the departments which
print a mass of useless and hardly urgent material. The copy could be set
up in small type and printed in two columns (as the comrades in Tver are
doing); the feasibility and urgency of this will be quite clear if we
realise the simple truth that even a hundred copies, distributed one to
every gubernia library and all the major state libraries, will
provide a source of information for the whole of Russia , which may
perhaps be scanty but sure , and will serve as a record of
experience.

These reports must be published regularly, even if in small printings,
in order to maintain a proper record of experience, and actually pool it,
and enlist all the prominent and capable organisers among the non-Party
people. This is something we can and must do immediately.

When drawing up the reports, the questions put must be answered as
briefly and precisely as possible. The questions fall into four groups, the
first being those especially prominent at the present time. They must be
answered in every report with the maximum precision and in the greatest
detail. That is particularly necessary because this group of questions is
extremely vital and urgent for most uyezds at this very moment.
Other questions will come to the fore for the smaller part of the
uyezds and districts, that is, the purely industrial ones. The
second group consists of questions which must also be answered in every
report, but the answers can and should frequently be given in the form of
brief summaries of reports already submitted to the government departments
concerned. In all such cases, the reports to the C.L.D. must give: the
dates on which the reports were sent off; the departments to which they
were sent; and a brief summary of the reports in figures. The C.L.D.
requires such reports for supervision over the various departments, as well
as for the totals indicating the results in food supplies, fuel, industry,
and so forth. The third group contains questions that need not be answered
in every report. The answers to these questions must be given initially,
that is, in the first report, but subsequent reports should add only the
supplementary and new information as it accumulates. In many cases, there
will be nothing to report at all on these questions every two months. The
fourth group consists of miscellaneous, supplementary questions, which are
not indicated in advance; they are not formulated by the centre but arise
locally. This group must be compiled by the local bodies, and is not
limited in any-way. It goes without saying that questions pertaining to
state secrets (army, or such as are connected with military operations,
security, etc.) must be answered in special reports not for publication,
but intended exclusively for the C.L.D. as confidential reports.

Here is a list of these questions:

First Group Of Questions

1. Commodity Exchange With The Peasantry

At present, this question ranks first in importance and urgency. First,
the state cannot carry on any economic development unless the army and the
urban workers have regular and adequate supplies of food; the exchange of
commodities must become the principal means of collecting foodstuffs.
Secondly, commodity exchange is a test of the relationship between industry
and agriculture and the foundation of all our work to create a fairly well
regulated monetary system. All economic councils and all economic bodies
must now concentrate on commodity exchange (which also includes the
exchange of manufactured goods, for the manufactured goods made by
socialist factories and exchanged for the foodstuffs produced by the
peasants are not commodities in the politico-economic sense of the word; at
any rate, they are not only commodities, they are no longer commodities,
they are ceasing to be commodities).

What preparations have been made for commodity exchange? What has been
done specifically to prepare for it? By the Commissariat for Food? By the
co-operative societies? The number of co-operative shops available for this
purpose? Are there such shops in every volost ? In how many
villages? Stock of goods for commodity exchange? Prices on the
“free” market? Surplus stocks of grain and other farm produce?
Is there any, and how much, experience in commodity exchange? Totals and
results? What is being done to prevent the pilferage of goods stocks
earmarked for exchange, and of food stocks (a particularly important point
demanding investigation of every case of pilferage)?

Salt and paraffin oil as articles for commodity exchange? Textiles?
Other goods? What items are needed most? What are the chief peasant
shortages? What can be supplied by local, small, handicraft industry? Or by
developing local industry?

Facts and figures showing how commodity exchange is organised and the
results achieved are most important for the conduct of the experiment on a
country-wide scale.

Has the proper relationship been established between the Commissariat
for Food, the body controlling and supervising commodity exchange, and the
co-operative societies, the bodies carrying on commodity exchange? How does
this relationship operate in practice? In each locality?

What part does private trade play in commodity exchange? To what extent
is private trade developing, or developed? Number of private traders; their
turnover in the major items, particularly foodstuffs?

2. The State’s Attitude To The Capitalists

Commodity exchange and freedom of trade inevitably imply the appearance
of capitalists and capitalist relationships. There is no reason to fear
this. The workers’ state has enough resources to keep within the proper bounds and control these relationships, which are useful and
necessary in conditions of small-scale production. The thing to do at
present is to make a close study of their dimensions and devise suitable
methods (not restrictive, or rather, not prohibitive) of state control and
accountancy.

To what extent is private trade developing as a result of the
substitution of the tax for the surplus appropriation system? Can it be
estimated or not? Is it only profiteering or regular trade as well? Is it
registered, and if so, what are the results?

Private enterprise: have there been any offers from capitalists and
entrepreneurs to lease enterprises or establishments, or commercial
premises? Exact number of such offers and an analysis of them? How are the
results of trading operations assessed (if only approximately)? Ditto as
regards the accounts of leaseholders and commission agents, if any?

Have there been any offers from commission agents? To buy produce for
the state on a commission basis? Or to market and distribute it? Or to
organise industrial enterprises?

Handicraft industry: changes since the introduction of the tax in kind?
Extent of development? Source of information?

3. Encouragement Of Enterprise In Commodity Exchange,
And In Economic Development In General

This question is closely bound up with the preceding one. The
encouragement of initiative may often prove to have no connection with
capitalist relationships. All economic councils and economic bodies in
general should ask them- selves: how is this to be encouraged? In view of
the novelty of the task, it is scarcely possible to issue any definite
instructions at present. The thing is to pay great attention to the
question, encourage all initiative in economic matters, make a careful
study of practical experience and let the country know what is being
done.

When the small farmer pays his tax to the state and enters into
commodity exchange with it (with the socialist factory) the economic
situation created imperatively demands that the state, through its local
bodies, should give all possible encouragement to enterprise and
initiative. The exchange of the observations and experience of local bodies
will enable us to collect material, and later on, perhaps, to supplement
this general and inadequate formulation of the question with a number of
examples and detailed instructions.

4. Co-Ordination Of The Economic Work
Of Various Departments In The Local Administrative Areas:
volost s, uyezds And gubernia s

One of the great evils hindering our economic development is the absence
of co-ordination in the work of the various local departments. Great
attention must be devoted to this question. It is the function of the
economic councils to eliminate this flaw and to stimulate the enterprise of
local bodies. There must be a collection of practical examples to secure
improvements and hold out the successful cases as a model for all. During
the extreme food shortage, for instance, it was natural and inevitable that
local bodies should be highly restricted in making decisions on the use of
grain collected. As grain stocks increase, and under appropriate control,
they must have a freer hand to do so. This can and should help to reduce
red tape, cut down haulage of goods, encourage production and improve the
condition of the workers and peasants. The food supply, small local
industry, fuel, large-scale state industry, etc., are all bound up
together, and their necessary division into “departments” for
the purposes of state administration will cause harm unless constant
efforts are made to co-ordinate them, remove friction, red tape,
departmental narrow-mindedness and bureaucratic methods. The local bodies,
which are closer to the mass of workers and peasants, have a better view of
these defects, and it is therefore their business to devise methods of
eliminating them by pooling their experience.

It is absolutely essential that definite, careful and detailed replies
should be submitted to the following question: What has been done and how
to co-ordinate the activity of the local state farms, timber
committees, uyezd land departments, economic councils, and so
forth?

How are officials penalised for satisfying local requirements to the
detriment of the centre and in violation of orders from the centre? The
names of those penalised? Is the number of such offences diminishing? Have
the penalties been increased? If so, in what way?

5. Improvement Of The Condition Of

The Workers And 6. Ditto Of The Peasants

Every success achieved in economic development improves the condition of
the workers and peasants. But, first, here again departmental
narrow-mindedness and the lack of co-ordination are doing a great deal of
harm. And, second, these questions must be brought up well to the fore to
allow a careful observation of the results achieved in this sphere. What
exactly has been achieved? In what way? Answers to these questions are
essential.

Weariness and in some cases downright exhaustion as a result of the long
years of war, first the imperialist war and then the Civil War, are so
great that it is absolutely essential to make special efforts to improve
the condition of the workers and peasants. Very far from everything is
being done that could and should be done, even with our meagre resources.
By no means all the departments and agencies are concentrating on it. It is
therefore a matter of urgent necessity to collect and study local
experience in this field. The reports should be compiled as precisely,
fully and carefully as possible. If that is done, it will at once become
evident which departments lag most and where. We shall then secure an
improvement more quickly through a common effort.

7. Increasing The Number Of

Government Officials In Economic Development

It is extremely important for us to enlarge this group of workers, but
very little systematic effort is being made to do so. Under capitalism, the
individual proprietors strove to obtain—secretly from one another,
and tripping each other up—the services of good salesmen, managers
and directors. It took them decades to do this, and only a few of the best
firms achieved good results. Today, the workers’ and peasants’
state is the “proprietor “, and it must select the best men for
economic development; it must select the best administrators and organisers
on the special and general, local and national scale, doing this publicly,
in a methodical and systematic manner and on a broad scale. Now and again
we still see traces of the initial period of the Soviet power—the
period of fierce civil war and intense sabotage, traces of Communists
isolating themselves in a narrow circle of rulers, being fearful or
incapable of enlisting the services of sufficient numbers of non-Party
people.

We must set to work quickly and energetically to correct this. A number
of capable and honest non-Party people are coming to the fore from the
ranks of the workers, peasants and intellectuals, and they should be
promoted to more important positions in economic work, with the Communists
continuing to exercise the necessary control and guidance. Conversely, we
must have non-Party people controlling the Communists. For this purpose,
groups of non-Party workers and peasants, whose honesty has been tested,
should be invited to take part, on the one hand, in the Workers’ and
Peasants’ Inspection, and on the other, in the informal verification
and appraisal of work, quite apart from any official appointment.

In their reports to the C.L.D., the local bodies, particularly in the
volost s, uyezds and districts, which have the best knowledge of the worker and peasant masses, should give lists of non-Party
people who have proved their honesty at work, or who have simply become
prominent at non-Party conferences, or who command universal respect in
their factory, village, volost , etc., and should indicate their
assignments in economic construction. By work is meant official position as
well as unofficial participation in control and verification, regular
attendance at informal conferences, etc.

There must be regular replies to these questions, for otherwise the
socialist state will be unable to organise correctly the enlistment of the
masses in the work of economic development. There are any number of honest
and loyal workers. There are many of them among the non-Party people, but
we do not know them. Only local reports can help us to find them and try
them out in wider and gradually expanding fields of work, and cure the evil
of isolation of Communist Party cells from the masses, an evil that is in
evidence in many places.

8. Methods And Results Of

Combating Bureaucratic Practices And Red Tape

At first, most answers to this question will probably be very simple:
methods—nil; results—nil. The decisions of the Eighth
All-Russia Congress of Soviets have been read and forgotten.

But although the situation in this field is deplorable, we shall
certainly not imitate those who give way to despair. We know that in Russia
bureaucratic routine and red tape are mostly due to the low standard of
culture and the consequences of the extreme ruin and impoverishment
resulting from the war. This evil can be overcome only by strenuous and
persistent effort over a long period of years. Therefore, we must not give
way to despair, but make a new start every time, pick it up where it was
abandoned, and try diverse ways of achieving our goal.

The reorganisation of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection;
enlistment of the services of non-Party people with and without this
inspection; legal proceedings; reduction and careful selection of staffs;
verification and co-ordination of the work of the various departments, and
so on and so forth—all these measures, everything indicated in the
decisions of the Eighth Congress of Soviets, all the measures and methods
mentioned in the press must be systematically, steadily and repeatedly
tried out, compared and studied.

The gubernia economic councils, and all the other bodies
co-ordinating and directing economic development in the localities, must
insist on the implementation of measures prescribed by the law and
indicated by practical experience. Local experience must be pooled. Answers
to this question must be sent in to the C.L.D., regardless of how hard it
may be at first to teach people to give exact, full and timely answers. The
C.L.D. will see to it that this is done. It will undoubtedly produce good
results, even if not as quickly as is expected by those who tend to reduce
the “combating of red tape” to a mere phrase (or to a repetition of whiteguard, Socialist-Revolutionary and also Menshevik,
gossip) instead of working hard to take definite steps.

Second Group Of Questions

9. Revival Of Agriculture: A) Peasant Farming; B) State
Farms; C) Communes; D) Artels; E) Co-Operatives; F) Other Forms Of
Collective Farming

The briefest summaries, giving the figures of the reports sent to the
respective departments, with the date on which each report was sent.

More detailed information—not in every report, but periodically,
every four or six months, and so forth—on the more important aspects
of local farming, results of surveys, the major measures adopted, and their
verified results.

Exact information must be given at least twice a year on the number of
collective farms (all types, b-f ), classified according to the
degree of organisation—good, fair and unsatisfactory. A typical farm
in each of the three groups must be described in detail at least twice a
year, with exact data on size, location, production performance, its
assistance to peasant farming, etc.

10. Revival Of Industry: A) Large-Scale Industry
Entirely

Controlled By The Centre; B) Large-Scale Industry

Controlled Wholly Or Partly By Local Bodies; C) Small, Handicraft, Domestic, Etc., Industries

The answers should be on the same lines as those for the preceding
section. As regards category A, the local bodies, which have opportunities
for making a close observation of the work of large national
establishments, their influence on the neighbouring population, and the
attitude of the population to them, must, in every report, give information
on these establishments, the assistance given to them by local bodies, the
results of this assistance, the assistance rendered to the local population
by these establishments, their most urgent requirements, defects in their
organisation, etc.

11. Fuel: A) Firewood; B) Coal; C) Oil; D) Shale;

E) Other Types Of Fuel (Waste Fuel, Etc.)

The same as for the two preceding questions: the briefest summaries,
giving the figures of the reports sent to the respective departments and
dates on which they were sent.

Detailed information on major points, on what is outside the scope of
the department, on local co-ordination of work, etc.

Special attention must be paid to economising fuel. What measures are
being taken? What are the results?

12. Food Supplies

Summary of reports to the Commissariat for Food, following the same
rules as above.

Market gardening and suburban farming (connected with industrial
establishments). Results.

Local experience in organising school meals, the feeding of children,
dining-rooms, public catering in general, etc.

Bi-monthly summaries in two figures are obligatory, that is, total
number of persons receiving food, and total quantity of foodstuffs
distributed.

In every large consuming centre (large or medium towns, military
institutions in special settlements, etc.) we are feeding many extra
people, former government officials who have crept into Soviet agencies,
bourgeois lying low, profiteers, etc. There must be a determined drive to
sift out these superfluous mouths who are breaking the fundamental law: He
who does not work shall not eat. For this purpose, a responsible
statistician must be appointed in all such places to study the returns of
the census of August 28, 1920, and current statistical returns, and submit
a signed report on the number of extra consumers every two months.

13. Building Industry

Answers must be on the same lines as the preceding. Local initiative and
self-reliance are particularly important in this sphere and must be given
particularly wide scope. Detailed information on the major measures and
results is obligatory.

14. Model And Hopeless Enterprises And Establishments

A description of every enterprise, establishment and office connected
with economic development and meriting the designation of model, or at
least outstanding, or successful (in the event of there being none in the
first two categories) is obligatory. Names of the members of the management
boards of these establishments. Their methods. Results. Attitude of the
workers and the population.

The same as regards hopeless and useless enterprises.

Of special importance is the question of closing down enterprises that
are not absolutely essential (hopeless ones, such as might be closed down
and their operations transferred to a smaller number of larger enterprises,
etc.). Statistical summary of such superfluous establishments, their number
and the order in which the Republic should gradually dispense with
them.

15. Improvement In Economic Work

Enumerate major and model cases of improvements introduced by inventors
and workers of exceptional ability. Give names; enumerate experiments which
the local bodies regard as important, and so forth.

16. Bonuses In Kind

This is one of the most important factors in socialist development. The
enlistment of labour is one of the most important and difficult problems of
socialism.

Practical experience in this field must be systematically collected,
recorded and studied.

Obligatory bi-monthly reports showing how many bonuses issued, what the
bonuses consist of, what branch of industry (separately forestry and all
other branches of work). A comparison of the results, output, with the
number of bonuses in kind issued?

Have there been any cases of bonuses being converted into a wage
reserve? Report each case separately.

Have bonuses been issued to conspicuously successful enterprises and
individual workers? Give exact details of each case.

Investigate: can a local product be obtained (for export, or one
particularly valuable for use in Russia) by increasing the bonuses in kind
by a given quantity? This is highly important, because if this survey is
properly conducted across the country we shall discover many valuable
products which we could profitably export, even if we have to import a
certain quantity of goods for the bonuses in kind.

17. The Trade Unions. Their Part In Production

The gubernia trade union councils and the uyezd trade union bodies must immediately appoint reporters and their deputies who
must, on their own, and with the help of local statisticians, draw up
bi-monthly reports on the subject.

As regards production propaganda, give exact facts and figures on
lectures, meetings and demonstrations, with the names of organisers,
etc.

But of even greater importance than production propaganda are the facts
about the part the factory committees and the trade unions in general
actually play in production. Forms of participation? Describe every typical
case. Practical results. Compare establishments where the participation of
the trade union in production is well, or fairly well, organised, with
those where it is not.

The question of labour discipline is particularly important. Reports on
the number of absentees are obligatory. Compare factories where labour
discipline is bad with those where it is good.

Methods of improving labour discipline.

Comrades’ disciplinary courts. How many, and when established? How
many cases examined per month? Results?

18. Stealing

While some organisations are aware of this widespread evil and are
fighting it, there are others which report that “in the department,
office or factory in our charge, there is no stealing", “everything
is in order”.

Precise bi-monthly reports are obligatory. How many offices,
establishments, and so forth, send in information? How many do not?

Brief summary of this information.

The measures taken to combat stealing.

Are managers, management boards, or factory committees called to account
(for laxity in combating stealing)?

Are people searched? Are other methods of control employed; if so, what
are they?

Is the new law on commodity exchange, and on the permission given the
workers to retain part of their output for this purpose, having the effect
of reducing stealing? Give precise details.

Local warehouses, that is, warehouses located in the given district, and
belonging to the state or to the local authorities. Brief summary of the
reports on these warehouses, giving the date on which each was sent.

Reports by the local authorities on state warehouses. Methods of
protection. Stealing. Number of persons employed, etc.

19. Profiteering

Extent of this according to local information. Predominating type of
profiteer. Workers? Peasants? Railway employees? Other Soviet employees?
And so forth.

State of the railways and waterways.

Measures to combat profiteering and results obtained.

What records are being kept of profiteers and profiteering?

20. Use Of Army Units For Labour

Labour armies. Composition, numerical strength, and performance. Methods
of accounting? Attitude of the local population?

Other forms of using army units—ditto universal military training
units—for labour purposes.

Numerical strength of local army units—ditto local universal
military training administration, and number of youths undergoing training
in the units.

Concrete cases of employment of youths undergoing universal military
training and Red Army men for definite forms of control work, sanitary
inspection, help to the local population, various economic operations. Give
a detailed description of each case, or if there are a number of cases give
two typical ones: the most and the least successful.

21. Labour Service And Labour Mobilisation

How are the local departments of the People’s Commissariat for
Labour organised? What are they doing?

Brief summaries of their reports sent to the People ‘s
Commissariat for Labour; give date on which each report was sent.

Describe, not less than once in four months, two typical cases of labour
mobilisation; the most and the least successful.

Enumerate purposes for which labour service was enforced. Total figures
of the number engaged and results of work done.

What part do the local departments of the Central Statistical Board play
in organising labour service and labour mobilisation?

Third Group Of Questions

22. Regional And Local Economic Councils

When and how were the economic councils established in the localities at
region, gubernia , uyezd and volost level? How is their work co-ordinated between themselves and with the village committees,
the factory committees?

Economic councils of district Soviets in big towns. Their composition,
work, how is the work organised, relations with the city Soviets?

Are there any district committees and district economic councils? Are
they necessary? Is it necessary to set up the larger factory or industrial
settlements, with their environs, as separate areas, and so forth?

23. Gosplan (The State General Planning Commission Of The
C.L.D.)

And Its Relationships With Local Economic Bodies

Are there any regional bodies of Gosplan? Or special representatives of
the latter? Or groups of experts acting in such a capacity?

Is the work of the local bodies co-ordinated with Gosplan’s? If
so, how? Is such co-ordination necessary?

24. Electrification

Have the gubernia and uyezd libraries copies of the Plan
for the Electrification of the R.S.F.S.R., which was submitted as a report
to the Eighth Congress of Soviets? If so, how many copies? If not, it shows
that the local delegates to the Eighth Congress of Soviets are dishonest
and ought to be expelled from the Party and dismissed from their
responsible posts, or else they are idlers who should be taught to do their
duty by a term of imprisonment (at the Eighth Congress of Soviets,
1,500-2,000 copies were handed out for local libraries).

What measures have been taken to carry out the decision of the Eighth
Congress of Soviets to conduct extensive propaganda of the electrification
plan? How many articles on the subject have appeared in the local
newspapers? How many lectures have been delivered? Number of persons
attending these?

Have all local workers with theoretical or practical knowledge of
electricity been mobilised for the purpose of delivering lectures on, or
teaching, the subject? Number of such persons? How is their work being
conducted? Are the local or nearest electric power stations utilised for
lectures and purposes of instruction? Number of such stations?

How many educational establishments have included the electrification
plan in their syllabus, in conformity with the decision of the Eighth
Congress of Soviets?

Has anything practical been done towards carrying out this plan? Or any
electrification work outside the plan? If so, what has been done?

Is there a local plan and schedule of work on electrification?

25. Commodity Exchange With Foreign Countries

It is absolutely obligatory for all border areas to answer this
question, but not only for them. uyezds and gubernia s adjacent to border areas also have opportunities for engaging in such
commodity exchange and observing how it is organised. Furthermore, as
indicated above (Point 16: Bonuses in Kind), localities even very remote
from the border have opportunities to engage in commodity exchange with
foreign countries.

State of the ports? Protection of the border? Volume and forms of trade?
Brief summaries of the reports on this sent to the People’s
Commissariat for Foreign Trade, giving the date on which each report was
sent.

Supervision of the work of the People ‘s Commissariat for Foreign
Trade by the local economic councils? Their opinions on practical
organisation and results?

26. Railway, Water And Local Transport

Brief summaries of the reports sent to the appropriate department,
giving date on which each report was sent.

State of affairs appraised from the local standpoint.

Defects in the transport system. Measures taken to improve it and their
results?

The state of local transport facilities, and measures taken to improve
them.

27. Press Publicity For Economic Work

Local publications and Ekonomicheskaya Zhizn. How is economic
work treated in the press? Participation of non-Party people? Verification
and appraisal of practical experience?

Circulation of local publications and of Ekonomicheskaya Zhizn
? Are they available at the libraries and accessible to the public?

Publication of pamphlets and books on economic development. Give list of
the publications issued.

Demand for foreign literature: to what extent is it satisfied.? Are the
publications of the Bureau of Foreign Science and Technology delivered? If
so, what opinion is expressed about them? Other foreign publications in
Russian and other languages?

Fourth Group Of Questions

This group should include questions chosen at the discretion of and
suggested by the local bodies themselves, and by individuals; moreover,
these questions may have a direct or indirect, close or remote, connection
with economic development.

These reports must be drawn up in co-operation with the members of the
local staffs of the Central Statistical Board. Whether this is done by
them, or any other persons, is up to the local economic council to decide,
but the co-operation of the gubernia statistical bureau
and uyezd statisticians is obligatory. Every report and every answer
to a question, if written by different persons, must be signed by the
author, giving his official position, if he holds one. Responsibility for
the reports rests on the authors, and the local economic councils as a
whole, and it shall be their duty to send in regular, punctual and truthful
reports.

Wherever there is a shortage of local workers, courses of instruction in
the compilation of reports must be organised under the supervision of
statisticians and comrades, specially appointed for the purpose (from the
Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, and other bodies). The names
of the persons responsible for these courses and the schedule of
instruction must be published.

May 21, 1921

Endnotes

[1] Lenin
worked on the draft Instructions at the same time as he was preparing a
draft decision of the C.L.D. (Council of Labour and Defence), entitled
“On Local Economic Meetings, Records and Reports, and Guidance by the
C.L.D.’s Instructions”. Lenin made a thorough study of local
documents on economic meetings and the first NEP measures. On May 20, 1921,
the C.L.D. referred the draft Instructions and the draft decision to a
special commission, which published the Instructions as a pamphlet because
it was important to discuss them immediately. Members of the Presidium of
the State Planning Commission and officials of departments and local bodies
were invited to help edit the two drafts. On Lenin’s proposal they
were widely discussed by the working people. On May 24, they were discussed
by the Fourth Congress of Economic Councils. On May 25, the Fourth
All-Russia Congress of Trade Unions instructed the newly elected All-Russia
Central Council of Trade Unions to consider the drafts and to insert the
necessary amendments and addenda. The Tenth All-Russia Conference of the
R.C.P.(B.) approved the draft Instructions, authorising the All-Russia
C.E.C. Communist Group to take steps to got them adopted as law. On May 30,
both drafts were discussed at the Third Session of the All-Russia Central
Executive Committee, where Lenin delivered a speech. The session adopted
them as a basis and referred them to a commission. Lenin introduced a
number of editorial amendments to the C.E.C. decision, “On Local
Economic Meetings", just before its final approval. On June 30, both drafts
were adopted by the Presidium of the C.E.C. Because the Instructions
defined the tasks of recording and reporting for all Commissariats and not
only the economic ones, they were called “Instructions of the Council
of People’s Commissars and the Council of Labour and
Defence”.

Lenin believed it was highly important to give the working people a thorough explanation of these Instructions and put them
into practice as soon as possible.