[November 21, 1922]

## On the Question of Revision of the REGULATIONS ON THE MAIN CONCESSION COMMITTEE

### Debate (Brief Stenographic Record)

**Comrade Lezhava:**

The changes concern, principally, three points. First — this concerns negotiations on concessions by various people's commissariats. We propose to concentrate all this business in the Main Concession Committee. This would be important in the respect that we would not have the confusion which at present frequently occurs. Up to now matters have stood thus: a concessionaire arrives, wanders from one people's commissariat to another, conducts negotiations everywhere and negotiations are conducted with him, and he does not know where the final instance for these negotiations is. In recent times, it is true, we have managed to achieve that the people's commissariats inform the Main Concession Committee about the negotiations being conducted by them, even if only preliminary ones.

Second — this is the following point, which I was unable to introduce into this regulation here, but which is necessary in order to unload both the Council of Labor and Defense and the Council of People's Commissars and give the business greater mobility. This is the following question: if we could limit, could establish, that concessions presupposing an investment of no more than 500 thousand rubles in gold and causing no protest either from the competent people's commissariat or from that government or republic or regional economic council, where the given concession takes place, and also on condition that there was already a precedent for such a concession — that the question concerning it would be decided only in the Main Concession Committee.

Third — that matters concerning internal joint-stock companies or partnerships, their registration, etc. — be removed from the Main Concession Committee and transferred to the Internal Trade Commission. This is necessary in order to give the Main Concession Committee integrity and completeness, to unload it.

**Comrade Smilga:**

I would like to address the substance of the question. It seems to me that we should exchange some considerations.

**Comrade Lenin:**

No one objects to discussion. The floor is given to Comrade Lezhava. Read.

**Comrade Lezhava:**

Exclusive right to conduct negotiations with applicants for concessions... *(reads from the draft)*.

**Comrade Lenin:**

So then, no people's commissariat can conduct negotiations. It can undertake anything whatsoever, but has no right to conduct negotiations.

**Comrade Smilga:**

Here one should establish as a rule that the people's commissariats should and are obligated to conduct preliminary negotiations, because otherwise the Main Concession Committee will also be buried under business.

When a concessionaire arrives — he spends the initial period going to institutions closer to him, and in my view, this is both correct and proper, and preliminary conversations should be concentrated in these institutions, so that after the question has matured for serious discussion — only then does it pass to the Main Concession Committee.

Now the second point — this is the right of the Main Concession Committee to conclude deals already in the name of the government — without approval by the Council of Labor and Defense. In view of the fact that over the course of six months we had about 15 concessions...

**Comrade Lenin:**

...more than six months.

**Comrade Smilga:**

...it seems to me that in the future also, the approval of concessions, notwithstanding the fact that they will be within the limits indicated by Comrade Lezhava, should pass through the Council of Labor and Defense.

Well, and with the third point I agree.

**Comrade Lenin:**

Who else wishes to speak?

**Comrade Leplevsky:**

Comrade Lezhava says that one must exclude from the jurisdiction... *(lacuna in stenogram)*.

**Comrade Bernstein:**

Here it is my duty to remind you that this 3rd point is connected with the civil code just adopted. According to the civil code, the charters of joint-stock companies — all of them (including internal ones) — are submitted through the Main Concession Committee. Consequently, the exclusion proposed by Comrade Lezhava will contradict the code just adopted.

**Comrade Lezhava:**

Here are the considerations which Comrade Smilga expressed — on my part it was put thus — that initially the commissars will have the right to conduct negotiations. Comrade Smilga softens this in such a way that these negotiations will not bear an official character. For us this would be of great significance.

**Comrade Lenin:**

So then, one must change the wording. In principle it turns out that you do not disagree with Comrade Smilga. Perhaps one should say it thus: preliminary negotiations being conducted by the people's commissariats do not bear an official character and impose no obligations whatsoever on the government.

*(Formulations of this resolution by Comrades Sokolnikov, Kamenev, and...*, which are appended to the protocol, are introduced).*

**Comrade Lezhava:**

Now concerning internal joint-stock companies. We will have many cases where we will find ourselves in disagreement with many articles of that code which Comrade Bernstein mentions. Regarding this point, I indicated to the editorial commission and declared that we are entering the Council of People's Commissars with a statement on changes. I consider that nothing can bind us from producing an action which will change that point of the code which binds us.

**Comrade Lenin:**

What lawlessness you are preaching.

**Comrade Leplevsky:**

I was in the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee when the code was being discussed. It was said that the Presidium would make compilations of necessary corrections and submit them at the next session. So this is correctable.

**Comrade Lenin:**

*(Reads the disputed point).* It seems to me that this is so clear that you will have to wait and prepare it for the next session.

**Comrade Leplevsky:**

Here from the draft it is evident that the Commission of Internal Trade takes upon itself the obligation *(reads point three on the second page).*

The draft resolution on the admission of foreign partnerships to the conducting of operations on the territory of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic — this undoubtedly cannot fall within the competence of the Internal Trade Commission.

**Comrade Lezhava:**

Comrade Leplevsky is mistaken.

As concerns the further existence of joint-stock companies, mixed companies, and other companies, they must draw up the charters of their companies in accordance with the charters operating in the country. Here are these charters, according to which they will conduct operations among us, they must be examined in the same body which examines all institutions and enterprises, their reports, etc., where the conduct of all commercial enterprises in the country is concentrated. Therefore, even a mixed company, when it will be drawing up a charter for itself — it must be registered in the general procedure and receive from... the right to conduct these operations.

**Comrade Bernstein:**

And the registration of already approved joint-stock companies also falls within the jurisdiction of the Main Concession Committee.

**Comrade Lezhava:**

This is the regulation which I myself drew up. Then this same question faced me, and since the Internal Trade Commission did not yet exist then, I thought for a long time where to put this registration.

¹ N. V. — Nikolai Vasilievich Krylenka — member of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party from 1904; in 1922 — chairman of the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Deputy People's Commissar of Justice, and senior assistant to the Prosecutor of the Republic.

² E. F. — Elena Fedorovna Rozmirovich (Troyanovskaya) — wife of N. V. Krylenka. From spring 1922 she was a member of the collegium and headed the legal department of the People's Commissariat of Workers' and Peasants' Inspection.

* Lacuna in stenogram here.