The railways are in danger of being left without fuel before sleighing becomes possible. The crisis can and must be eliminated by decisive, coordinated work by the lumber committees with the unconditional fulfillment of their duties by all institutions. By decrees of the Council of Labour and Defence of October 6 and 22, work on supplying the railways with fuel has been equated to military-operational tasks. I propose that the chairmen of the gubernia executive committees take urgent measures to ensure that 1) the gubernia lumber committees, railway committees, and district lumber committees fulfil the planned assignments of the Chief Lumber Committee for the preparation and hauling of firewood; 2) the gubernia labour committees persistently and systematically implement labour cartage duty according to the demands of the lumber committees;

3) the labour and cartage power working on the preparation, hauling, sawing and loading of firewood should not be removed for any other work; 4) the gubernia food committees should fully supply the lumber committees with food and fodder according to the orders of the People's Commissariat for Food; 5) the lumber committees should accurately provide the Chief Lumber Committee with weekly information on how much firewood has been hauled to which railway and how much long timber has been sawn.

November 24, 1920. Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Lenin*

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First published in 1942 in Lenin Miscellany XXXIV

Printed from the typewritten text signed by V.I. Lenin