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The Question of Following a Socialist Policy in the Economic Field

Draft Decision for the C.P.C. on The Question of Following a Socialist Policy in the Economic Field, written on November 27 (December 10), 1917.

1) Two or three engineers shall be sent to the Special Defence Council for the purposes of control and the drafting of a general plan of industrial demobilisation (Kozmin to be charged with forming this group);[2]

2) A 3-5-man commission of C.P.C. members (and non-members) shall be set up to discuss the major problems of the Government’s economic policy (Pyatakov and Bukharin to be charged with forming this commission);

3) A conference of food-supply men shall be organised to discuss practical measures for combating marauding and improving the condition of the most needy sections of the population (Shlyapnikov + Manuilsky to be charged with organising this conference).

Notes

[1] This draft was written by Lenin in connection with the discussion at a meeting of the Council of People’s Commissars on November 27 (December 10), 1917 of his proposal for organising “a special commission to carry out a socialist policy in the financial and economic fields”. The draft was adopted with slightly altered wording.

[2] The Special Defence Council was formed on August 17 (30), 1915 “to discuss and co-ordinate measures to defend the state and ensure a supply of munitions and other materials for the Army and Navy” (Osobiye soveshchaniya i kornitety voennogo vremeni [Special Councils and War-time Committees], Petrograd, 1917, p. 7).

By a decree of the Council of People’s Commissars dated Decem-ber 11 (24), 1917 the Special Defence Council was charged with “the annulment of defence orders or their reduction to a normal peace-time level, and, in connection therewith, the demobilisation of the factories and their switchover to peace-time production” (Dekrety Sovietskoi Viasti [Decrees of the Soviet Government], Vol. 1, Moscow, 1957, p. 214).

 

Source: Marxist Internet Archive.

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