Written: Written at the beginning of December 1917
Published:
First published on April 22, 1920 in the newspaper Uralsky Rabochy No. 95.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1971,
Moscow,
Volume 36,
page 459.
Translated: Andrew Rothstein
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
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• README
Comrade Shlyapnikov and Comrade Dzerzhinsky
The bearer, Comrade Vorobyov, a delegate from the Urals, has excellent references from his local organisation. In the Urals, there is a most acute problem. The boards of the Urals works here (with offices in Petrograd) should be arrested immediately, threatened with (revolutionary) court proceedings for bringing about a crisis in the Urals, while all the works in the Urals should be confiscated. Draw up a draft decree as soon as possible.[1]
[1] After the October Revolution the board of the Urals Mining Societies stopped remitting money to the plants in retaliation to the introduction of workers’ control over the enterprises, and this led to an extremely difficult situation at the plants. The workers had not been paid wages for several months and were starving. The Urals Regional Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies sent one of its members, V. Vorobyov, to inform the government in Petrograd of the slate of affairs in the Urals and to settle the wages issue. Vorobyov gave all the details to Y. M. Sverdlov, who took him to Lenin. When Vorobyov informed Lenin of the state of the Urals industry and the mood of the workers, Lenin gave him the note in question.
On December 23, 1917 (January 5, 1918) the Council of People’s Commissars adopted a decision on the urgent remittance of 5 million rubles to the Urals branch of the State Bank. The decision was to have another 50 million remitted there by January 1 (14), 1918.
In January 1918, the Urals Regional Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies closed down the bureau of the Urals mining industry conference, which was in Yekaterinburg (now Sverdlovsk). In late December 1917 and early 1918, the most important enterprises in the Urals were nationalised.
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