Written: Written on May 16, 1919
Published:
First published in 1925 in the journal Proletarskaya Revolyutsia No. 6 (41).
Printed from the telegraph form text.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1971,
Moscow,
Volume 36,
page 510.
Translated: Andrew Rothstein
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
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To Getsov, Chief Coal Board, Kharkov; copy to Bazhanov;
copy to Bogdatyan, Chairman of the Extraordinary
Committee for Supplies or Serebrovsky, Kharkov; copy to
Bogdatyan, Chairman of the Extraordinary Committee for
Supplies, Kiev; copy to Podvoisky, People’s Commissar for the
Army; copy to Trotsky, Kiev; to Kamenev wherever he
may be
General cancellation of mobilisation of workers of the Donets Basin, with the present situation at the front, is absolutely impermissible.[1] The Council of Defence realises the exceptional importance of the Donets Basin, and has therefore decided to defer mobilisation for hewers only, even in those enterprises which for one reason or another are not producing coal at the present time. Retaining the hewers, at any rate, safeguards the coal industry against disaster, and will permit the resumption of coal-getting directly the emergency is over. No other deferments are permissible.
Lenin
Chairman, Council of Defence
[1] In view of the worsening of the position of the Red Army forces on the Southern Front, the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.) decided in early May 1919 to mobilise at least 20,000 workers in the Ukraine to strengthen the armies on the Southern Front. The C.C. directive of May 9, 1919 said: “The figure of 20,000 is to be taken as a minimum, and a fortnight as the maximum to save our position on the Southern Front. The work must be conducted with exceptional energy. Cable at once about all measures you take. Every three days cable the C.C. on the results achieved. ”
On May 16, 1919, the Kharkov Chief Coal Board asked Lenin that all miners be exempted from the draft. In reply, Lenin sent the telegram in question the same day.
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