V. I.   Lenin

307

To:   THE NARROW COUNCIL OF PEOPLE’S COMMISSARS[1]


Written: Written on August 19, 1921
Published: First published in 1945 in Lenin Miscellany XXXV. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1976, Moscow, Volume 45, pages 247b-248a.
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
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1

Our houses are terribly fouled up. The law is not worth a damn. There must be a tenfold more precise and fuller indication of the persons,responsible (not one, but many, one after another), and remorseless incarceration.

Written between August 8 and 11, 1921
First published in 1945 in Lenin Miscellany XXXV
Printed from the original

2

I do not agree without these additions:

1) apart from the manager, the responsibility shall also fall on his “deputy”.

There must be a deputy;

2) apart from them, the responsibility shall also fall on a control commission consisting of tenants. There must be such a commission. At least three persons, who should always be available, or their deputies.

3) All these persons shall be subject both to legal and to administrative responsibility.

11/VIII.

Lenin

Written on August 11, 921
First published in 1945 in Lenin Miscellany XXXV
Printed from the original
 

3

That is not enough.

This must also be added:

1) responsibility of the tenants for failure to elect a manager and his “deputy”;

2) ditto, for failure to elect a control commission;

3) it shall be the duty of the manager and his deputy and the control commission to see that a responsible person (either the manager himself or his deputy or a member of the control commission) is on duty daily

apart from specially employed persons (yard-keeper, etc.) where such are employed;

4) responsibility of tenants in houses of less than 10 flats.

How is the tenants’ responsibility to be established? This must be considered, and a way found.

19/VIII.

Lenin


Notes

[1] These notes were written by Lenin in connection with the regulations “On House Management”, adopted by the Narrow C.P.C. on August 8, 1921, which made the house manager most responsible for the good repair of housing facilities. On August 12 and 22, 1921, the Narrow C.P.C. examined the question of elaborating the additional measures proposed by Lenin to enhance responsibility for the maintenance of houses in good repair.


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