V. I.   Lenin

340

To:   THE NARROW C.P.C.^[1]

Published: First published in 1945 in Lenin Miscellany XXXV. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1976, Moscow, Volume 45, pages 270^c-271^a.
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
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Comrade Kiselyov or his Deputy
as Chairman of the Narrow C.P.C.

August 27, 1921

Comrade Kiselyov:

A number of statements indicate that the introduction of charges (for services, etc.) frequently creates an intolerable situation for the workers.

There is need to elect a commission:

1) two from the All-Russia Central T.U.C.

2) one representative each from the Petrograd and the Moscow Soviet of Deputies 

3) two members of the C.P.C.

4) Chairman of the Narrow Council (Comrade Kiselyov) —to preside.

Assignment to the commission: 

all-round preparation of the question (and relevant decrees) to the effect that the introduction of charges should be made conformable to the workers’ wages and their condition in general (exemptions for workers, etc., or something of that kind, the dates and conditions on which charges are to be introduced, etc.).

V. Ulyanov (Lenin)
Chairman, C.P.C.

P.S. All these questions should be passed only through the Full C.P.C.

Notes

[1] In contrast to the practice of providing free economic services (transport, including urban transport, housing, posts, newspapers, etc.), established during the War Communism period, charges for rail and water transportation wore introduced on July 9, 1921, postal charges on July 18, prices on goods, including food, on August 5, and charges for municipal services on August 25.

In the second half of 1921, the C.P.C. look a number of   measures to improve the workers’ material conditions: it introduced new principles for wage payments in accordance with quantity and quality of labour, payment in money instead of in kind, guaranteed wages (in commodity rubles), etc. As a result, the real earnings of workers had already increased by the end of 1921.