Draft Decision for the C.P.C. on
the Question of Following a Socialist Policy in the Economic Field[1]
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).
[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).