Soviet Legislation (XI)

Soviet Legislation (XI)Source: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 13, No. 38 (Jan., 1935), pp. 436-453Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4203017 .

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436 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

carrying on his classes under Dodonov and Santagana-Gorchakova simultaneously with his legal studies. In I897, Sobinov was engaged at the Imperial Opera House, Moscow, and at once embarked upon a very successful career. He was a lyric tenor of great charm and reliability, but he had not Shalyapin's heart-shaking power of dramatic expression, nor his subtle psychological insight. Sobinov excelled in such parts as the King of Berendey, in Rimsky-Korsakov's folk opera, The Snow Maiden, and the unhappy Lenskyin Chaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. It was in these parts that the writer remembers hearing him in the early years of the present century. He was also very much admired in cosmopolitan opera, especially in Gounod's Faust and Romeo and Juliet. Sobinov was nearly as popular in St. Petersburg as in the old capital, and was known in all the great cities of Russia as a concert singer no less than as an operatic singer. Rakhmaninov dedicated many of his favourite lyrics to him. Sobinov remained in Russia after the Revolution and accepted the title, bestowed on him by the Soviet Government, of " People's Artist of the Republic."

ROSA NEWMARCH.

SOVIET LEGISLATION (XI.) (Selection of Decrees and Documents)

Decree of the Central Executtive Committee of the USSR. On the establishment of the All-Union People's Commissariat

for Home Affairs. The Central Executive Committee of the USSR decrees: i. To establish the Pan-Union People's Commissariat for Home

Affairs and to include in it the United State Political Department (OGPU).

2. The People's Commissariat for Home Affairs is to be charged with the following duties:-

(a) Ensuring of revolutionary order and security of the State. (b) Safeguarding of public (socialist) property. (c) Registration of civil acts (registration of births, deaths, marriages

and divorces). (d) Guarding of frontiers. 3. To form the following departments in the People's Commissariat

for Home Affairs:- (a) Department of Security of the State. (b) Department of Workers' and Peasants' Police. (c) Department of Security of frontiers and of order in the country.



SOVIET LEGISLATION (XI.) 437

(d) Department of Fire Defence. (e) Department of correctional and labour camps and labour settle-

ments. (f) Department of Civil Acts. (g) Administrative and Economic Department. 4. To organise, in the allied republics, republican People's Commis-

sariats for Home Affairs which are to function on the basis of the same Regulations as the Pan-Union People's Commissariat for Home Affairs, and to establish in the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic, instead of the republican People's Commissariat for Home Affairs, the office of Plenipotentiary Representative of the People's Commissariat for Home Affairs of the USSR.. To organise in autonomous republics, provinces and regions, local departments of the People's Commissariat for Home Affairs of the allied republics.

5. To abolish the judicial commission of the OGPU. 6. The People's Commissariat for Home Affairs and its local depart-

ments are to hand over the papers regarding criminal offences which are investigated by them, after the investigation has been completed, to the courts in correspondence with their jurisdiction and in accordance with the existing legal procedure.

y. Documents relating to cases investigated by the Department of Security of the State in the People's Commissariat for Home Affairs, are to be handed over to the Supreme Court of the USSR, and the papers relating to such crimes as treason, espionage and the like, are to be handed over to the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR or to the Military Tribunals according to their jurisdiction.

8. To form a Special Council attached to the People's Commissariat for Home Affairs of the USSR which, in accordance with its Statute, shall have power to issue orders regarding administrative deportation, exile, imprisonment in correctional and labour camps for a term not exceeding 5 years and deportation outside the confines of the USSR.

9. To instruct the People's Commissariat for Home Affairs of the USSR to present the Statute of the Pan-Union People's Commissariat for Home Affairs to the Council of People's Commissariat of the USSR for confirmation.

President of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, M. KALININ.

Secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, A. ENUKIDZE.

Moscow, Kremlin, IO July, I934. (Published in Izvestia, ii July, 1934, No. I60-5408.)

(EDITOR'S NOTE.-On the same date a decree was issued by the Central Executive Committee appointing Comrades H. G. Yagoda, Y. S. Agranov and G. E. Prokofiev to the posts of People's Commissary of Home Affairs,




and first and second assistant respectively. H. G. Yagoda was the vice- chairman of the OGPU, and, owing to the chronic illness of its nominal chief, the late Comrade Menzhinsky, was the virtual head of this institu- tion. Comrades Agranov and Prokofiev also occupied important posts in the OGPU administration.)

Decree of the Pan-Russian Central Executive Committee and of the Council of People's Commissaries of thte RSFSR.

On the supplementing of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR with Article 192a.

In correspondence with Article 2 of the Decree of the Pan-Russian Central Executive Committee of 7 June, I923, " Regarding the Alteration of the Codes " (Collection of Laws, I923, No. 54, file number 530), the Pan-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissaries of the RSFSR decree:

To supplement the Criminal Code of the RSFSR with Article 192a, the contents of which are as follows:

" 192a. Repeated infringements of the established Regulations regarding the registration of passports or temporary certificates by persons who arrive at localities where the passport system had been introduced, if they have the necessary documents, are to be punished by imprisonment in correctional and labour places of detention for a term up to six months. Persons who reside in such localities without having passports or temporary certificates and who had already been punished for such an offence by administrative bodies, are liable to be sent to prison up to a term of 2 years."

President of the Pan-Russian Central Executive Committee, M. KALININ.

Vice-Chairman of the Council of People's Commissaries of the RSFSR,

T. RYSKULOV. Assistant Secretary of the Pan-Russian Central Executive

Committee, Moscow, Kremlin, I July, 1934.

NovIKov. (Published in Izvestia, II July, I934, No.I6o-54o8.)

To all Public Prosecutors of the Allied Republics. During the last few days a number of facts have come to my notice

testifying to the deceiving of the State by some directors of sovhozy, chairmen of kolhozy and managers of Machine-Tractor Stations. They maliciously send false reports about poor harvests (Odessa province, Azovsko-Chemomorsky region, North Caucasus, South Kazakstan, Middle Volga region, Saratov province, and so on), withhold deliveries of grain to the State, do not fulfil their obligations with regard to the payments




in kind, and so on. Together with this, in a number of districts the losses during harvesting were very large (for example, in the Chardzuisk district of the Turkoman Soviet Socialist Republic about zo per cent. of grain was left in the fields after the harvesting). According to information received by the Chief Public Prosecutor of the USSR, the local public prosecutors do not always react in time to such criminal offences and in many cases the culprits remain unpunished. In many districts the public prosecutors and criminal investigators do not conduct the necessary struggle against pilferers of grain and illicit traders in grain.

I instruct you, in correspondence with my former directions, to order immediately all public prosecutors subordinated to you, to increase their efforts in respect of the struggle against fraudulent reports on the harvest, criminal negligence during harvesting, pilfering of grain, illicit grain trade and all other actions of class-hostile and anti-soviet elements which hinder the punctual and strict fulfilment of grain deliveries. You must organise this work in such a manner as not to leave a single report made by Political Departments, not a single fact revealed in the Press or made public at meetings, without immediate investigation. Inform me immediately of the measures you have taken.

The Chief Public Prosecutor of the USSR, I. AKULOV.

(Published in Izvestia, 2 August, I934, No. I78-5426.)

Decree of the Coutncil of People's Commissaries of the USSR. On changes in the assessment of individual peasant households

for obligatory deliveries of grain to the State. In connection with the discovery of cases of non-fulfilment, by indi-

vidual peasants, of the programmes of autumn and spring sowing fixed for them by law, and also of cases of infringements of the law regarding the obligatory deliveries of grain to the State, the Council of People's Commissaries of the USSR decrees:

i. To instruct the Commission for the Purchase of Agricultural Pro- ducts attached to the Council of People's Commissaries of the USSR to assess the individual peasant households which have had no sowing programmes fixed for them, for obligatory deliveries of grain to the State in accordance with the actually sown areas under grain cultures and in quantities of 50 per cent. in excess of the tax levied on the kolhozy which are not served by the Machine-Tractor Stations (instead of the tax fixed for individual peasants who have sowing programmes, which exceeds the tax levied on the kolhozy not served by Machine-Tractor Stations by 5 or IO per cent. per hectare).

2. -In alteration of the Decree of the Council of People's Commisaries of the USSR of I7 July, I933 (Collection of Laws of the USSR, 1933, No. 45, file number 268) and of the Decree of the Council of People's Commissaries of the USSR and of the Central Committee of the All-




Union Communist Party (Bolsheviki) of 30 January, I934 (Collection of Laws of the USSR, I934, No. 8, file number 52), which stipulated that the areas under grain cultures sown by individual households above the programmes fixed for them, are exempted from obligatory deliveries of grain to the State-to establish that the areas under grain cultures sown by individual peasants in excess of the programmes of autumn sowing in I933 and of spring sowing in I934, should be assessed for obligatory deliveries of grain to the State at the rate of 50 per cent. less than the general rate.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissaries of the USSR, V. MOLOTOV.

Secretary of the Council of People's Commissaries of the USSR, I. MIROSHNIKOV.

Moscow, Kremlin, 3 August, I934.

(Published in Izvestia, 4 August, 1934, No. I80-5428.)

Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviki).

On the struggle against cheating in weighing and measuring and against infringements of regulated retail prices.

i. To consider it an ascertained fact that in a number of co-operative shops and in shops run by the Departments of Workers' Supply and by the State trading organisations there have been numerous cases of abuses, such as cheating of consumers in weighing and measuring, application of inaccurate balances, weights and meters, and also flagrant infringements of regulated retail prices.

To instruct the control organisations to increase the struggle against such cheating of the State and of the consumers in correspondence with the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and of the Council of People's Commissaries of the USSR regarding the defrauding of consumers and deceiving of the Soviet State.

2. To instruct the Chief Public Prosecutor of the USSR, Comrade Akulov, to instigate immediately investigations into these offences and to organise demonstrative trials of those persons who have been found guilty of cheating consumers in weighing and measuring and of infringements of the regulated retail prices, and, in particular, trials of the officials of the Department or Workers' Supply of the Gorki Automobile Works, where cheating of consumers and infringements of the regulated retail prices have been practised to an enormous extent.

3. To reprimand the chairman of Centrosoyus, Comrade Zelensky, the Commissary of People's Supplies of the USSR, Comrade Mikoyan, the heads of the Main Boards of Workers' Supplies of the Commissariats of Heavy and Light Industries, Comrades Pitersky and Tikhomirov, for allowing the cheatings of consumers and the infringements of the regulated retail prices in the shops under their management.



SOVIET LEGISLATION (XI.) 44I

4. To reprimand the Secretary of the All-Union Central Council of Trades Unions, Comrade Shvernik, for the absence of a systematically organised control on the part of the trades unions over the work of the Departments of Workers' Supply and of the consumers' co-operatives, on account of which criminal facts of cheating of the consumers and infringements of the regulated retail prices have remained unpunished; to instruct the All-Union Central Council of Trades Unions to take criminal proceedings against officials of factory and office committees of those undertakings and institutions where cheating in weighing and measuring and infringements of retail prices have been practised.

5. To reprimand the head of the Central Board of Weights and Measures, Comrade Shur, for inefficient work in respect of securing the retail trade with correct balances, weights and meters, and for not taking steps to prevent the use of inaccurate measuring appliances.

To instruct the Commission of Soviet Control to examine, within a month's time, the work of the Central Board of Weights and Measures and of its local branches and to report to the Council of People's Com- missaries of the USSR on their suggestions for ensuring the fulfilment of the duties imposed upon this Board.

7. To instruct the People's Commissariat of Supply, the Centrosoyuz and the Main Boards of Workers' Supply of all Commissariats to test, under the personal responsibility of their heads, within a month's time, the correctness of balances, weights and all other weighing and measuring appliances in shops, kiosks and bars under their authority and to replace immediately all defective and not correctly tested appliances. To instruct the Commission of the Party Control to see that this Resolution be carried out and to report to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party not later than on IS August.

8. To instruct the Central Committees of the National Communist Parties and the provincial and regional committees of the Party to take criminal proceedings, when cases of cheating and infringements of retail prices are discovered, not only against shop managers, shop assistants and managers of higher trading organisations, but also against the secre- taries of the Party committees of those undertakings and establishments where cases of cheating and infringements of regulated retail prices have been allowed to occur.

9. To instruct the editors of Pravda, Izvestia, and other central and local papers (provincial, district, factory) to brand mercilessly organisations and persons guilty of infringements of regulated retail prices, as bourgeois degenerates.

26 July, I934.

The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviki).

(Published in Izvestia, 5 August, I934, No. I8I-5429.)




Decree of the Central Executive Committee and of the Council of People's Commissaries of the USSR.

Regarding the extra tax imposed on individual peasant households in 1934.

The Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Com- missaries of the USSR decree:

To assess the individual peasant households for an extra tax on the following basis:-

I. The extra tax is to be levied on individual peasant households in the villages, as well as in those settlements and towns the population of which is liable to pay the agricultural tax in I934.

II. The rates of extra tax are fixed as follows:- (i) Individual households assessed in I934 for the agricultural tax

at fixed rates, are to pay extra tax at the following rate:- (a) Those who do not possess working animals and income from

trading and who are liable to pay agricultural tax-from I5 to 25 roubles; (b) Those who do not possess working animals, but have an income

from trading-from 30 to 50 roubles; (c) Those who possess working animals-from 50 to I25 roubles. 2. Individual householders who are liable to pay the progressive

agricultural tax, are to be assessed for extra tax at the following rates: (a) Those who do not possess working animals and do not have any

income from trading-from 75 to ioo per cent. above the 1934 agricultural tax, but not less than the rate of the extra tax levied upon corresponding households which pay the fixed agricultural tax (Art. I);

(b) Those who possess working animals or have an income from trading-from ioo to I75 per cent. above the I934 agricultural tax, but not less than the rate of the extra tax levied upon corresponding households which pay the fixed agricultural tax (Art. i).

(3) Kulak households pay extra tax at the rate of 200 per cent. above the agricultural tax levied on them in I934.

(4) Households which maliciously fail to fulfil the sowing programmes fixed for them and to carry out the obligatory deliveries of agricultural products to the State, are to be assessed for extra tax on the basis set forth above, but the rates of tax demanded from them should be doubled.

III. The Councils of People's Commissaries of the Allied Republics which are not divided into provinces and regions, the Councils of People's Commissaries of autonomous republics, provincial and regional executive committees are to fix the final rates of the extra tax for each separate district; for the localities with especially large money incomes, the rates may be increased, but not more than by 50 per cent., in comparison with the maximum rates fixed in Article II of the present Decree.

IV. The times for payment of extra tax are to be fixed by the Councils of People's Commissaries of the Allied Republics which are not divided




into provinces and regions, by the Councils of People's Commissaries of autonomous republics and by the provincial and regional executive committees in such a manner as to arrange that 5o per cent. of the taxes are paid not later than on I5 November, I934, and the whole sum not later than I5 December, I934. Kulak households must pay the extra tax in one instalment and not later than I5 November, I934.

V. In case of non-payment of tax in time, the village soviets must apply measures of compulsory exaction towards the defaulters in strict correspondence with the laws regarding the exaction of defaulted taxes.

VI. The following categories are fully exempted from the assessment for the extra tax:

(a) households of workers and officials who are engaged in agriculture in their kitchen-gardens and who possess not more than one cow, one head of small cattle and meadows, but do not have arable land and working animals, if the main source of their income is wages;

(b) households of members of kolhozy; (c) individual households exempted from the I934 agricultural tax

owing to their poverty; (d) households the membership of which includes i. Heroes of the Soviet Union, persons decorated with the Orders of

the USSR or with honorary revolutionary arms, and the heroes of labour; 2. Private soldiers and also officers of the lower rank in compulsory

and voluntary service in the armed forces, including those who are to be called to the colours in the autumn of I934.

3. Active and reserve officers of the middle, senior and superior ranks of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army.

4. Officers of lower rank who have been transferred from the category of " on long leave ' to the category of " temporary complement of territorial units.)"

5. Those officers of the middle, senior and superior ranks who are "on long leave,)" in reserve and in the temporary complements of territorial units of the Workers' and Peasants' Army and who are employed in military training of the toilers in the capacity of permanent officers of the Osoaviokhim.

6. Former Red Guards and Red Partisans. 7. Persons on the administrative staff and in the rank and file of

militarised guards and militarised fire-brigades employed at undertakings and constructions of special State importance, members of the Workers' and Peasants' police force, and also all persons on the staffs of correctional and labour establishments.

8. War and labour invalids of the first, second and third categories. (e) Households of families of village activists who have suffered from

kulak vengeance, and the households of foresters murdered while carrying out their duties.

(f) Individual households, the members of which have contracted

FF 2




themselves, for not less than one year, for underground work in the coal industry; households, the members of which have contracted themselves in I934 for permanent work in sovhozy for a period not less than one agricultural season; households of colonists exempted in I934 from the agricultural tax, and the households of small prospectors for gold.

(g) Individual households of the northern borderlands and of some other localities of the Union exempted from the agricultural tax in correspondence with Art. 86 of the Regulations regarding the Agricultural Tax, and those households which are exempted from the agricultural tax on account of the losses they suffered in I934 from elemental disasters.

VII. To grant power to the village soviets to exempt, fully orpartially, from the extra tax weak individual households. The lists of households which are to be exempted, fully or partially, from the extra tax on account of their weakness, are to be presented by the village soviets to the district executive committees for their approval.

VIII. The district executive committees are granted power to exempt, fully or partially, from the extra tax those households which have fulfilled, fully and in the time specified, their obligations towards the State in regard of payment of money taxes and obligatory deliveries of agricultural products.

IX. The money accruing from the extra tax is to be divided as follows: 75 per cent. to the State budget; io per cent. to the provincial and regional budgets; and I5 per cent. to the district budgets.

X. The People's Commissariat of Finances of the USSR is to issue detailed instructions as to the practical application of the present Decree.

President of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, A. CHERVYAKOV.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissaries of the USSR, V. MOLOTOV.

Secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, A. ENIJKIDZE.

Moscow, Kremlin, 26 September, I934. (Published in Izvestia, 27 September, I934, No. 227-5475.)

To all workers of heavy industries. Comrades!

3i years ago, when the socialist and economic reconstruction had developed itself, our leader, Comrade Stalin, at the conference of the economic workers, gave the slogan: " Bolsheviks must master technique." Six months later, at another conference, Comrade Stalin formulated six historical conditions which have become the leading principles of all economic work. On the eve of the second Five Year Plan, the plenary session of the Central Committee of the Party, upon Comrade Stalin's




suggestion, called upon the builders of Socialism to couple " enthusiasm of construction with enthusiasm of mastery." The XVIIth Congress of the Party, when ascertaining the results of the industrialisation of the country and of the organisation of socialist economy, pointed out to us that one of the most essential conditions of the successful development of industry is the correct organisation of all links in our industrial system.

Proceeding along the path pointed out by Comrade Stalin and carrying out the decisions of the Party and of the Soviet Government, the workers of heavy industries increased the output, during eight months of I934, in comparison with eight months of last year, by 28 4 per cent., fulfilled 64-3 per cent. of the annual programme, raised the production of labour by ii 8 per cent., and decreased the cost of production by 5 per cent.

Comrades! We have every possibility not only to fulfil, but even to surpass the I934 programme as far as heavy industries are concerned.

In connection with this, it is necessary to emphasise that a number of branches and undertakings of heavy industries are lagging behind, do not fulfil their production programmes, and, owing to that, retard the further progress of all industries and all the national economy. We call upon workers of copper, lead, sulphuric acid, cement, oil (especially the Grozny Oil Trust) industries, the Steel Pipe Trust, undertakings producing metal goods for mass consumption, to have done with slackness and to attain the standard of production reached by the foremost undertakings of the heavy industries.

In 1934 we have failed to overcome seasonal difficulties. In July and August the output of heavy industries was less than in June. This seasonal decrease, which repeats itself every year, indicates that our organisation is inefficient. We must especially remember that, when the winter is ap- proaching. We must carefully ascertain our preparedness for the conditions of winter work and, while learning by former experience, carry out all the measures which should ensure a regular progress of production and not permit the falling of production during the winter of I934-35.

But the matter rests not only with the ceasing of retardation in a number of branches of industry and with the overcoming of seasonal difficulties. All our undertakings which are fulfilling their programmes, can produce considerably more than they are producing now, because the reserves which are at the disposal of our heavy industries are exceptionally large. We earnestly call the special attention of all economic workers, engineers, technicians, all Party, trades union and Komsomol organisations, all workers engaged in heavy industry, to the question of mobilising these enormous reserves.

The Party and the Government have concentrated the greatest efforts of the country in order to create, in an unprecedentedly short period of time, a powerful heavy industry which is the base of the whole economic reconstruction. Powerful heavy industries armed with up-to- date technique, have been created in our country. Thirty-two milliard roubles have been invested in their reconstruction since I929. During




this period new investments, amounting to 2I * 7 miliard roubles, have been applied to actual work. The material reserves, which are invested in heavy industry, are estimated at 40 milliard roubles. The army of workers employed in heavy industry has reached the figure of 6 million persons.

We must always compare the increase in production with these material resources which have been given to us by the Party and the Soviet country. We have not yet utilised all these resources in full, we have not put all these forces at full speed, we can give far more to the country than we are giving now.

The seven-hour working day in our socialist undertakings is utilised productively to the extent of 5 or 51 hours. Equipment of machine- building factories is working only to the extent of 8o per cent. of its capacity, and in a number of undertakings even less. Out of the total number of mechanical drills and hammers in the coal industry only 6o or 70 per cent. are working, the rest remaining idle. The drilling equipment of the oil industry is utilised for actual drilling and for deepening of oil wells only to the extent of 50 per cent. of the working time. In the iron industry the idleness of Martin furnaces and rolling mills accounts for a considerable deficiency in the production of metal. Rolling mills remain idle 22-25 per cent. of their working time, and in many cases considerably more. We have huge losses, a large amount of defective production, excessive expenditure of materials and fuel in all undertakings. All this shows how large are the reserves which are in the possession of the heavy industries. To mobilise these reserves, to make full use of the powerful equipment-means to master the new technique.

We have in a number of factories and plants excellent standards of working, which often can be favourably compared with the best examples of the world technique, and these factories and plants are working under the same conditions as the rest of our industries. What prevents our heavy industries in all factories and plants from achieving the same success? There are no objective obstacles to attaining better results, because the basic condition-the up-to-date technique-is present in our heavy industries.

The principal means of making use of the enormous reserves of the heavy industries is the correct organisation of labour, correct and efficient management. Because of that, the six conditions of Comrade Stalin have at present even more actual importance. Because of that, the realisation of the resolutions of the XVIIth Congress on improvement in organisation and management of industry is the most essential condition of victory.

We must ensure Bolshevik management, efficient work in all links of our industry, without any exception. We must finish with red tape and bureaucratism, ensure everywhere genuine Bolshevik practical management, go into all details, organise work efficiently. This is the principal and essential condition of a further triumphant advance of all branches of heavy industries, the mobilisation of all our resources.




The struggle for practical management, the merciless struggle for complete uprooting of bureaucratic methods, for efficient work must be permanent, tenacious and persistent. It must be carried on day in and day out in the People's Commissariat, in the factories, in shops and in the workers' homes, at the machines and in the coal mines, in the factory yards and in the warehouses.

By what methods can we triumphantly solve the complicated and responsible problems with which the heavy industry is faced, how must all workers of heavy industry organise the every-day work in order to realise, in all the links of the system, the six conditions of Comrade Stalin, to utilise all our reserves ?

Study carefully industrial processes in all their details, organise production correctly, select and correctly distribute necessary-and only necessary-men in order to make the equipment entrusted to you work to its full capacity. Insist upon intensive, but even and steady work according to a clear-cut programme for each month and for each day, and fight the so-called " storm work " and uneven work. Endeavour to achieve improvement in organisation of labour, improvement of technical standards. Director, head of department, instructor, you must yourself be interested in the rate of wages and must correctly place every individual working man in accordance with the results of his work, of his skill and the quality of his production. You must arrange all the questions of wages, because the wages are the mighty lever for increasing productivity of labour and for full utilisation of the working time. Persistently strengthen iron proletarian discipline in all the links of industry. Check the execution of any decisions, without exception, of directing bodies as weli as any of your own, and see that they are carried out. Remember always that it is your first duty to see that the State programme is fulfilled in a true Bolshevik spirit. In your instructions and orders always fix the dimensions of the tasks, the time-limit of their execution, and name the persons who are entrusted with the work. Before issuing orders, study all the details of the matter. Study carefully the people with whom you are working, watch them at work, exercise special care about young engineers and technicians, educate them, create for them conditions for improvement of their qualifications and for advancement, develop and encourage their creative initiative in every possible way. Director, you must know personally not only the engineers and technicians, but also the instructors, foremen, and best shock-workers of your factory.

Preserve the equipment, machinery and tools entrusted to you, keep them in good order and cleanliness, examine them properly and repair them in accordance with a carefully thought-out plan, do not permit any damage to them. Keep in exemplary cleanliness the whole factory, departments, benches, warehouses, yards and roads. Remember that you are entrusted with very valuable equipment, which is the sacred property of the proletarian State. Consider it a matter of your proletarian honour to achieve a high quality of goods produced. Establish severe




technical control, watch over the careful finish and packing of goods, mercilessly fight every kind of negligence. Deliver production in full, in due complement and in the time agreed upon. Keep contact with the pur- chasers and check through them the quality of your production. Struggle persistently to make the reputation of a soviet factory, the reputation of the Commissariat of Heavy Industries higher and higher.

Save the soviet copeck and strengthen financial discipline, insist on the lowering of the cost of production, on the growth of the socialist accumulation of wealth, insist upon better standards in the expenditure of raw and other materials and fuel, organise prompt and exact control, systematically study its results and make use of them in your practical work.

Improve persistently your political and cultural standards, study technique, be a genuine master of the business entrusted to you, follow technical progress in the Soviet country and abroad, and make use of its achievements for persistent improvement of industry. Mechanise all suitable operations, introduce all sorts of machinery which replace and lighten human labour, beginning with the simplest and finishing with the most complicated machinery. Make use of every possibility of rationalis- ing production, do not neglect any trifles. Remember always that there cannot be any good work in the factory when the social conditions of the workers are bad or when the needs of workers, engineers and technicians are neglected. Take constant care for the improvement of the living conditions of the workers, engineers and technicians and also of their families. Exercise care of creches, kindergartens, schools. Conduct a merciless war against low social conditions, against dirt in the houses. against bugs, against dirt in settlements and on the streets. Remember that bugs and dirtiness are enemies of good work in the same way as dirt on the territory of the factory, choking up of work benches with odds and ends, or a dirty grease-can. The struggle for improvement of organisation, for Bolshevik management, for good work, is the duty of all workers, of all directors, engineers and technicians, of all Party, trades union and Komsomol organisations. The duty of everybody is to choose his own field in the huge and many-sided economic work, and to concentrate his efforts on it in order to help in solving the problem.

Heavy industries, to which special attention is being paid by the country, the Party, its Central Committee and personally by Comrade Stalin, have achieved considerable successes. But we must conduct a determined struggle against the slightest symptoms of self-praise and self- conceit. Our reserves are colossal. Our possibilities are great, and have not yet been utilised in actual life. Exceptionally serious and responsible are the tasks which we are facing; because we, the workers of heavy industries, are charged with the duty of ensuring the complete reconstruction of the national economy on the basis of up-to-date technique. We all, Party and non-Party workers of heavy industries, are soldiers of the Party and of the Soviet State on the most responsible sector of socialist




reconstruction. We are led from victory to victory by the great Party of Lenin, the mighty advance guard of the working classes, at the head of which stands Comrade Stalin, the inspirer, leader and organiser of our victories.

Workers of heavy industries, true sons of our socialist fatherland ! Forward to the effort to surpass the I934 programme, to mobilise the mighty reserves of heavy industry, to Bolshevik preparedness to execute the programme of the third year of the second Five Year Plan !

Conference of economic workers, engineers, technicians, party and trades union workers employed in the enterprises of heavy industry.

" I order that this appeal be accepted for unfailing direction and execution."

People's Commissary of Heavy Industries, S. ORDZHONIKIDZE.

(Published in Izvestia, 27 September, I934, No. 227-5475.)

Resolution of the Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviki) upon the Report by Comrade V. M. Molotov; passed on 26 November, I934.

On the Abolition of the Card System of Distribution of Bread and some other Products.

i. The speedy growth of the towns and of the new industrial districts, in connection with the colossal progress of industrialisation in the USSR, and the unchecked raising of the standard of living of the workers and peasant masses produced a large demand for bread and other products, and this demand began to increase very rapidly from the inauguration of the first Five Year Plan. Together with this, the speedy development of technical cultures which were necessary for ensuring the supplies of our industries with our own, soviet agricultural raw materials, demanded that the peasant population of the districts where the cultivation of technical plants was practicable, should be supplied with bread in larger quantities than before. But, during that period, the number of kolhozy and sovhozy was small, and our agriculture, especially the grain production, was on a very low level. The small individual peasant farming which was predominant at that time, could not, owing to backward technique and low productivity, meet the growing demand of the towns, industrial districts and the districts where the technical plants were cultivated. This caused the introduction of rationing of supplies (the card system of distribution).

2. The introduction of the card system of distribution of bread and other products was not only necessary, but has been, during the latest years, a most important condition for the improvement of supplies. The card system of distribution during that period was especially necessary



450 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW,

because the workers were supplied with bread at a firm State price, although the prices on the free market were much higher and there were elements of profiteering in this branch of the trade. Thanks to this system only, the State, though limited in its resources, was able to ensure the supply of towns and industrial districts, to ensure the preferential supply of the most important centres and of the shock-workers, and also to ensure the supplies of bread at firm State prices to the purveyors of agricultural raw materials: cotton, flax, hemp, tobacco, etc., in the interests of advancement of the technical cultures and of the increase of the raw materials for industry.

3. At the present moment when, instead of the parcelled small individual farms, we have in agriculture a large mechanised production, when the predominant position in agriculture is occupied by the kolhozy and sovhozy, when we have already achieved a considerable organisational and economic strengthening of the collectives, the situation has radically changed. This is confirmed not only by the successful collection of grain, but also by the successful buying of grain which is purchased at higher prices. The State has now at its disposal sufficiently large reserves of grain to ensure full and adequate supplies to the population without a card system of distribution, by means of developing everywhere the free selling of bread. Under such conditions, the card system of distribution of bread and of some other products may only obstruct the improvement of supplies and therefore must be abandoned. The abolition of the card system of bread distribution will be a new and very important step towards superseding the system of centralised supplies by a system of Soviet trade, in correspondence with the directions for the second Five Year Plan, given by the XVIIth Conference of the Party.

4. The abolition of the card system of distribution of bread and of other products will remove the existence of double prices (fixed and commercial) and ensure the establishment of firm State selling prices, uniform for each province or republic. These uniform prices of bread and of other products should be fixed approximately as the mean price between the existing high commercial prices and the extremely low card prices; the differences in respect of transport and other conditions existing in various districts should also be taken into consideration. As this will result in some raising of the fixed prices of bread, the Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviki) think it necessary to raise correspondingly the wages and salaries of workers and State officials.

5. Simultaneously with the abolition of the card system in the towns, the system for ensuring the purchase of agricultural raw materials (cotton, flax, hemp, tobacco, etc.) by means of supplying the peasants with breadstuffs at low prices, should also be abolished completely. As the fixed prices of bread will be raised, the abolition of the centralised supply must be accompanied by a corresponding increase of prices paid to the peasants for cotton, flax, hemp, etc.



SOVIET LEGISLATION (XI.) 45I

6. The abolition of the card system and the introduction of the general sale of bread and also of flour and of some other products must be accompanied by an increase of the number of shops in towns and in villages, with a general development of the State and co-operative bakeries and with a correct distribution of the grain resources in the provinces. While leaving in force the established system of kolhoz trade, we must conduct an incessant struggle against any attempt at speculation in bread and against other tricks of the class enemies who may make use of the present most important measure.

Taking all this into consideration, the Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviki) think it necessary:

i. To abolish, as from i January, I935, the card system of distribution of bread, flour and groats and to introduce everywhere the unrestricted sale of bread and other products to the population out of the State and co-operative shops.

2. To abolish all kinds of existing retail prices of bread, flour and groats and to introduce retail State prices of bread, flour and groats uniform for a territorial division, which should include certain groups of provinces, areas and republics.

3. In connection with the abolition of the card system and introduction of uniform retail prices of bread, flour and groats, to increase, as from I January, I935, the wages and salaries of the workers and State officials, stipends of students and pensions. To instruct the Council of People's Commissaries of the USSR to fix the rates of increased wages for separate branches of the national economy in such a way as to preserve the existing privileges which are established for certain groups and categories of workers in the card system of distribution.

4. To abolish, as from i January, I935, the existing system of supplying breadstuffs to the purveyors of agricultural raw materials at low prices in all districts where agricultural raw materials are collected.

5. In connection with the establishment of uniform prices of bread and flour, to raise the purchasing prices of agricultural raw materials for the sale of which to the State the kolhozy, members of the kolhozy and the individual peasants have received bread at low prices. To instruct the Council of People's Commissaries of the USSR to fix new purchasing prices of various kinds and grades of cotton, flax, hemp, tobacco, etc., for each belt or district separately, and also to fix new purchasing prices of coarse tobacco, pods, Persian lamb, furs, wool, and the fish delivered to the State by the fishermen's kolhozy.

6. To establish the general sale of grain forage from the State and co-operative storages and shops to the population as well as to the State, kolhoz and co-operative consumers, at State prices uniform for each territorial belt.

7. To establish that the sale of baked bread be effected through the special State and co-operative bread shops, as well as through other




provision shops belonging to the State or to co-operative organisations adapted to the sale of baked bread; the sale of flour is to be made through the State shops, the departments of workers' supply and also through the co-operative shops on the permission of the local organs of the Commis- sariat for Internal Trade.

8. To take immediate steps for increasing the number of State and co-operative bread shops in such a way as to open by i April, 1935, not less than Io,ooo new shops; the existing shops must be correspondingly re-equipped and adapted and the new shops and kiosks should be built in correspondence with the plan fixed by the Council of People's Com- missaries of the USSR.

9. To establish monthly plans for the delivery of flour and groats to trading organisations, industrial undertakings and other State consumers for each province, area and republic in such quantities as would be sufficient to ensure the general and uninterrupted free sale of bread and the full satisfaction of the demand, and to form for these purposes sufficient stocks of flour and groats in each province, area and republic.

io. To instruct the local Party and Soviet organisations to allot the premises necessary for the development of the trade in baked bread and flour, and to give every assistance to trading organisations in the building of new shops and bakeries.

* * * * * *

The abolition of the card system of distribution of bread and other products and the general introduction of the free sale of bread at uniform firm State prices, and also the sure possibility of an additional lowering of these prices in future, and together with this, the lowering of prices of industrial goods, create favourable conditions for the further growth of the wellbeing of the workers' and peasant masses.

The inauguration of this measure has been made possible thanks to the victory of the kolhozy in the villages and to the progress of agriculture, and, at the same time, it will promote a further and even speedier growth of agriculture and industry on the basis of the steady value of the Soviet currency and of the development of exchange of goods between the town and village population.

The great and complicated practical tasks with which the Party and the workers' and peasants' State are faced in connection with the realisation of the present resolution, demand from all Party, soviet and trades union organisations that they should be properly organised and that all local conditions should be carefully taken into consideration; on the other hand, a resolute resistance should be made to all and sundry attempts of class enemies to wreck the working of the new system of distribution.

The realisation of the present resolution should find its response in the further strengthening of the union of workers and peasants and in the victorious Socialist advance in our country.

(Published in Izvestia, 29 November, I934, No. 278-5526.)




Decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR.

On the amendment of the existing Criminal Codes of the Allied Republics.

The Central Executive Committee of the USSR decrees: To introduce the following amendments in the existing criminal

codes of the allied republics on the investigation and consideration of cases relating to terrorist organisations and terrorist acts against agents of the Soviet Government:-

i. The investigation of such cases must be terminated during a period of not more than ten days.

2. The indictments should be presented to the accused twenty-four hours before the hearing of the case in court.

3. The cases must be heard without participation of Counsel. 4. Appeal against the sentences and also petitions for pardon are not

to be admitted. 5. Sentence to the highest degree of punishment' must be carried out

immediately after the passing of the sentence.

President of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. M. KALININ.

Secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. A. ENUKIDZE.

Moscow, Kremlin, i December, I934.

(Published in Izvestia, 5 December I934, No. 283 (553I).)

CHRONICLE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS

Foreign Affairs. THE friendship with France received fresh impetus from a vL,it paid to Paris by a squadron of the Red Air Force in return for the one paid to Moscow last year by the French Minister of Aviation. The Soviet airmen were received with great cordiality. They visited the principal French aviation centres and exchanged views with the'leading French aviation authorities. Later they flew to Lyons, where they were accorded a civic reception by the Mayor, M. Herriot, and the municipality. Both the Soviet and French Press welcomed this " fresh proof of Franco-Soviet friendship."

A similar visit was paid to Rome by another Air Force squadron, the leaders of which were received by Signor Mussolini.

1 This is the ordinary legal expression for the death sentence.-ED.



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