Soviet of People’s Commissars, Abolition of Private Trade. November 21, 1918
Original Source: S. A. Piontkovskii (ed). Grazhdanskaia voina v Rossii 1918-1921 gg. (Moscow, 1925) 72-73.
1. In order to eliminate all private trade and supply the population systematically with all necessary products from the state and cooperative stores, the Commissariat of Food… is commissioned to provide the population with articles of personal and household use.
2. These articles, manufactured in nationalized factories… as well as in plants controlled by the Supreme Council of National Economy, shall be turned over to the Commissariat of Food…
3. A chain of state and cooperative wholesale and retail stores shall be established to maintain the supply and proper distribution of goods. The wholesale warehouses and retail stores of the cooperatives shall remain in the hands of the cooperatives and under the control of the Commissariat of Food…
15. The local soviets of deputies, together with food departments, shall be guided by the following rules for the municipalization of retail trade:
a) All retail stores and those wholesale stores which carry local trade shall be municipalized…
e) Cooperative stores and warehouses cannot be nationalized. Those already nationalized or municipalized … shall be restored to their former status and receive back their goods…
18. Persons violating this decree are liable to arrest and confiscation of their property… Employees are liable to arrest and forced labor for a term of not less than one year.
V. Ul’ianov (Lenin) President of, the Soviet of People’s Commissars
Source: James Bunyan, ed., Intervention, Civil War, and Communism in Russia, April-December 1918 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1936), pp. 435-439.