Socialization of the National Economy
Vladimir Lenin, Draft of an Economic Program. December 1917
Submitted to the Supreme Council of National Economy, December 1917
Original Source: Proekt dekreta o sotsializatsii narodnogo khoziaistva, Narodnoe khoziaistvo, No. 11 (1918), p. 15.
... To enable the toilers ... to undertake the regulation of the economic life of the country, the following rules are hereby decreed:
(1) All stock companies are declared to be the property of the state.
(2) Members of the boards of directors of stock companies as well as the shareholders belonging to the wealthy classes (i.e., those possessing over 5,000 rubles or having an income of over 500 rubles a month) are under obligation to continue their business in conformity with the law of Workers' Control. They are to declare to the State Bank the number of shares in their possession and make weekly statements of their activities to the local Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies.
(3) All state loans, external and internal, are annulled (abolished).
(4) The interests of the stock and bond holders belonging to the toiling classes of the population are to be fully safeguarded.
(5) Universal labor duty is introduced for citizens of both sexes between the ages of 16 and 55 ...
(6) ... Members of the wealthy classes (see paragraph 2) must secure labor-books, in which entries will be made of the work assigned to them ...
(7) To regulate properly the distribution of food supplies and other articles of prime necessity, every citizen of the state is under obligation to join one of the consumers' societies ...
(8) Rail Worker Unions must proceed at once to formulate and to carry out extraordinary measures for the proper organization of transport ... The Rail Worker Unions ... are likewise charged with the duty of fighting without mercy the bagmen and speculators.
(9) Trade unions as well as local Soviets are charged with the duty of taking over all industries which were either demoralized or closed by their former owners and putting them to work producing articles of consumption ... Local Soviets and trade unions should under no circumstances wait for orders from above. They must, however, make their activities conform to the general directions of the Supreme Council of National Economy.
(10) Members of the wealthy classes are under obligation to keep all their money in the State Bank ... They will be allowed to draw from 100 to 125 rubles a week ... Attempts to defraud the state will be punishable by the confiscation of the entire property of the guilty person.
(11) Violators of the above law, saboteurs, officials on strike, and speculators will have their property confiscated, will be put in jail, or sent to the front ...
(12) Trade unions and other organizations of the toilers shall proceed at once to organize, in co-operation with the local Soviets ... controlling bodies to take charge of enforcing the above decree, ... and to bring before the revolutionary courts all those found guilty of violating it.
Source: James Bunyan and H.H. Fisher, ed., Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1918; Documents and Materials (Stanford: Stanford University Press; H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1934), pp. 316-317.