Worker Demands in Motovilikha

Luchnikov, Demands of the workers of the metallurgical plant in Motovilikha. December 1918

Original Source: Nasha zaria, No. 185 (26 August 1919).

Perm Province in December 1918

  1. About Food Supply.

We, the hungry workers, demand an increase in our ration of bread, and not the kind that even pigs would not eat, but bread made of flour ... as well as all other additional food products, such as meat, cereals, potatoes, and other foods. As of 6 December [1918], we demand an increase of food rations, and if they are not going to be increased, we will be compelled to stop work.

  1. We demand that leather jackets and caps be immediately taken away from the commissars and be used to manufacture shoes.

  2. We demand the speediest possible acquisition of felt boots and warm clothes and their distribution to citizens.

  3. We demand that commissars and employees of Soviet institutions receive the same food rations as workers, and that there be no privileges for bureaucrats.

  4. We demand that threats with pistols against workers at the meetings be abolished, and that arrests be abolished too, and that there be freedom of speech and assembly, so that there be a true power of soviets of peasants' and workers' deputies, and not of the Chekas.

  5. We demand an abolition to the taking away of food and flour from the hungry workers, their wives and children, and an abolition to imposing fines on those peasants who sell foodstuffs and who deliver food to cities and who let workers stay overnight, and we demand freedom to bring up to one and a half pood of food.

  6. We demand that the Province Department of Food Supply, if it cannot provision the population with food, pass over that authority to the Motovilikha Department of Food Supply so that it can work independently.

  7. We demand the convocation of an all-plant general meeting to take place on 5 December at noon with the participation of the Regional Department of Food Supply.

  8. We demand that all appointees be removed. Those elected by the people must take their place.

  9. We demand pay for the time we spent at the meetings if they took place in work time.

  10. We demand an abolition of fines for the time workers spent in search of food.

  11. We demand an abolition of commissars' taking rides on horses and also in automobiles.

  12. We demand an abolition of the death penalty without trial and investigation. There must be justice.

  13. We demand that the commissars be for the people and not the people for the commissars. (Electric workshop) [resolution]

All 14 paragraphs have been adopted unanimously.

Chairman: Luchnikov

Source: Vladimir N. Brovkin, Behind the Front Lines of the Civil War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 130-136.

1917

EVENTS February Revolution Formation of the Soviets April Crisis Revolution in the Army July Days Kornilov Affair Bolsheviks Seize Power First Bolshevik Decrees Constituent Assembly Treaty of Brest Litovsk
FOUR KINDS OF STATES Communist Party Building Economic Apparatus Building the Soviets Red Guard into Army State Security
DISINTEGRATION OF THE OLD SOCIETY Depopulation of the Cities Food Supply Conflict with the Church Death of the Old Culture Destruction of the Left The Empire Falls
CREATION OF A NEW SOCIETY New Letters and Dates Culture and Revolution The New Woman Workers Organization Peasant Revolution Organs of the Press Raising Socialist Youth