Council of People's Commissars, Decree on Compulsory Labor. January 29, 1920

This Sovnarkom decree put into law the “militarization of labor” that Party leaders had already endorsed, treating the manpower shortage as an emergency to be solved through compulsory mobilization and reassignment. It empowered central authorities to announce labor call-ups, required local soviets to register and deploy workers, and extended military-style discipline into civilian production, with penalties for evasion and “desertion” from work. The decree also created Glavkomtrud, the Main Committee on Universal Compulsory Labor, which soon became the key agency for enforcing the policy.

Original Source: Sobranie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii raboche-krestian'skogo pravitel'stva, 1920, No. 8, Art. 49.

Taking its stand on the Fundamental Law of the RSFSR and the Code of Labor Laws, which require that those capable of working he drawn into socially useful work, in the interests of the socialist society, the Soviet of People's Commissars has resolved to introduce the following measures for the purpose of securing in the shortest possible time the required labor for industry, agriculture, transport, and other branches of the national economy:

1. In conformity with the principle of compulsory labor to enact the following:

a. To call upon the entire working population to perform, in addition to their normal occupations, various kinds of compulsory labor, of an occasional or regular nature, such as procurement of fuel, agricultural work (both in state farms and sometimes in peasant farms), construction work, road repair, snow clearing, hauling, and so forth. (Note: In the performance of the above duties, livestock and vehicles are also subject to mobilization if this is found necessary.)

b. To utilize Red Army and Navy units for the purpose of work.

c. To withdraw skilled workers from the army and to transfer workers from agriculture and handicraft enterprises to work in state enterprises, institutions, and other economic establishments.

d. To enlist persons without regular occupations into useful public work. e. To reallocate the available labor in accordance with requirements.

2. The Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense is charged with the general direction of compulsory labor measures.

3. The Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense is to establish a central committee of universal compulsory labor [Glavkomtrud] which is to be subordinate to the Council of Defense and which is to include representatives of the People's Commissariat of Labor, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, and the People's Commissariat of War. In the provinces there should be established Guberniia, Uyezd, and-if necessary-City Committees on Compulsory Labor. These are to be subordinate to the corresponding Executive Committees [of Soviets] and are to include representatives of the Commissariat of War, the Administrative Section [of the Commissariat of Internal Affairs], and the Labor Section [of the Commissariat of Labor].

4. The Council of Defense is charged with the duty of proclaiming mobilizations for compulsory labor, which have an all-national significance, and which are listed in paragraph I of the present decree. The Council of Defense should also empower the Guberniia Executive Committees, the City Executive Committees, and the Uyezd Executive Committees to proclaim mobilizations for compulsory labor for local needs and in accordance with special instructions of the Central Committee on Compulsory Labor.

Note: Orders issued by the Council of Defense, as well as orders of the Executive Committees, are published locally in the form of orders of the Guberniia, City, or Uyezd Committees on Compulsory Labor.

5A. Guberniia, City, and Uyezd Committees [of Compulsory Labor] are authorized to hand over to the People's Court those guilty of:

a. Evading registration for and appearance to perform compulsory labor,

b. Deserting from work, as well as inciting others to do likewise;

c. Using false documents, as well as fabricating such documents for the purpose of evading compulsory labor;

d. Supplying, in official capacity, deliberately false information for the same purpose;

e. Damaging tools and materials deliberately;

f. Organizing work carelessly and using mobilized labor unproductively;

g. Complying in the above acts and concealing those guilty.

5B. In especially malicious cases and in cases of repeated offenses the Committees on Compulsory Labor have the right to hand over the culprits for trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal.

5C. In cases of minor infractions of labor discipline the Committees on Compulsory Labor have the right to punish the offenders-by assigning them to punitive labor units or imprisoning them for periods of not longer than one week, by decision of the Uyezd Committee, and for two weeks by decision of the Guberniia Committee.

Source: James Bunyan, ed., The Origins of Forced Labor in the Soviet State, 1917-1921 (Stanford: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1967), pp. 110-12.