The Mine Workers. April 16, 1920

The transformation of military units into labor armies went hand in hand with decrees that effectively drafted workers into assigned enterprises. This decree was typical. To address an acute shortage of skilled miners, the Council of Labor and Defense declared mine workers of working age “mobilized,” placed their registration and assignment under labor agencies in coordination with the mining administration, and refused requests to remain in unrelated jobs. It treated workplace concealment as “harboring deserters” and even routed mobilized miners through military channels for rations while in transit.

Original Source: Sobranie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii raboche-krestian'skogo pravitel'stva, No. 7, 21 April 1920, Article 132.

In connection with the liberation of the mining regions of the Republic and because of the acute shortage of skilled miners, the Council of Labor and Defense, by way of supplementing the Sovnarkom decree of 13 October 1919, relating to the mobilization of the mining-technical forces, herewith resolves:

1. Persons between the ages of eighteen and fifty who have worked in the mining industry declared mobilized.

Note: The registration of those subject to mobilization, as defined in the present paragraph, is in charge of the Subsections of Registration and Distribution of the Labor Force of the Department of Labor. The procedures to be followed are those provided in the Sovnarkom decree of 26 February 1920, relating to specialists in the petroleum industry.

2. Assignment of the mobilized workers to their places of work is the responsibility of the Section of Registration and Distribution of the Labor Force of the People's Commissariat of Labor, of the Commissariat of Social Insurance, in consultation with the Mining Council of the Supreme Council of National Economy, acting through the corresponding subsections of Accounting and Distribution of the Labor Force.

3. Petitions from mobilized persons, as given in paragraph one, to remain in their previous place of work, working not in their own specialization, are not to be approved.

4. Mobilized individuals who are subject to assignments by the Department of Registration and Distribution of the Labor Force of the Commissariat of Labor and the Commissariat of Social Insurance are sent with transportation documents by the Subsection of Registration and Distribution of the Labor Force to the War Commissariat to provide them with food, while on route to their destination, on the same general basis as Red Army commanders.

5. Responsible managers of enterprises, institutions, and establishments guilty of concealing or failing to report individuals in their service who were mentioned in Paragraph 1 of this decree are to be handed over to the court on charges of concealing deserters.

6. Individuals indicated in Paragraph 1 of this decree, who are in active military service in the Red Army or in rear institutions of the military establishment, are to be placed immediately at the disposal of the Mining Council of the Supreme Council of National Economy.

7. This decree goes into effect by telegraph.

Source: James Bunyan, ed., The Origins of Forced Labor in the Soviet State, 1917-1921 (Stanford: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1967), pp. 160-161.