V. I. Lenin

Proposals Concerning the Work of the Vecheka{1}


Written: December 3, 1918
Published: First published in 1933 in Lenin Miscellany XXI. Printed from the manuscript.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, 2nd English Edition, Progress Publishers, 1971, Moscow, Volume 42, page 115.2.
Translated: Bernard Isaacs
Transcription\Markup: D. Walters
Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) © 2003 Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.  


To be headed by Party members who have been in the Party for not less than two years.{2}

Regulations on the Railways Cheka{3} to be revised.

Confirm the right of trade union and Party organisations to act as guarantors.

[
Stricter measures and capital punishment to be applied to informers giving false information.

The right to act as guarantors to be given to People’s Commissars against the signatures of two Board members.

The right to take part in investigations to be granted{4} etc.

[
In introducing the registration of technical personnel and of the intelligentsia in general, a warning should be issued that those who do not register lose the right to receive certificate of guarantee.

The Vecheka department dealing with complaints and requests to expedite cases should be expanded immediately.


Notes

{1} In the course of a discussion of the work of the railways at a meeting of the Council of Defence on December 1, 1918, a commission was set up to deal with questions relating to the activities of the transport department of the Vecheka. The commission, chaired by Lenin, held its first meeting on December 3. This rough draft was probably made by Lenin during the meeting. All points of these proposdis with the exception of the two last paragraphs were later crossed out by Lenin. The commission’s decisions were formulated on the basis of Lenin’s proposals.

{2} This refers to the leadership of the boards of the gubernia and railway Chekas.

{3} On the basis of Lenin’s proposals the commission decided to instruct the People’s Commissariat for Railways together with a representative of the Vecheka to revise the regulations governing the Transport Department of the Vecheka in respect of non-interference by the Vecheka in the commissariat’s technical and management functions. On the question of the relationships between the Vecheka, the Railway Cheka (Transport Department of the Vecheka) and the Commissariat for Railways see the draft decision of the Council of Defence (pp. 127-29 of this volume).

{4} By decision of the commission the right to participate in judicial investigations through their delegates was granted to the People’s Commissariats and the Party Committees of the R.C.P.(B.).


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