V. I. Lenin

Speech at a Joint Meeting of Representatives of
The All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions, The Central Committee of the Metalworkers’ Union and The Supreme Economic Council. April 11, 1918^{1}

From a Newspaper Report

Published: Izvestia No. 72 April 12, 1918. Printed from the newspaper text.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, 2nd English Edition, Progress Publishers, 1971, Moscow, Volume 42, page 88.2.
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.
Other Formats:   Text

Comrade Lenin urged the complete nationalisation of all trustified enterprises, with the group of capitalists who sponsored the project being enlisted in the service of the state.

Notes

{1} The joint meeting was held to discuss the project for setting up a trust (“The National Company”) proposed by a group of capitalists headed by A. P. Meshchersky, Managing-Director of the “Sormovo-Kolomna” Industrial Association. The Board of the Supreme Economic Council passed a decision on April 14, 1918, to break off negotiations with Meshchersky; on April 18, the Council of People’s Commissars turned down Meshchersky’s project and decided to carry out the nationalisation of the works. A resolution in favour of nationalisation was passed also by the conference of delegates of the machine-building works held May 12-18, 1918 (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 388-89).