Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 26 - From Marx to Mao

374NOTE TO F. E. DZERZHINSKYWITH A DRAFT OF A DECREE ON FIGHTINGCOUNTER-REVOLUTIONARIES AND SABOTEURS 142To Comrade Dzerzhinsky,Further to your report today on measures for fightingsaboteurs and counter-revolutionaries,would it not be possible to submit a decree like the following?On Fighting Counter-Revolutionariesand SaboteursThe bourgeoisie, the landowners and all the rich classesare making desperate efforts to undermine the revolution,the aim of which is to safeguard the interests of the workers,the working and exploited masses.The bourgeoisie are prepared to commit the most heinouscrimes; they are bribing the outcast and degraded elementsof society and plying them with drink to use them in riots.The supporters of the bourgeoisie, particularly among thehigher clerical staff, bank officials, and so on, are sabotagingtheir work, and are organising strikes to thwart the government’smeasures for the realisation of socialist reforms. Theyhave even gone so far as to sabotage food distribution,thereby menacing millions of people with famine.Urgent measures are necessary to fight the counter-revolutionariesand saboteurs. In virtue of this, the Council ofPeople’s Commissars decrees:(1) Persons belonging to the wealthy classes (i.e., withincomes of 500 rubles or more per month, and owners ofurban real estate, stocks and shares, or money amounting