Directive of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the CC VKP(b) to Party and Soviet Organizations of the Front-Line Regions

Directive of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the CC VKP(b) to Party and Soviet Organizations of the Front-Line Regions
Source: Tom 18

Source: marxists.org, Volume 15

The treacherous attack of fascist Germany on the Soviet Union continues. The aim of this attack is the destruction of the Soviet system, the seizure of Soviet lands, the enslavement of the peoples of the Soviet Union, the plundering of our country, the seizure of our grain and oil, and the restoration of the power of the landlords and capitalists. The enemy has already invaded Soviet soil, has seized the greater part of Lithuania including the cities of Kaunas and Vilnius, has seized part of Latvia, the Brest, Belostok, and Vilna regions of Soviet Belorussia, and several districts of Western Ukraine. Danger hangs over certain other regions. German aviation is expanding its bombing area, subjecting to bombardment the cities of Riga, Minsk, Orsha, Mogilev, Smolensk, Kiev, Odessa, Sevastopol, and Murmansk.

As a consequence of the war thrust upon us, our country has entered into a mortal struggle with its dangerous and cunning enemy -- German fascism. Our troops are fighting heroically against an enemy armed to the teeth with tanks and aircraft. The Red Army, overcoming numerous difficulties, is fighting selflessly for every inch of Soviet soil.

Despite the grave threat that has been created for our country, certain Party, Soviet, trade-union, and Komsomol organizations and their leaders still do not understand the meaning of this threat, have still not grasped the significance of this threat, are living in a mood of complacent peacefulness, and do not understand that the war has drastically altered the situation, that our Motherland is in the gravest danger, and that we must swiftly and resolutely restructure all our work on a wartime footing.

The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the CC VKP(b) oblige all Party, Soviet, trade-union, and Komsomol organizations to put an end to complacency and carelessness and to mobilize all our organizations and all the forces of the people for the defeat of the enemy, for a merciless reckoning with the hordes of invading German fascism.

The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the CC VKP(b) demand of you:

1) In a merciless struggle with the enemy, to defend every inch of Soviet soil, to fight to the last drop of blood for our cities and villages, to display the boldness, initiative, and resourcefulness characteristic of our people.

2) To organize comprehensive assistance to the active army, to ensure the organized conduct of the mobilization of reserves, to ensure the supply of the army with everything necessary, the rapid movement of transports with troops and military cargoes, and broad assistance to the wounded by making available for hospitals schools, clubs, and institutions.

3) To strengthen the rear of the Red Army, subordinating all activities to the interests of the front, to ensure the intensified work of all enterprises, to explain to the working people their duties and the situation that has been created, to organize the protection of factories, power stations, bridges, telephone and telegraph communications, to organize a merciless struggle against all disorganizers of the rear, deserters, panic-mongers, and rumor-spreaders, to destroy spies, saboteurs, and enemy parachutists, rendering in all this rapid assistance to the fighter battalions. All Communists must know that the enemy is cunning, clever, and experienced in deception and spreading false rumors, must take all this into account in their work, and must not succumb to provocations.

4) In the event of a forced withdrawal of Red Army units, to remove all rolling railroad stock, not to leave the enemy a single locomotive, not a single railroad car, not to leave the enemy a kilogram of grain or a liter of fuel. Collective farmers must drive away livestock and turn over grain for safekeeping to state agencies for transport to the rear areas. All valuable property, including nonferrous metals, grain, and fuel, that cannot be evacuated must without fail be destroyed.

5) In districts occupied by the enemy, to create partisan detachments and sabotage groups to combat units of the enemy army, to kindle partisan warfare everywhere and in all places, to blow up bridges and roads, destroy telephone and telegraph communications, set fire to depots, etc. In the occupied districts, to create unbearable conditions for the enemy and all his accomplices, to pursue and destroy them at every step, to disrupt all their measures.

For the direction of all this activity, to create in good time, under the responsibility of the first secretaries of the regional and district Party committees, reliable underground cells and safe houses of the best people in every city, district center, workers' settlement, railroad station, state farm, and collective farm.

6) To immediately hand over to the Military Tribunal all those who, by their panic-mongering and cowardice, hinder the cause of defense -- regardless of their position.

* * *

The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the CC VKP(b) declare that in the war that has been thrust upon us by fascist Germany, the question of the life and death of the Soviet state is being decided -- the question of whether the peoples of the Soviet Union shall be free or shall fall into enslavement.

Now everything depends on our ability to organize quickly and act without losing a minute of time, without missing a single opportunity in the struggle against the enemy.

The task of the Bolsheviks is to rally the entire people around the Party of Lenin and Stalin, around the Soviet Government, for selfless support of the Red Army, for victory.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR
and Secretary of the CC VKP(b)
I. STALIN

Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR
V. MOLOTOV

29 June 1941
No. P509

Izvestiya TsK KPSS. 1991. No. 6.