Letter to Dmitry Kursky, May 4, 1918

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Author(s) Lenin
Written 4 May 1918
First published in Krasnaya Gazeta No. 260 November 7, 1928. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1976, Moscow, Volume 35, page 331
Collection(s): Krasnaya Gazeta
Keywords : Dmitry Kursky, Letter

Kursky, D. I. (1874–1932)—member of the Bolshevik Party from 1904, People’s Commissar for Justice of the RSFSR, 1918–28.

It is essential immediately, with demonstrative speed, to introduce a Bill stating that the penalty for bribery ( extortion, graft, acting as an agent for bribery, and the like)!

shall be

not less than

ten years’ imprisonment and, in addition, ten years of compulsory labour.[1]

  1. ↑ Lenin was prompted to write this letter by an incorrect decision taken by the Moscow Revolutionary Tribunal, which on May 2, 1918 heard the case against four members of the Moscow Commission of Investigation charged with bribery and blackmail and passed a sentence of only six months’ imprisonment. On May 4 Lenin proposed to the CC of the RCP(b) that the judges who had passed such a lenient sentence should be expelled from the Party. Acting on the instructions given by Lenin in this letter, the Council of People’s Commissars adopted a decision obliging the People’s Commissariat of Justice “immediately” to draw up a Bill stipulating a “heavy minimum sentence for bribery and any connivance in bribery”. The Commissariat of Justice’s Bill was discussed by the CPC on May 8 and amended by Lenin before it finally became law.
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