The compulsory labor conscription was first officially declared in 1918 in the Declaration of rights of working and exploited people. Compulsory labor for bourgeoisie in the territory of the Soviet Republic was introduced by a decree of the Soviet of People’s Commissars of October 5, 1918. The labor code adopted December 10, 1918 determined the labor conscription for all citizens of the RSFSR. The decrees adopted by the Soviet of People’s Commissars April 12, 1919 and April 27, 1920 prohibited unauthorized change of job and truancy; established a strict labor discipline at enterprises.

January 29, 1920 the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a decree "On the order of compulsory labor conscription", providing for the involvement of the population regardless of the presence of constant work to a one-time or periodic execution of various labor duties. For the avoidance of universal labor service, legal liability took force. Execution of the decree was entrusted to the Main Committee for the general labor conscription (Glavkomtrud), headed by Felix Dzerzhinsky, which was created under the Council of Defense.

The document envisaged the possibility of redistribution of staff, in particular, involve skilled workers who had served in the army, into other areas of activity. For sensitive areas of the economy the decree allowed the use of units of the Red Army and Navy as a labor force, in the first place those created from the beginning of 1920 on the basis of the military forces of labor armies. Labor armies obeyed the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, but they were used to perform household tasks: reconstruction of railways, bridges, procurement and delivery of fuel and food to the cities, etc.

With the introduction of the NEP it was no longer needed to use labor armies. The Labor Code of the RSFSR of 1922 allowed the application of labor conscription in case of disaster or a shortage of manpower for carrying out major state tasks.

Lit.: Борисова Л. В. Военный коммунизм: насилие как элемент хозяйственного механизма. М. 2001. То же [Электронный ресурс]. : http://www.ecsocman.edu.ru/db/msg/278146.html; Ильюхов А. А. Советская модель всеобщего труда в 1918–1922 гг. [Электронный ресурс] // Исторический факультет МГУ. 1997. URL: http://www.hist.msu.ru/Labour/Article/workers/iliukhov.pdf; Троцкий Л. Переход к всеобщей трудовой повинности в связи с милиционной системой // «Правда» N 283, 17 декабря 1919 г.