ON THE FOOD TAX, OR PRODNALOG
The system of food requisitioning has been replaced by the food tax. A decree to this effect was issued by the All‑Central Executive Committee. In implementation of this decree, the Sovnarkom has already promulgated the Law on the Food Tax, No. 92. All Soviet institutions are now obliged to bring the Law on the Food Tax to the widest possible audience among the peasantry and to explain its significance.
Why was it necessary to replace food requisitioning with the food tax? Because food requisitioning proved excessively burdensome and inconvenient for the peasants, while the poor harvest of 1920 had only further intensified peasant hardship and ruin. Moreover, the widespread famine led to a sharp increase in livestock mortality, weakened the supply of firewood from the forests, and impaired the operations of factories that relied on peasant grain as payment for their products. The workers’ and peasants’ government therefore needed to adopt measures that could immediately alleviate the dire situation faced by the peasantry.
The food tax is almost half the size of food requisitioning: for example, 240 million poods of grain instead of 423 million. The amount of the tax is known in advance—indeed, as early as spring—for every individual peasant. This will reduce the scope for abuses in the collection of taxes. It will also encourage peasants to expand their sown areas, improve their farms, and strive to increase yields.
Our country has been devastated in an unprecedented manner—first by the Tsarist war, then by the Civil War, that is, by the invasion of landowners and capitalists against the Soviet power of workers and peasants. We must revive the economy

SPEECHES. RECORDED ON GRAMOPHONE DISCS
at all costs. Above all, we must raise, strengthen, and improve the peasant economy.
The food tax will contribute to the improvement of the peasant economy. Peasants will now approach their own farming with greater confidence and greater diligence—and that is the most important thing of all.
April 25, 1921.
N. Lenin
First published in 1924 in the journal “Young Guard”
Nos. 2–3

Printed from manuscript