TO A. D. TSIURUPA 88

To Comrade Tsiurupa
People's Commissar for Food

The bearer is Andrei Vasilyevich Ivanov, a worker at the Putilov factory (known to Shlyapnikov and possessing old party credentials from the time of tsarism).

I told him about yesterday's decree and about the decision about the Commissariat of Labor urgently mobilizing workers. I told him my opinion:

if the best St. Petersburg workers do not create, by selection, a reliable working army of 20,000 people for a disciplined and merciless military campaign against the rural bourgeoisie and bribe-takers, then famine and the demise of the revolution are inevitable.

See this volume, document 122. Ed.

TO S. G. SHAUMYAN. MAY 14, 1918

I ask you to confirm this to the bearer and give a brief statement that you will give such detachments full powers under the same exact conditions.

I very much ask you to give him such a statement for reading in St. Petersburg, and return this letter to the bearer.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars

Written on May 10, 1918

First published in 1931 Printed from the typewritten in Lenin Miscellany XVIII copy