MEMORANDUM BY S. P. SEREDA.
[April 1918]
1) Have you traveled to Ryazan?
2) How are things progressing with Kolgasov and K0?
3) What is the status of the seeds?
1 The reference is to S. P. Sereda’s trip to Ryazan to hand over his duties at the Ryazan Executive Committee, of which Comrade Sereda had been a member prior to his appointment (on April 3, 1918) as People’s Commissar for Agriculture.
2 Lenin is referring to the final formalization of the departure from the People’s Commissariat for Agriculture of A. L. Kolgeev, the former Left Socialist-Revolutionary People’s Commissar for Agriculture, along with his closest associates. A. L. Kolgeev had submitted his resignation
* Following this, the document bears the signatures of the members of the Council of People’s Commissars. Ed.

DRAFT STATEMENT TO THE PARTY

He had resigned from his duties as People’s Commissar on March 18, 1918, after which S. II. Sereda was appointed in his place.

The discussion concerns negotiations between the People’s Commissariat for Agriculture and a representative of Denmark regarding the purchase of vegetable seeds in Denmark.
£189
DRAFT STATEMENT TO THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE PARTY 1.
[May 2–3, 1918]
1) The proposal put forward by Comrades Spiridonova and Karliya consists of the following: that the Bolsheviks should transfer full, actual control over the Land Commissariat to the Socialist-Revolutionaries, while reserving for the Bolsheviks only political representation.
2,
The basis for this proposal lies in the view held by Comrades
Spiridonova and
Karliya: they believe that the Land Commissariat is falling apart, that work for the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries has become impossible, and that they will be forced to withdraw entirely—since, it is claimed, they are being “pushed out,” and so forth.
3)
The meeting (between Lenin and the Bolshevik members of the Agricultural College) referred the resolution of the question raised by the Socialist-Revolutionaries to the Central Committee of the Party. For its part, the meeting deemed the Socialist-Revolutionaries’ arguments unfounded and their proposal unacceptable.2
B. I. Meshcheryakov
S. Sereda
N. Petrovsky.
1 This statement, initiated by Lenin, was adopted at a meeting of the Bolshevik faction within the Agricultural College, in light of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries’ claims “to full, actual control over the Land Commissariat.”
These claims arose in response to the new appointments made by the Bolsheviks to the People’s Commissariat for Agriculture—following A. L. Kolgeev’s departure from the Commissariat (including S. II. Sereda, II. I. Petrovsky, V. N. Meshcheryakov, V. N. Kharlov, and others)—which significantly weakened the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries’ position within the Land Commissariat. At its session on May 3, 1918, the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) rejected the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries’ claims: leadership of the People’s Commissariat for Agriculture was consolidated in the hands of the Bolsheviks. After the suppression of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary uprising, the People’s Commissariat for Agriculture was completely purged of Left Socialist-Revolutionary elements.
8 The text of the third paragraph of the statement was written in the hand of V. I. Meshcheryakov.