Date: 1918-05-29
Source: ru:PSS/v50
Source: CW vol 50

Kineshma

Sovdep

To all workers of the Kineshma district. Comrade workers, the rural rich in the producing provinces are concealing and not handing over huge stocks of grain for the starving workers. The rich prefer to sell grain at exorbitant speculative prices, which only the urban bourgeoisie can afford, but not the poorest starving population. By speculating on grain, the rich also aim to speculate on goods they receive in exchange for grain. The urban bourgeoisie is agitating for the abolition of the grain monopoly, fixed prices, and for the introduction of free trade in grain. From agitation, the bourgeoisie moves to provocation, skillfully and imperceptibly pushing the hungry workers towards demonstrations, unrest, and disorder, aiming to seize power. The Council of People's Commissars is doing everything in its power to defend the grain monopoly, without which only the bourgeoisie will prosper, while the poorest population will be left entirely without bread. Comrade workers, do not give in to the provocation of dark forces, do not play into the hands of the bourgeoisie and counter-revolutionaries, who want to use your hands to grab the fire and destroy all the gains of the revolution. With your ill-considered actions and independent barter, do not bring disorganization into the difficult work of procuring bread for you. Council of People's Commissars

* This document is also signed by the Chairman of the Russian Peace Delegation, I. V. Stalin. Ed.

TELEGRAM TO I. R. ROMANOV. JUNE 11, 1918

is now conducting large-scale exchanges of goods for grain, has begun to requisition stocks of grain from the rural bourgeoisie with armed detachments. If you wish to help, to assist your worker-peasant government, act in an organized manner: select from among yourselves the best experts in food supply for work in the Soviet food organs, recruit combat units of honest, incorruptible, resolute revolutionaries, loyal defenders of the interests of workers and peasants.

Immediately detain provocateurs and agents of the counter-revolution and send them to Moscow. Remember firmly: either we will emerge from all the unprecedented difficulties that have descended upon us in an organized and honorable manner, or everything is inevitably doomed to complete destruction. There is no third option. The Council of People's Commissars, awaiting the imminent results of these measures, asks you, comrade workers, for revolutionary endurance and consciousness to save the gains of the revolution and the triumph of the proletarian dictatorship.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars
V. Ulyanov (Lenin)*

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Written on May 24, 1918

Published on May 29, 1918 in the newspaper "Worker and Peasant" No. 55

Printed from a typescript