Vladimir Lenin

Theses On The Food Question [1]

For The Commissariats Of Food, Agriculture; The Supreme Economic, Council, Finance, Trade And Industry

I propose that these Commissariats hurry to debate and formulate the following measures no later than today (August
2) so that they can be put through the Council of People's
Commissars today or tomorrow.

( Some of these measures should be in decrees, others in unpublished decisions. )

(1) Out of the two schemes-lowering prices on manufactured and
other goods or raising the purchasing price of grain-we must
certainly choose the latter for, though the two are essentially
the same, only the latter can help us in quickly getting more
grain from a number of grain growing provinces like Simbirsk,
Saratov, Voronezh, etc., and help us neutralise as many peasants
as possible in the Civil War.

(2) I suggest raising the grain prices to 30 rubles a pood, and
correspondingly (and even more) to raise prices on manufactured
and other goods.

(3) I suggest for discussion: whether to make this a temporary
rise (so that we can sum up the practical indications as to the
correct principle on which our trade exchange should be
organised), say, for a month or month and a half, promising to
lower prices afterwards (thereby offering bonuses for quick collection).

(4) To enact several very urgent measures for requisitioning all the products of urban industry for
exchange (and put up their prices after requisitioning to a
greater extent than the rise in grain prices).

(5)To preface the decree on grain price rise with a popular
elucidation of the measure connected with the trade exchange and
the establishment of the correct correlation between the prices of
grain, manufactured and other goods.

(6) The decree should immediately compel the co-operatives a)
to set up a grain-collection point in each village shop; b) to
give goods only according to the customers' ration books; c) not
to give a single item to peasant-farmers except in exchange for
grain.

To establish forms and means of control over the implementation
of these measures and introduce stern punishment (confiscation of
all property) for their violation.

(7) To confirm (or to formulate more precisely) the rules and
regulations concerning property confiscation for not handing over to the state ( or the co-operatives )
grain surpluses and all ether food products for registration.

(8) To impose a tax in kind, in grain, on the rich peasants. This category could include those whose amount of grain
(including the new harvest) is double or more than double their
own consumption (taking into account needs for their family, lives
to and sowing).

This is to be designated as an income and property tax and made progressive.

(9) To establish for workers of the hungry regions temporarily, let's say for one month, preferential carriage of 1.5
poods of gain on condition of special certificate and special
control.

The certificate must contain the exact address and authority a)
from a factory committee; b) from a house committee; c) from a
trade union; and control must establish that it is for personal consumption, with a very severe penalty to
anyone who cannot prove the impossibility of its reselling.

(10) To make it a rule to issue a receipt, two or three copies,
for literally every requisition (particularly in the countryside and on the railway). To print forms of the
receipt. Shooting to be the penalty for not giving a receipt.

(11) To enforce the same penalty for members of all kinds of
requisitioning, food and other teams for any blatantly unjust
action towards the working people or any infringement of the rules
and regulations or actions liable to rouse the indignation of the
population, as well as for failure to keep a record and to hand
over a copy to anyone who has already suffered requisitioning or
punishment.

(12) To make it a rule that the workers and poor peasants in
the hungry regions should have the right to have a goods train
delivered to their station directly, under certain conditions: a) authorisation of local organisations (Soviet of
Deputies plus the trade union without fail and others); b) making
up a responsible team; c) inclusion in it of teams from
other regions; d) participation of an inspector and Commissar from
the Food, War, Transport and other Commissariats; e) their control
of the train load and the distribution of grain. They must see
that a compulsory part (a third to a half or more) goes
to the Food Commissariat.

(13) As an exception, in view of the acute hunger among some
railway workers and the particular importance of railways
for grain delivery, to establish temporarily that:
requisitioning or anti-profiteering teams, in requisitioning the grain, shall issue receipts to those from whom
it has been taken, and put the grain into the goods waggons and
dispatch these waggons to the Central Food Bureau, while
observing the following forms of control: a) sending a telegram to
the Food and Transport Commissariats notifying them about each
goods waggon; b) summoning officials from both Commissariats to
meet the goods waggon and distribute the grain under the Food
Commissariat's supervision.

Endnotes

[1]
Lenin wrote the theses a t the time when the country was in the
grip of a very severe food crisis and was beating off the foreign
interventionists and couter-revolutinaries at home.

The theses provided the basis for the six decrees on the food
question which were dicussed and adopted at the sessions of the
Council of People’s Commissars on August 3, 4, 5 and 6,
1918: On the Enlistment of the Service of the Workers’
Organisations in Grain Collection; decree on Harvesting and
Requisitioning Teams; Regulations on Guard Requisitioning Teams
on Railways and Water Routes; Decree on Obligatory Commodity
Exchange in the Grain-Growing Areas; On Fixed Prices for the
Grain Harvested in 1918, and the appeal of the Council of
People’s Commissars to all working people entitled " Join
the Grain Campaign". The decrees were all published in
Izvestia on August 6 and 8.

The decree on tax in kind mentioned in Clause 8 of the theses
was drafted later and adopted by the Council of People’s
Commissars on October 26, 1918.