V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:LS/v18;en:MT;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

DECREE No. 1

[August 3, 1918]

1) Large professional workers’ [associations] (including railway workers’ associations), associations of factory and works committees, and uyezd and city Soviets are granted the right to organise food detachments from among workers and the poorest peasants for trips to [grain-producing] gubernias for the purpose of acquiring grain at fixed prices or requisitioning it from the kulaks.

2) At the head of each detachment there must be a group of responsible leaders, elected by the organisation forming the detachment, to which the central and gubernia Soviet authorities include their representatives. All these leaders are answerable to the Soviet government for the legality of the detachment’s actions.

3) The procurement of grain by these detachments in grain-producing gubernias is permitted only on the basis of certificates from the organisations that sent the detachment, registered with the local Gubernia Food Organ of the consuming gubernia, and is carried out in accordance with the instructions and under the control of the food organs of the grain-producing gubernias of the procurement area. The Gubernia Food Committees of the starving gubernias, having verified the certificates of the detachments, [are obliged] immediately [to register and] [issue] to issue itineraries to the detachments. The Gubernia Food Committees of the grain-producing gubernias are obliged resolutely and in every way to assist the work of the detachments.

4) Half of the procured grain is forwarded [to the sending] to the gubernia that sent the given detachment and is used directly to satisfy the [food] need] requirements of the members of the organisation that procured the grain in the order indicated below (§ 5); [and] the other half of the procured grain is left at the place of procurement and placed at the disposal of the Commissariat for Food for distribution among all the starving workers and poorest peasants of the Republic (in accordance with the decrees of the C.E.C. of May 9 this year, No. 468 “on granting the People’s Commissariat for Food extraordinary powers to combat the rural bourgeoisie, hoarders and speculators” and of May 27 this year, No. 498 “on the reorganisation of the People’s Commissariat for Food (and local food organisations)”, as well as the decision of the People’s Commissariat for Food of June 1 this year, No. 502 “on the procedure for delivering grain to the disposal of the State”).

5) Upon [arrival] the arrival of the grain at the station of destination, the grain delivered by the detachment, under the supervision of the local Food Organs, is distributed by the organisations that sent the detachment according to established norms, with the issue being credited against the allotted ration.

6) In the event of attempts by the detachments to circumvent or violate the above regulations (buying grain above fixed prices, evading the control of the Food Organs, etc.)—all the grain they have procured is confiscated by the food organs for the disposal of the state at established prices, and the leaders of the detachments and members of the detachments caught violating the requirements of the law are placed at the disposal of the nearest Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution for trial by the Revolutionary Tribunal.

7) Detachments setting out for grain are obliged to render assistance to the local population in harvesting the crop.

Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars,
Lenin