9 May 1918

Secretariat

To all Provincial Soviet Executive Committees and Provincial Food Committees of the People's Commissariat of Food, [Ways of Communication].

Petrograd is in an unprecedented catastrophic situation. There is no bread. The remaining potato flour and hardtack are being issued to the population. The Red capital is on the brink of destruction from hunger. The counter-revolution is raising its head, directing the discontent of the starving masses against the Soviet power. Our class enemies, the imperialists of all countries, are striving to strangle the socialist republic with a ring of starvation. Only by the utmost exertion of all the forces of the Soviet organizations, only by taking all measures for immediate loading and urgent movement of food supplies can we save and alleviate the situation. In the name of the Soviet Socialist Republic, I demand immediate aid for Petrograd. Report by telegram to the Commissariat of Food on all measures taken. Failure to take action is a crime against the Soviet Socialist Republic, against the world social revolution. [97/vol.]

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Lenin.
V. Ulyanov (Lenin).*
* Followed by: "People's Commissar of Food, Tsuryupa." Ed.
[24 May 1918]

Call Tsuryupa (or his deputy), read him the enclosed documents, and tell him that I insist on sending several wagons of food to the starving workers of these factories.1
Lenin.
1 It has not been possible to determine exactly which documents are referred to, but it is likely that among them was the telegram to the Kineshma workers (see p. 164), whom Lenin apparently had in mind in this note. The date of the note is established by the same telegram.