V. I.

Lenin

177

To:   A. D. TSYURUPA [1]

Tsyurupa

I do not advise putting it that way just now (it’s something in between an ultimatum—resignation of all—and
vacillation of all in the face of the resoluteness of one ).
Better concentrate all efforts on Yelets-f Petrovsk+the best
of the other uyezds.

Send out some two thousand workers as threshers, say.

And a few days later, after receiving at least news that
so many hundred trucks are en route, raise the question
more firmly.

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Notes:
[1]
Lenin’s letter was due to the following circumstances. On
August 24, 1918, in view of the grave food situation in the city,
the Moscow Soviet passed a decision allowing the working people
to bring into Moscow freely up to one-and-a-half poods of
foodstuffs for their own personal consumption. On August 26, the
Council of People’s Commissars considered a draft decree on
preferential conveyance of grain, the question of the decision of
the Moscow Soviet being left open.

While the question was under discussion, the decision of the
Moscow Soviet allowing one-and-a-half poods as baggage could
not but hinder the organisation of the campaign against the
black-marketeering bag-men and the regulation of the work of the
intercepting detachments. On August 29, L. I. Ruzer, member of the
Board of the Food Commissariat, who was in charge of this work,
asked the Board to relieve him of the work of combating
bag-trading. Ruzer wrote in his statement that he could think of “no
more wordings for a single order in response to inquiries from the local areas”. Tsyurupa, who was also opposed to the “
one-and-a-half poods system”, added a postscript: “None of the Board
members nor the Board as a whole can think of wordings that Ruzer,
too, failed to find. Conclusion: the order of the Moscow Soviet
should he rescinded on approximately the following lines: the
C.P.C. is to adopt a decision at once and publish it; the decision
is to indicate the date on which the order of the Moscow Soviet
ceases to be effective—approximately September 15. A. Tsyurupa. ”