1. Outline of a Resolution by the SNK

Systematically:

1) To systematically examine specific instances of the urgent execution of clearly defined tasks assigned by the Comprod and food authorities;

2) To establish close ties with the working class and the toiling masses, and to systematically involve them in the work of food supply and distribution—initially as witnesses, then as members of the inspection corps;

3) To require all organs of the workers’ inspection to submit weekly reports on their activities to both local and central bodies of the trade unions;

4) To grant advisory voting rights…[42]

2. Comments on the Draft “Regulations”

The present draft should be revised along the following lines: (1) The mandate of the workers’ food inspection should be explicitly defined not merely as familiarization with administrative procedures, but rather, above all, as the actual verification of concrete cases involving the activities of food authorities in the procurement, delivery, and distribution of foodstuffs;

– further, (2) the workers’ food inspection must be tasked with forging a connection between food policy and the working class and the toiling masses, and with engaging them en masse—in the first instance through the participation of witnesses—as partners in the administration of food affairs.

(3) – the workers’ food inspection should be required to submit weekly reports to the broad masses of the working class and the toiling population, primarily through the medium of the trade unions.

Written on December 5, 1918.

First published in 1981 in Volume XVIII of the Lenin Collection.

Printed from the manuscript.