V. I. Lenin

Speech at a Joint Session of the All-Russia Central Executive
Committee, The Moscow Soviet and All-Russia Trade Union Congress
January 17, 1919 [1] ( Stormy ovation. ) Comrades, allow me to begin by
briefly mentioning the chief facts relating to our food
policy. I think these brief remarks will be useful in enabling
us to form a correct judgement of the significance of the
resolution we are recommending today for adoption by the
All-Russia Central Executive Committee. They should also enable
us to form an opinion of our whole food policy in general, and
of the role which now, when a difficult change is coming, falls
to the organised proletariat —that vanguard and chief buttress of Soviet Russia and the socialist revolution.

Our food policy has been marked by three major acts, which,
taken chronologically, are as follows: first—the decision to
form Poor Peasants’ Committees, a step which lies at the
very basis of our food policy and which, moreover, was a
tremendously important turning-point in the whole course of
development and structure of our revolution. By taking this step
we crossed the boundary dividing the bourgeois from the socialist
revolution. By themselves, the victory of the working class in the
cities and the transfer of all factories to the proletarian state
would not have been enough to create and consolidate the
foundation of a socialist system, if we had not also created for
ourselves not a general peasant, but a really proletarian buttress
in the countryside. In October, we had to confine ourselves to
uniting the proletariat and the peasants in general, as a
whole. And thanks to this alliance we were able rapidly to destroy
the landlord system and sweep it off the face of the earth. But it
was only when we proceeded to organise the poor peasants, the
peasant proletariat and semi-proletariat, that a durable alliance
could be formed between the mass of the urban proletariat and
rural proletariat. Only then could the war against the kulaks and
the peasant bourgeoisie be fought in real earnest. This radical
step continues to be the keystone of our food policy.

The second step, less important perhaps, was the decree passed
with the participation and on the initiative of our representatives, the decree on utilising the co-operative
societies. There we resolved that, we must make use of the
machinery created by the co-operatives and capitalist society in
general, and which, for obvious reasons, was weaker in Russia than
in Western Europe. In this respect we were guilty of many sins and
many omissions in the towns and big proletarian centres, as well
as in the countryside. Here we are up against a lack of
understanding and ability, prejudices and traditions which tend to
repel us from the co-operatives. It is quite natural that there
should be many non-proletarians in the upper ranks of the
co-operative movement. We must fight these people, who are capable
of swinging over to the bourgeoisie, and the counter-revolutionary
elements and their scheming. But at the same time we must preserve
this machinery, the co-operative machinery—which is likewise
a capitalist heritage—this machinery of distribution among
millions of people, without which we cannot build socialism with
any success. In this respect the Food Commissariat has outlined a
correct policy, but we have not yet put it fully into effect. The
proposals we are submitting today to the All-Russia Central
Executive Committee on behalf of the Communist group, which
insists that the co-operative machinery be utilised, are one more
step in the same direction. We must know how to combat the
undesirable top officials in the co-operative machinery—we
have forces and authority enough for that, for it would be silly
to think they can put up any serious resistance. We must know how
to combat them, but we must utilise the co-operative machinery
without fail so as not to squander our forces, so that this
machine may be united, and so that the Communists may devote their
energies not only to political, but also to organisational work,
and make technical use of the machinery which stands ready for
this work—the co-operative machinery.

The third step in our food policy is the formation of workers’ food organisations. 1-lore, a responsible task
confronts you, the food workers. Our path is the right path for us
to follow, and we must see to it that it is followed by all the
Commissariats. It is a measure of general social and class
importance as well as of importance for food supplies. To make the
socialist revolution lasting, a new class must run the country. We
know that prior to 1861 [2] it was the feudal landowners who were
the power that governed Russia. We know that since then, generally
speaking, the power that governed was the bourgeoisie, those from
the wealthy. The permanence of the socialist revolution will
depend on the extent we can elevate the new class, the proletariat, to the work of government, have Russia governed by
the proletariat. We must make this work of government a step
towards the universal training of the working people in the art of
governing the state, a training not derived from books or
newspapers, speeches or pamphlets, but from practice, enabling
everyone to try his hand at this work.

That, comrades, is the chief stage in our food policy, which at
the same time is indicative of the very character of its
structure. Very responsible duties here confront our food supply
comrades. It need scarcely be said that there is no more cruel and
dreadful calamity than famine, that the people are naturally
driven to impatience, anger and indignation by every flop in this
sphere, for it is a calamity that cannot be endured. Nor need it
be said that the Food Commissariat’s task is a most difficult one. You know, and the comrades from the trade unions
know it particularly, how much chaos and disorder there is in
running the big factories, in keeping stock of their output. Yet
this is a thousand times easier than keeping stock of food which
is gathered in by millions of peasants. But we have no alternative. There is a general food shortage in the country.
There is not enough to go round.

What do we mean when we say that certain foodstuffs are scarce?
It means we could avoid starvation, although living on reduced
rations, if we were now to distribute them among the whole
population, if every peasant were to turn over all his produce, if
everybody were to cut consumption somewhat below the standard of
sufficiency—because there is not enough for a full standard
all round—if every peasant were to agree to reduce his consumption somewhat below the standard of sufficiency and turn
over all the rest to the state, and if we distributed it all
properly. But, if we set ourselves this aim, it is obviously
impossible to carry it out by ordinary means amidst the present
state of economic disruption and with our nation-wide inefficiency—we are only just getting the knack; we had
nowhere to get it from before. If there is a shortage of food, it
means ... what does it mean? It means that if you were to sanction
free trade when there is a shortage of vitally essential
foodstuffs, the result would be frantic profiteering and prices
would be inflated to what is called monopoly or famine prices, and
only a few top people, with incomes considerably above the
average, would be able to satisfy their needs at these fantastic
prices, while the vast majority of the people would starve. That
is what it means when there is a food shortage in the country,
when the country is in a state of famine. Ever since the
imperialists began to march on Russia, she has been surrounded. They cannot come out openly with their predatory
plans; but that does not mean the end of their intervention, as
Comrade Kamenev has rightly remarked. We are a besieged country, a
besieged fortress. In this besieged fortress want is inevitable. And therefore the Food Commissariat’s job is the
most difficult organisational job of all the Commissariats.

Our enemy today, if we take the enemy within, is not so much
the capitalist or landowner—this exploiting minority was
easy to vanquish, and it has been. It is the profiteer and the
bureaucrat. And every peasant is a profiteer by inclination, who
has a chance to line his pockets taking advantage of the desperate
want and agonising famine in the cities and in some of the
villages. And you know very well, especially the comrades from the
trade unions, that the urge, the tendency to go in for profiteering occurs in the industrial centres, too, when certain
goods are not to be had, or are scarce, and that everybody who
manages to lay his hands on them tries to hoard and make a profit
out of them. If we were to allow free trade, prices would at once
be inflated to fantastic levels, levels beyond the reach of the
vast majority of people.

That, comrades, is the situation, and that is why among the
less educated people, exhausted as they are and worn out by
starvation and suffering, there is a tendency, or an undefined
feeling of resentment and anger against the comrades engaged in
food supplies. They are all people who cannot think, cannot see
further than the end of their noses, and it seems to them that
food could be procured somehow. They have heard that there is food
in some place or other, that somebody went there and got
some—but they are incapable of calculating on a large scale
whether there is enough for ten million people, and how much is
required for such a number. It seems to them that someone is
holding things up, that our food workers are putting obstacles in
their way. They do not understand that the food workers are acting
like wise and thrifty managers, saying that if you observe the
utmost stringency and the utmost organisation, you shall at best,
at the very best, be able to maintain a standard that will keep
you from starvation, even if it does fall short of sufficiency. This is the position the country is in for we have
been cut off from the chief food-supplying centres—Siberia
and the Donets region; we have been cut off from fuel and raw
material, food for the population and for industry, without which
the country is forced to suffer the most desperate agonies.

The food workers are acting like sensible managers. They say we
must stick together, which is the only way we can keep going; we
must take systematic action against all attempts by individuals
acting for themselves only, willing to pay any price to fill their
own belly, and who do not give a hang for anything else. We must
not think and act individually, each for himself, for that spells
ruin. We must combat such tendencies and habits, which have been
fostered in all of us, in the millions of working people, by
capitalist private enterprise, by the system of working for the
market: “I shall sell and make my bit; the more I make the
less I shall starve, and the more others will.” That is the
accursed legacy of private property, which left the people to
starve even when there was enough food in the country, when a
measly minority grew rich both on wealth and on poverty, while the
people lived in want and perished in the war. That, comrades, is
the position with regard to our food policy. That is the economic
law which says that when there is a food shortage, frantic
profiteering is engendered by every step towards what is called
free trade. That is why all talk about free trade, all attempts to
encourage it are utterly pernicious and are a retreat, a step back
from that socialist constructive work which the Food Commissariat
is doing amidst incredible difficulties in a fight against
millions of profiteers, whom we have inherited from capitalism
with its old petty-bourgeois, private-property maxim: “Every
man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost.” If we
cannot root out this evil, we shall never build socialism.

Only unity, only the closest alliance, achieved in everyday
life, in everyday work, where it is hardest of all to achievein
dividing up a crust of bread when bread is short—will allow
us really to build socialism. We know that this cannot be
accomplished in a single year, that people who have suffered so
long from hunger are tremendously impatient and demand that at
least from time to time we retreat from this only correct food
policy. And we do have to retreat from it now and then; but we
shall not desert or depart from our policy as a whole.

That, comrades, was the situation six months ago, when the food
crisis reached its climax, when we had no stocks at all, when the
Czech victories had robbed us of the greater part of the Volga
region. We had to consent to the pood and a half. [3]

This measure cost us a big fight, a sharp fight both sides were
in a very bad state. The food workers said: “Yes, things
are grim, but we must not make them worse. By giving relief to a
few for a week, we will be making things worse for the millions.” Others said: “You are demanding ideal
organisation from people who are exhausted and starving; you are
demanding the impossible; you must allow some relief, even if it
spoils the general policy for a while. This measure will bring
new courage, and that is the main thing.” That was the plight we were in when we proposed the pood and a half idea. We
kept to the general, fundamental, radical line, but when the
position became unbearable, we had to retreat from it to afford
at least some temporary relief and preserve the people’s
courage and morale.

The same thing is happening now, when we are on the border
line, when six comparatively easy months are behind us and six
hard months are about to begin. To make this clear, let me tell
you that during the first half of 1918 the Food Commissariat
procured 28,000,000 poods , and during the second half
67,000,000 poods , that is, two and a half times as much. So you can clearly see that the first halfyear is one of
particularly dire and acute want, whereas the second, owing to the
harvest, offers an opportunity of improvement. Now, in 1919, the
success of our food organisations, thanks chiefly to the Poor
Peasants’ Committees in the countryside and the workers’ food inspectors in the towns, is immense and has
enabled us to procure two and a half times as much grain. But the
success of the first year of our work, when a new edifice had to
be built and new methods tested, was not and could not have been
enough to ensure us supplies for the whole year, although it
afforded us a six-month respite. That respite is coming to an end,
and another six months are beginning, the most difficult and
hardest of all. We must bring all our resources into play to help
the workers, to secure them a short respite, to improve their
position in every way we can. And it is only natural that the
Presidium of the Moscow Soviet and its Chairman, Kamenev, should
have been so insistent that we lay down our policy as clearly as
possible and make a clearcut division between monopoly and
non-monopoly foodstuffs, which would enable us to attain certain
results, if only for a time, so that the workers in the towns and
the non-agricultural areas might get at least some slight relief
and gain new courage and energy. These are particularly necessary
just now, when we are on the eve of these difficult six months,
but when there are signs that the forces in the imperialist camp
and their attacks on us are slacking off.

Comrade Kamenev, it is true, has mentioned not only signs but
facts to show that, in spite of the severe trials and reverses we
suffered at Perm, the Red Army is being built on a firm
foundation, that it can and will win. The coming six months,
however, will be very difficult, and from the very outset we must
therefore do whatever is necessary and possible to alleviate the
situation and lay down a clearcut food policy. That is our most
urgent task. There was a conflict over the pood and a half idea
among us, the Communists, and it sometimes assumed acute
forms. But it has not weakened us. Rather, it has led us to
examine our policy in an even more critical and cautious
way. There may be mutual recriminations, but we are arriving at a
decision which is being adopted rapidly and unanimously, and
which, at this difficult juncture, when we are beginning another
and trying six months, demands that we once more clarify for
ourselves the reason why a situation has arisen which compels us
once more to muster all our strength and strain every nerve.

We have had an exception ally hard year, and we are now on the
verge of an even harder six months. But every six months since the
German revolution and since the beginning of ferment in Britain
and France brings us nearer to the victory not only of the Russian
revolution, but of the world revolution as well. That is the
situation as it now stands. We have decided to present a draft of
the fundamental principles of food policy, which we shall request
the All Russia Central Executive Committee to affirm, so that it
may be immediately embodied by the food workers in appropriate
decrees that will enable us, those in the centre, the workers of
the towns and the non-agricultural areas, to multiply our efforts
once more. For in our efforts alone lies the pledge that we shall
win, that, though we make certain temporary concessions,
necessitated by fatigue and famine, we shall uphold the
fundamental principles of our communist food policy and preserve
them intact until the time comes when the victory of communism
will be complete and world-wide. I shall now read, clause by
clause, the motion which the Communist group on the All-Russia
Central Executive Committee submits for its consideration:

This joint session of the All-Russia Central Executive
Committee, the All-Russia Trade Union Congress, the Moscow
Soviet, and representatives of factory committees and trade
unions of the city of Moscow hereby lays down the following
fundamental principles of food policy and instructs the
People’s Commissariat of Food to draw up forthwith decrees
embodying these principles.

1. The Soviet food policy is confirmed as correct
and unassailable, this policy consisting in:

(a) registration and state distribution on the class principle; (b) monopoly of the principal foodstuffs; (c) transfer of supply from private hands to
state hands.

2. Unless the state monopoly of the chief items
of food (bread, sugar, tea and salt) already decreed is strictly
enforced, and unless mass procurements of other of the more
important foodstuffs (meat, seafish, hemp, sunflower-seed and
linseed oil, animal fats, except butter, and potatoes) are made by
the state at fixed prices, it will be impossible to ensure a
regular supply of food to the population under present conditions. Furthermore, such mass procurements at fixed prices
are only a preliminary measure, in preparation for a state
monopoly of those foodstuffs, too, which will be the next task of
the Food Commissariat to introduce.

The procurement and transportation of all foodstuffs enumerated in this clause, with the exception of
potatoes, are forbidden to all but the state food bodies. The
right to mass procurement of potatoes at the established fixed
prices shall, in addition to state bodies, be granted also to
workers’ organisations, trade unions and co-operative societies.

3. As a temporary measure, workers’
organisations and co-operative societies shall be granted the
right to procure all foodstuffs other than those enumerated in
Clause 2.

4. The local food bodies are hereby compelled to
assist the food procuring organisations in the exercise of this
right.

From the standpoint of old habits and the old idea of government, the use of the word “compelled” may
surprise you. You may perhaps say: “Can things be so bad in
the Soviet Republic that people have to be compelled to obey the
will of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee?” Yes, we
have to compel, and it is better to say so frankly than to hide
our heads under our wing and pretend everything is going
swimmingly. Just let our comrades, the representatives of the
All-Russia Central Executive Committee and the delegates at the
All-Russia Trade Union Congress, give good thought to what they
say among themselves. Let them give a thought to whether they are
properly carrying out everything decreed long ago concerning the
proper registration of foodstuffs and the full delivery to the
state of those foodstuffs which cannot be left for commodity
exchange purposes. When there is no commodity exchange the
peasants say: “No, you’ll get nothing from us for your
Kerensky money.” If you give a thought to what you say in private among yourselves and bear in mind how many of the
orders of the central authorities remain unfulfilled, you must
admit it is better to tell the truth and say that our local bodies
have to be compelled, firmly and ruthlessly. (Applause.) At this
meeting, in which the All-Russia Central Executive Committee, as
our supreme body, has come together with the All-Russia Trade
Union Congress bodies, which have the most numerous representation—and that just now is the main
thing—these most influential comrades must firmly say, and
make it known in their localities, that the local bodies must get
accustomed to the idea that we have to compel them to carry out
the policy of the central authorities consistently. That is very
difficult, and it is natural that many millions of people, who are
accustomed to looking on the central authorities as robbers,
landowners, exploiters, can have no trust in the centre. But this
distrust must be overcome. Socialism cannot be built if it is not,
for that means building a centralised economic system, an economic
system directed from the centre, and that can only be done by the
proletariat, which has been trained in this spirit by the factory
and by its whole mode of life. Only the proletariat can do
this. The fight against parochial tendencies, against the habits
of the small property-owner, is a difficult one. We know this
cannot be done all at once, but we shall never tire of urging the
workers to reiterate this truth and put it into practice, for
socialism cannot be built otherwise.

Clause 4 explains further:

The transportation and marketing of these foodstuffs shall be absolutely unrestricted. No pickets, cordons,
guards, etc., shall have the right to prevent the unrestricted
transportation and sale of the said foodstuffs in bazaars or
markets, from carts, etc.

This point is particularly important. Comrade Kamenev has
mentioned many things here which, naturally, in the haste of our
work, we have not carried out; our Food and other Commissariats
have to issue one order on top of another, with the result that
our local bodies find it very difficult to get them all
straight. We are accused of issuing decrees too hastily; but what
are we to do when we have to make haste because of the advance of
imperialism, when we are compelled to make haste by the strongest
scourge imaginable—the lack of bread and fuel. This being
so, we must use every means to explain our tasks, to elucidate
particular mistakes, and that is why the clear and precise
demarcation now achieved by this struggle is so important. To
achieve this on a far larger scale ’we must now make sure
that the local bodies do not act as if they are a law to
themselves, that they do not dare to plead they remembered
yesterday’s decree but forgot today’s. We must make sure they know quite clearly and definitely which foodstuffs are a
state monopoly, and which are open to unrestricted transportation
and sale—that is everything except what is specifically
enumerated in clauses I and 2. Let this be made generally
known. Let those who are now about to return home convey it to the
localities. Let them do what their official position requires of
them. Let them take along with them copies of the decrees that
will be drawn up on the subject, so that these may be implicitly
obeyed and carried out in the localities, so that the orders of
the centre may really be carried out, and the former indecision
stopped.

Further, the end of Clause 4 reads:

Note. With respect to eggs and butter, this decision shall apply
only to districts where mass procurements of eggs and butter are
not made by the Food Commissariat.

Comrades, I am now going to read the remaining clauses of the
decree in brief. As I am unable to go into detail, and as there is
no need to do so since several other comrades, some of them better
qualified than myself, will speak after me, I shall only stress
what I consider most important. I shall read only the basic
principles which we recommend the All-Russia Central Executive
Committee to adopt and instruct the Council of People’s
Commissars and all other authorities of the Soviet Republic to
embody in decrees and carry out unreservedly and implicitly. (Applause.)

5. With a view to increasing procurements, and to the more
efficient performance of individual tasks, the principle of
surplus appropriation and procurement shall be extended to
non-monopoly foodstuffs, and a bonus system introduced for
co-operative and other organisations engaged in procuring
both monopoly and non-monopoly produce for the state.

Measures of organisation for introducing fresh forces into the
food bodies and for the wider participation of workers:

(a) Workers’ food inspectors shall be widely utilised and
their functions extended to include control over the way the
December 10 decrees are observed by the food bodies, and over the
procurement of non-monopoly foodstuffs; (b) Worlcers’ inspection shall be introduced at the
earliest possible date in all food bodies in the localities and
extended to the Food Commissariat departments, with the object of
vigorously combating bureaucracy and red tape; (c) Connections with the workers’
organisations—trade unions and workers’ co-operative societies—shall be strengthened by reinforcing the local
bodies with active members of the aforesaid organisations; (d) A system of workers’ trainees shall be introduced in
all central and local bodies and institutions in order to train
workers as practical specialists in food affairs capable of
filling responsible posts.

6. The co-operative apparatus shall be employed to the full in
the work of procurement and distribution. Responsible representatives of the state supply bodies shall be appointed to
the co-operative societies to control the activities of the
co-operative organisations and co-ordinate them with the
government’s food policy.

That, incidentally, is one of the ways of fighting the top
people in the co-operatives. But it would be a great mistake and
positively fatal to scorn the entire co-operative apparatus, to
reject it out of hand or in a contemptuous way, saying: “We
shall build ourselves a new one; this is no business of ours, this
is something for Communists only.” We must make use of the
machinery ready at hand—we cannot build socialism unless we
utilise what capitalism has left us. We must utilise everything in
the way of cultural values capitalism created against our
interests. Therein lies the difficulty of socialism, that it has
to be built of materials made by our adversaries; but therein lies
the only possibility for socialism. We all know this theoretically, and now that we have got over this year, we have
seen in practice that socialism can only be built from what
capitalism has created against our interests, and that we must
employ all this to build and consolidate socialism.

Clause 7 reads:

7. Supervision to ensure the proper observance of the
regulations governing the transportation of foodstuffs and the
strict enforcement of the monopolies shall devolve on the workers,
aided by armed detachments formed by the Food Commissariat.

All food pickets other than the teams of the Food Commissariat
and the Guberriia Food Committees shall be withdrawn immediately.
The teams of the Food Commissariat and the Gubernia Food
Committees shall be withdrawn as and when the respective bodies of
workers’ Inspectors are formed in the localities.

My time is up, comrades, and I shall only point out that here,
in these last clauses, we find the main principles underlying our food policy and Soviet policy in general. I have
already said that hard times have come, that a more drastic six
months has begun, that the respite in food difficulties is over
and a most difficult period has commenced. Every time the Soviet
government encounters difficulties in the extremely difficult
job of building socialism, it knows only one way to overcome
them, and that is to turn to the workers, to wider and wider
sections of the workers every time. I have already said
socialism can be built only when ten and a hundred times more
people themselves begin to build the state and the new economic
life. Our food workers have, as their reports show, already got
to a stage where no less than one-third of the members of the
district food committees are workers, chiefly workers from
Petrograd, Moscow and Ivanovo—Voznesensk—the flower of our proletarian army. That is good, but it is not
enough. What we need is two-thirds, and we must go on working
for it. As you know, the advanced sections of the workers have
already set about governing the state, building a new life. We
know we must reach down deeper and more boldly enlist new
sections. They still lack training, they will inevitably make
mistakes, but we are not afraid of that. We know that in this
way we shall get young trained workers and recompense errors a
hundred-fold by securing scores of younger and fresher forces. There is no other source we can draw on. We must move
ahead all the time, take our young workers from wherever we can
and put them in more and more responsible posts.

The present food crisis is due to the fact that a more difficult six months has begun. It is also due to the state of
transport. As I have already said, in the second half of 1918 we
procured 67,500,000 poods . But we were unable to get out 20,000,000 of this amount. The latest severe crisis in
Petrograd is due to the fact that our stocks are held up on the
Volga-Bugulma Railway, and we cannot move them out. The railways
are in a desperate state. The rolling stock is in a dreadful
state, because no country has suffered so badly as Russia owing
to her prevailing backwardness, and because the rail workers are
not so well organised. I would ask you, on leaving this meeting,
to make the people aware of our need for numerous workers for
food organisation and the railways, who would help us with their
experience. Give them a job, keep an eye on the novices, and
they will do a lot more than the old organisations. Everybody on
food and transport work! Let every organisation, no matter which
branch it belongs to, review all its forces and ask itself
whether it has taken enough men, whether it has done all it
should in the way of sending commissars, as we send them for the
army. The workers are suffering from lack of food. We must put
our best people on the job, appoint them all to responsible
military, food or transport posts. Everybody can be of use here,
even if he is not an expert. On the railways it is sometimes the
aid of a Party comrade that is required, the influence of an
ideologically staunch proletarian who has had his schooling and
will influence the less proletarian sections of railway
employees by control and supervision. Comrades, I once more
repeat the slogan: “Everybody on food and transport work!” We must do what we did in the army, where we sent
our political commissars and achieved the tasks we set ourselves. I am sure we shall this time, too, in these difficult
six months, conquer famine and devastation!

Endnotes

[1]
The session was called because of the critica1 food situation. It
was held at the Bolshoi Theatre. In his speech, Lenin explained
the draft of his theses of food policy which he submitted to the
session on behalf of the Bolshevik group in the All-Russia Central
Executive Committee. The draft was unanimously approved. The
resolution recognised that it was correct to introduce a state
monopoly of staple foodstuffs like grain, tea, salt and sugar. The
products whose monopolisation was recognised as untimely (meat,
seafish, etc.) were to be procured only by the Food
Commissariat’s organs at fixed prices. The basic propositions of the resolution were incorporated in the decree On
the Procurement of Foostuffs, which was endorsed by the Council of
People’s Commissars on January 21, 1919, and published in
Izvestia on January 24. These government measures formed
part of a whole system of measures known as the policy of war
communism.

[2]
The year 1861 saw the abolition of serfdom in Russia.

[3]
Lenin refers to the decision of the Moscow Soviet of August 24,
1918, and the decision of the Petrograd Soviet of September 5,
1918 which permitted workers of Moscow and Petrograd free carriage
of foodstuffs in quantities up to 1 1/2 poods of personal
consumption. This measure was necessitated by the difficult food
situation and adopted as an exception from the decision of the
Council of People’s Commissars on grain monopoly. The
Council of People’s Commissars made these decisions effective until October 1, 1918.