ON THE REDUCTION OF MILITARY TRANSPORTATION
IN CONNECTION WITH THE MOVEMENT OF FOODSTUFFS
IN THE EASTERN FRONT AREA
(RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL OF DEFENSE, APRIL 21, 1919)
In clarification and supplementation of previously issued resolutions and directives concerning the reduction of military transportation, the following provision is hereby established:
1. The army shall maintain in its possession only those military supplies that are indispensable for combat operations and for troop movement. The quantity and classification of such military property shall be determined by the military command. The correctness of these classifications shall be subject to oversight by the supreme military command, with the direct participation of representatives from the State Control Agency or specially authorized officials of the Council of Defense. All other property under the jurisdiction of the army shall be evacuated to designated central locations. Frontline command, in collaboration with representatives from the State Control Agency, the People’s Commissariat for Railways, and Tramot*, shall draw up a plan and a detailed inventory of military property destined for evacuation.
2. In areas of immediate combat operations, where evacuation is carried out under the direct pressure of an advancing enemy—and when there exists a real and imminent danger of losing all supplies whatsoever—military property under the army’s control, as specified in paragraph 1, part one (weapons, combat supplies, and ammunition), shall be transferred to areas designated for normal evacuation. The evacuation of goods shall proceed in three phases: first, weapons, firearms and ammunition, as well as other valuable military property; then, sound and serviceable military-technical equipment; next, uniforms, medical supplies, and field gear. When assessing the value of this property and determining its suitability, priority shall be given to considerations of both the army’s immediate needs and the scarcity of such items within the armed forces. Grain supplies, butter, meat, rolling stock, precious non-ferrous metals, equipment from railway workshops, lubricants and lighting materials, along with certain other particularly valuable industrial products—these shall be specifically identified by Tramot.
* Tramot—the Transport and Material Department of the Supreme Economic Council.

1919
3. Military and foodstuffs shall be dispatched daily to the central region in equal numbers of railcars. When evacuation proceeds under more or less normal conditions and when there is no immediate, pressing danger, priority in dispatch and loading shall be accorded to foodstuffs listed in the first phase. In all shipments, precious non-ferrous metals, workshop equipment, lubricants and lighting materials, and other goods classified in the first phase shall be loaded to a maximum extent not exceeding 10–15% of the total volume of goods being evacuated.
4. In the second phase, all remaining military property not assigned to the first phase—property essential for the army—shall be evacuated: grain feed, salt, hard leather, manufactured goods, agricultural machinery, and all other metals except those already designated in the first phase.
5. In the third phase, all other military property that can be made serviceable for the needs of the army shall be evacuated, together with all remaining foodstuffs, soft leather, railroad ties, firewood, agricultural implements, and other valuable assets necessary for the RSFSR—and which might, in fact, serve to strengthen the enemy’s capabilities.
6. This resolution shall enter into force via telegram.
7.
Those found guilty of violating this resolution shall be held strictly accountable and brought before the Revolutionary Military Tribunal for trial.
Chairman of the Council of Defense
V. Ulyanov (Lenin)