V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:LS/v24
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek); AI-translated.

NOTES ON THE REPORT OF THE COMMISSAR OF THE MOBILISATION DIRECTORATE OF THE ALL-RUSSIAN GENERAL STAFF.

June 2, 1919; The struggle on all fronts demands a colossal strain on the country's military might, forcing us to mobilise hundreds of thousands of tillers of the soil, tearing them from the land, weakening the countryside, and depriving agriculture of its hands...

For these reasons, the military department has taken the initiative in aiding the countryside, in supporting the families of Red Army men fighting on the borders of Soviet Russia. ...

The most correct form of aid would be collective aid, aid rendered to communes and Soviet farms by artificially attracting to them new forces which have not hitherto worked in the field of agriculture. Such forces at the present time consist of several groups, fairly numerous in composition, forces which are being wasted completely uselessly for the construction of the country.

These groups include: firstly, pupils of the unified labour school of all three grades during vacation time; secondly,
........................................................................................................ thirdly,
persons held in concentration camps for misdemeanours and crimes of minor importance to the present state system; fourthly, all urban inhabitants up to the age of fifty belonging to the bourgeois class and not living by their own labour; fifthly, unemployed townspeople and speculators, and, finally, those persons who themselves wish to move to the countryside for a period of not less than three years to work on the land....

Should you agree with the proposed measure, a corresponding draft decree may be worked out, by agreement between the People's Commissariats of Agriculture, Education, Internal Affairs, and Railways, with the All-Russian General Staff, for submission to the Council of People's Commissars.

Appointment of a comm[iss]ion on the qu[estion] of the intensified] attract[ion] of cert[ain] categor[ies] of townspeople to ag[ricultural] work.