V. I. Lenin

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

ON THE RESULTS OF GRAIN PROCUREMENT.
DRAFT DECISION OF THE CONFERENCE OF THE GROUPS OF THE CENTRAL UNION OF CONSUMER SOCIETIES AND THE FOOD COMMISSARIAT.¹
[October 2, 1919]²
To appoint two factual reports—one from the group of the Central Union of Consumer Societies and one from the Food Commissariat—at the [SNK] conference on the implementation of the decrees of March 20,³ April 3,⁴ and July 3, with figures on the results of procurements by product and by gubernia, on the number of procurement contracts, the number fulfilled, unfulfilled, etc., with a detailed description of one contract and one district of procurement and distribution, with data on our conquest of the non-commercial—and commercial—work of the cooperatives and [on the abolition] on the transformation of bourgeois cooperatives into socialist ones.⁵

¹ from the Central Union of Consumer Societies
¹ from the Food Commissariat
{ Wednesday: ² } ¹ week.⁶

¹ This conference was organised by the Council of People's Commissars, under Lenin's chairmanship.

² Basis for dating: judging by Lenin's note at the end of the draft—Lenin appoints the next conference of the Groups of the Central Union of Consumer Societies and the Food Commissariat in a week. The conference planned by Lenin took place on October 9. This circumstance provides grounds for dating the printed document to October 2, 1919.

³ Decree of the SNK of March 20, 1919, "On Consumer Communes."

⁴ Lenin has in mind the SNK decision of April 3, 1919, on the reorganisation of the board of the Central Union of Consumer Societies, which at that time consisted mostly of Mensheviks. On the basis of this decision, the board of the Central Union of Consumer Societies was supplemented, in order to strengthen Soviet and communist influence within it, with four members of the workers' cooperatives, namely: L. M. Khinchuk, I. A. Sammer, A. M. Lezhava, I. I. Skvortsov, and three representatives of the Council of People's Commissars in the persons of: O. Schmidt, M. Frumkin, and P. Voikov. The process of communising the apparatus of the Central Union of Consumer Societies was rather lengthy.

Lenin had already pointed out the necessity of securing a majority from the workers' cooperatives on the board of the Central Union of Consumer Societies and ensuring the possibility of introducing experienced communist practitioners into it in January 1919, in his draft of an SNK decision on cooperatives (minutes of the SNK of January 25, 1919). Apparently, the SNK decision of February 27, 1918, was also formulated by him during the discussion of the draft decree on the attitude towards workers' cooperatives: "To instruct Krestinsky and Schmidt (the food supply official) to submit to the SNK a draft decree on the complete reorganisation of the board of the Central Union of Consumer Societies and on measures for its rapid and complete conquest" (minutes of the SNK No. 261).

In addition to the decision of April 3, 1919, later, by the SNK decision of June 27, 1919—representatives of the SNK introduced into the board of the Central Union of Consumer Societies, besides those named above: N. N. Krestinsky, S. S. Pilyavsky, and S. Z. Rozovsky.

⁵ Lenin refers to the All-Russia Central Executive Committee decision on workers' and peasants' consumer societies, issued in addition to the SNK decree of March 20, 1919, on "Consumer Communes" (see *Izvestia VTsIK* No. 143 of July 3, 1919). Already in January 1918, Lenin had in mind "the transformation of bourgeois cooperatives into socialist ones." Lenin also speaks in detail about "the difficulty of the task of working out a system of practical measures for the transition from the old cooperatives to communist supply and distribution" and about the necessity of placing this question "on the order of the day as the most important" in February 1919 in his note to Milyutin, Rykov, Krestinsky and Bryukhanov (see *Lenin Miscellany* XVIII, pp. 290–291).

⁶ The text from "¹ week" is written by Lenin in the margin.