V. I. Lenin

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

FOOD AND SUPPLIES

LETTER TO THE TULA GUBERNIA COMMITTEE OF THE
RUSSIAN COMMUNIST PARTY AND THE GUBERNIA
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

To the Tula Gubernia Committee of the Russian Communist Party,
the Gubernia Executive Committee

December 21, 1919

Dear Comrades,

Kolchak and Yudenich have been routed by the heroic efforts of the Red Army. The immediate task is the final defeat of Denikin. To accomplish this task in the shortest possible time and with the least expenditure of effort, which will ensure a speedy end to the war and make it possible to proceed with peaceful socialist construction, it has been necessary to use all the transport facilities of the Republic for military purposes. As a result, Moscow has been deprived of the possibility of being supplied with food from distant localities, and the working population of Moscow, on whose shoulders the main burden of the struggle against counter-revolution has fallen and continues to fall, has found itself in an especially desperate position. In these circumstances it is absolutely essential to deliver food products, and primarily potatoes, from the nearest localities. All Party and all Soviet forces in the gubernia must be imbued with the idea that saving the Moscow workers from death by starvation means saving the revolution, and that the cause of this salvation is in their hands. The situation calls for speedy assistance, i.e., revolutionary, resolute activity to immediately increase procurements and immediately deliver what has been procured to Moscow. I know that the Tula workers, through their Rabochkom, have done excellent work in procuring supplies. This work must be extended and intensified. The Tula workers must come to the aid of the Moscow workers. In this critical time of famine for Moscow, the alliance of the Tula and Moscow workers must be consolidated. Organise speedy assistance from Red Tula to Red Moscow. Within ten days the gubernia must supply Moscow with no less than four hundred carloads of potatoes. Until this assignment is fully carried out, the execution of all other orders is to be suspended. The People’s Commissariat for Ways and Communications will ensure the supply of cars and the dispatch of freight. Vigorously insist on the fulfilment of this guarantee in the localities.