V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:LS/v34;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

TELEGRAM TO GUBERNIA EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE CHAIRMEN*

April 23, 1920

The Defence Council on April 21 resolved to adopt especially intensive measures to carry out the plan for supplying the Republic with grain and fodder, and to bring in food cargoes from interior assembly points to railway stations and wharves by introducing labour and cartage duty and utilising military forces. In accordance with this, I propose, in the form of a combat order, that within 24 hours of receipt of this telegram locally, you set up for the period of grain removal from interior assembly points to railway stations commissions of three, under the personal chairmanship of the gubernia food commissar, and consisting of the chairman of the gubernia labour committee and the gubernia military commissar personally, to carry out the said decision of the Defence Council. The gubernia labour committee is obliged immediately to satisfy the requirements of the gubernia food committee for labour and cartage power as a first priority. The commission of three is obliged: 1) immediately to ascertain from where, what quantity, and to which railway stations the food cargoes are to be carted, and what exactly they are; 2) to declare compulsory labour and cartage duty in these areas and to enlist the necessary number of military forces and cartage facilities; 3) to present immediately to the railway all goods carted to the stations, and to organise loading in the same combat order, bearing in mind that timely supply of empty wagons is guaranteed by the People’s Commissariat for Railways; 4) to supervise the entire progress of the work, to report weekly to the Gubernia Executive Committee on the results of the work, and to report every Monday by direct-line note to the duty representative of the People’s Commissariat for Food.

Chairman, Council of Defence,
V. Ulyanov (Lenin)

People’s Commissar for Food

*The following towns are listed in the address:
Tambov, Saratov, Samara, Ufa, Chelyabinsk, Kazan, Vyatka, Sarapul (Prikamsk Gubernia Food Committee), Penza, Pokrovsk, Baransk (German Commune), Orenburg (Kirghiz People’s Commissariat for Food), Omsk (Siberian Revolutionary Committee), Yekaterinburg (Council of Labour Army), Voronezh.