TELEGRAM TO PROVINCIAL FOOD COMMISSARS
17 September 1920

The below-average grain harvest over most of the Republic's territory necessitates, in order to mitigate the food crisis, bringing the procurement of potatoes, which can replace the grain shortage in the population's diet, to maximum levels. Therefore, I propose, in the form of a combat order: 1) demand from volost executive committees of Soviets that immediately after the digging of potatoes, the owners who have received assignments in the order of the levy deliver the potatoes to state collection points; 2) give personal assignments to the authorised representatives of the provincial food committee, uyezd food committees and district food committees for fulfilling specific percentages of the levy within the shortest specified deadlines; 3) before the onset of frosts, the potato levy must be completed at one hundred percent; 4) jointly with the provincial committee for labour, mobilise horse-drawn transport for hauling potatoes to the railways and potato storage facilities; 5) the technical apparatuses of the food organs are obliged to complete the equipping of potato storage facilities by 1 October; 6) all provincial councils of the national economy are to take all measures to supply the food organs with necessary materials for construction; 7) report daily to the People's Commissariat of Food Supply by direct line on the quantity of potatoes received.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars
Lenin