TELEGRAM TO THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT
OF UKRAINE – HEADQUARTERS OF THE SOUTH-WESTERN FRONT **
October 16, 1920
In response to your telegram concerning the landless peasants, I submit my views. If they are truly revolutionary, then the following measures should be adopted:
1) Collective cultivation;
2) Loan-out stations for agricultural implements;
3) Seize surplus funds from the kulaks beyond their labor quota;
4) Collect all grain surpluses, compensating the landless peasants with grain in kind;
5) Place the kulaks’ agricultural tools at the loan-out stations;
6) Implement all these measures only on the condition of successful collective cultivation and under genuine, effective oversight. Communes should be relegated to the very last priority, for what is most dangerous are artificial, pseudo-communes—and the tendency to isolate individual peasants from the broader mass.
Extreme caution must be exercised in introducing new policies, and every proposed measure must be subjected to a triple check to ensure its real-world feasibility.
Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars
Lenin
* The letter is printed from the original manuscript, signed by V. I. Lenin, who appended the note: “A copy to the Pravda printing office.”
** Printed from a typewritten copy. The margins of the document bear the annotation:
“Hand over to the duty commissar for immediate transmission.”

RUSSIAN
FEDERATIVE
REPUBLIC OF
CHIEF
COUNCIL
OF PEOPLE’S
COMMISSARS
X X X IV
LENIN COLLECTION
1920