## Copies to the Provincial Food Departments and Food Front Departments

The difficult food situation must least of all affect the provisioning of the Red Army, which is now already significantly reduced in its numerical strength and will be continuously reduced to the established complement. The fulfillment of the surplus requisition, the transition to the food tax, the general food situation of the country do not give the center confidence that it can adequately provision the Red Army units with necessary foodstuffs, but the army must not experience hunger. Therefore, all local organs—first and foremost the provincial executive committees—must direct all possible attention to supplying the army, rendering assistance by all means at their disposal. The provincial food committees undertake to satisfy the needs of the army in the first place through commodity exchange, within the limits of the directives issued by the center. The difficult food situation, aggravated by the transition from surplus requisition to the food tax, must affect the army least of all. This task becomes a priority task for the provincial executive committees for the present transitional moment.

Lenin
Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and Chairman of the Council of Labor and Defense

Written May 28, 1921

First published in 1942 in Lenin Collection XXXIV

Reproduced from the typescript signed by