V. I.

Lenin

419

To:   V. M. MOLOTOV

Comrade Molotov:

The question of cancelling the C.P.C. decision of 6/IX,
increasing the tax on potatoes, must be introduced in the Politbureau tomorrow (with Frumkin
summoned). [2]

Lenin .

What did you agree with Stalin about
Petrograd? [1]

---
Notes:
[1]
See Document 408 of this volume.— Ed.

[2]
The Politbureau of the R.C.P.(B.) C.C., having discussed the
matter on October 3, adopted the following decision: “To
instruct Comrade Frumkin to draw up a draft resolution of the
communist group of the All-Russia C.E.C. session.... To have the
resolution stress the need of correcting the excessive burden laid
on the peasants which was necessitated by the need to aid the
starving, and also indicate measures for its correction” (Central
Party Archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the
C.P.S.U. Central Committee).

The Fourth Session of the All-Russia C.E.C., having examined
the circumstances which, had forced the C.P.C. to increase the
rate of substitution of potatoes for rye, decided that such an
increase could only be allowed as an emergency measure and only
in view of exceptional circumstances (famine), and expressed
confidence that the rural population would accept the new rate
of substitution as a duty to the starving (see Izvestia VTsIK
No. 224, October 7, 1921).