Date: 1921
Source: ru:LS/v20

AMENDMENTS TO THE DRAFT RESOLUTION OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE

6. Households that produce grain and potatoes—measured in terms of grain equivalent—below a specified per-capita quota shall be exempt from tax on these commodities.  
7. The total tax burden for each type of taxation across the RSFSR, together with the corresponding tax rates, as well as the tax amount and tax rates for each guberniya, shall be announced once annually. Taxation on grain, potatoes, and fodder shall be announced prior to the onset of spring fieldwork, while taxes on other products shall be announced at other precisely prescribed deadlines.  
8. The delivery of tax‑paying agricultural products to the state must be completed within clearly defined timeframes established by law.  
9. The total quantity of tax‑paying products is calculated at the level of rural communes (societies). Within each rural commune, the tax is apportioned among households according to statutory norms that precisely determine the extent of taxation and are applied uniformly to individual households, under the oversight of organizations representing the poorest segments of the population. The forms and scope of this oversight, as well as the organizational structures and oversight powers themselves, are to be determined by law.  
10. All foodstuffs, raw materials, and fodder remaining in the hands of farmers after they have fulfilled their tax obligations—whether for general state needs or for supplementary allocations to meet the needs of the most impoverished local populations—are entirely at their disposal. Farmers may use these resources to improve and strengthen their farms, to increase personal consumption, and to exchange them for goods produced by industrial and artisanal enterprises as well as for agricultural outputs.  
Exchange is permitted both within the boundaries of the rural commune (society) and beyond its borders. In the latter case, exchanges must be conducted exclusively through the mechanisms of the Commodity Supply Agency. Any other form of exchange outside the prescribed frameworks shall be prosecuted as speculation.  
11. A special fund shall be established within the People’s Commissariat for Food Supplies, dedicated to providing agricultural implements and consumer goods to the poorest peasantry—and to exchanging surplus foodstuffs, raw materials, and fodder voluntarily surrendered by farmers to the state upon fulfillment of their natural tax obligations.  
12. The All‑Union Central Executive Committee is tasked with supplying the People’s Commissariat for Food Supplies, in 1921, with the requisite quantities of textiles, salt, kerosene, agricultural implements, and other consumer goods needed to establish the aforementioned Fund.  
13. Publication in the press of resolutions and regulations concerning the food tax—both by the Central Committee and by the Party Congress, as well as by the All‑Russian Central Executive Committee—shall be postponed until after the commencement of sowing.  
14. By the time the resolution on the food tax is published, party organs are to be instructed to interpret the transition from requisitioning to taxation as a further step toward the rationalization and consolidation of agriculture—a move that places state food obligations within clearly defined limits, enabling peasants to increase their own consumption, develop their farms, and conduct their economic affairs in a manner that is both orderly and peaceful.

COLLECTED WORKS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PARTY  
15. An extraordinary session of the All‑Russian Central Executive Committee, held in a particularly solemn setting, adopts the corresponding decree on the natural tax.  
16. The People’s Commissariat for Food Supplies, the Central Statistical Office, and the People’s Commissariat for Land Affairs are directed to immediately finalize the specific figures to be incorporated into the text of the decree—such as the total tax burden, allocation quotas, and the like.  
Appendix No. 2.  
PRELIMINARY DRAFT OF THE BASIC PROVISIONS ON REPLACING REQUISITIONING WITH A NATURAL TAX, SUBMITTED BY THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE FOR CONSIDERATION AT THE X PARTY CONGRESS.  
[Between March 7 and 14, 1921]  
1. In order to ensure the proper and peaceful conduct of farm operations based on farmers’ more free disposition of their own agricultural resources, to strengthen peasant farming and raise its productive capacity, and also to establish with precision the state obligations imposed upon farmers, requisitioning—as a method of state procurement of food, raw materials, and fodder—is replaced by a natural tax.  
2. This tax must be lower than the requisitioning system that had been in place up to that point. The total tax burden should be calculated so as to cover the minimum essential needs of the army, urban workers, and the non‑agricultural population. As transportation and industry gradually recover and enable the Soviet government to obtain agricultural products through normal channels—in exchange for factory‑made and artisanal goods—the overall tax burden must be steadily reduced.  
3. The tax is levied as a percentage or share-based deduction from the products produced on the farm, taking into account the yield, the number of household members, and the actual livestock holdings on the farm.  
4. The tax should be progressive in nature: the tax rate for medium‑sized and smallholder farms, as well as for urban worker households and the like, should be lowered.  
Peasant households among the poorest may be exempted from certain types of natural tax—and in exceptional cases, from all forms of natural tax. Diligent farmers who expand the acreage under cultivation on their farms, or who increase the overall productivity of their farms, may receive preferential treatment in fulfilling their natural tax obligations—either through reductions in tax rates or through partial or complete exemptions from taxation.  
5. The tax law must be drafted and published in such a way that farmers are informed, as accurately as possible, of the precise extent of their obligations even before the onset of spring fieldwork.  
6. The delivery of tax‑paying agricultural products to the state must be completed within clearly defined timeframes established by law.  
7. The total quantity of tax‑paying products is calculated at the level of rural communes (societies). Within each rural commune…