Date: 1921
Source: ru:LS/v20

transport routes*. Ed.
LENIN’S COLLECTION
the quantity of grain delivered to the stations, which deeply alarmed me.”
Larkomprod and the People’s Commissariat for Railways. Thus, all efforts made to restore the Southeastern Railways to a normal fuel supply—efforts that have been achieved only at great cost—may well prove futile. I propose that, with your signature, you immediately confirm Markov’s report and, at the same time, explain the reasons for the recent decline in loading volumes. I would like to point out that, despite extreme difficulties in exporting grain from Siberia—and in light of the Central Committee’s decision to halt grain procurement throughout European Russia in order to ease the sowing campaign—supplying the central regions now relies, to a significant extent, on the North Caucasus. You bear the responsibility of shipping six million tons of grain each month, including seed grain; to this end, you must resolutely intensify grain procurement efforts. In practice, ensure that daily shipments to the center via Bataysk–Tsaritsyn average no fewer than two hundred railcars per day. Through these measures, the Sovnarkom will be able to secure both the necessary loading volumes and the smooth flow of traffic. Your administrative officer, Gisen, has already relayed by direct line to Khalatov that you expect to deliver only seven million tons to the center by May 1st. Given the crisis in central supply that has already begun to unfold, this is absolutely unacceptable. The situation urgently demands that the center maintain constant oversight over the progress of grain procurement and actual daily dispatches. Please inform us without delay, today itself, for inclusion in the Sovnarkom’s records, of the actual grain stocks across the entire Caucasus—broken down separately by province and by station—as well as your projections regarding further procurement and the assurance of daily loading, and specify how immediate assistance from the center should be structured. [102]
Chairman of the Defense Council, Tenin.
Rostov-on-Don. To Frumkin and Markov.
[February 16, 1921]
In view of the Republic’s food situation, which has grown extremely acute—especially in light of the temporary interruption in grain deliveries from Siberia—heroic measures must be taken to intensify and maximize grain loading and shipment to the center from the Transcaucasus. This is an utterly exceptional…