TO THE DECREE ON THE TAX IN KIND

TO THE DECREE ON THE TAX IN KIND
SEPTEMBER 17 — OCTOBER 26, 1918
The question of introducing a tax in kind was outlined by Lenin
in the August food theses (see pp. 422–424).
For the first time, a draft decree on taxing rural owners with a
tax in kind was submitted at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars on September 4,
1918 by N. N. Krestinsky (People's Commissar of Finance).*
The Council of People's Commissars transferred the draft decree to a commission
consisting of representatives of the Commissariats of: Finance, Food,
Agriculture, Control, and Internal Affairs, instructing N. N. Krestinsky to convene
the commission. The commission was to give a report on its work within a week.
On September 17, at the very first meeting of the Council of People's Commissars at which
Lenin was present after being wounded on August 30, 1918, he exchanged
notes with N. N. Krestinsky, inquiring about the situation regarding the development of the decree and its main
provisions.
The report and draft decree on taxing rural owners with a tax in kind in the form of deductions of agricultural
products was discussed a second time on September 24 at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars
(protocol of the Council of People's Commissars No. 499, archive I. L. M 44920). In the process, apparently,
of discussing the question, Lenin, on a sheet of paper where he was recording
the speakers, made calculations, using, apparently, the
submitted tables for calculating the size of the tax in kind
based on the amount of land sown per farm in poods of rye. The tables have not been preserved in the materials of the Council of People's Commissars,
and therefore it is not possible to comment on all the figures and examples cited
by Lenin.
Tables of the tax in kind by area sown and by the number of livestock
were published later (see "Collection of Laws and Orders of the Government"
No. 94–92, December 22, 1918, p. 924).
At the same meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, on September 24, Lenin sketched out,
apparently, a plan for his speech on the tax in kind, which
was then formulated in more detail in a number of basic
provisions; in the spirit of these provisions, the Council of People's Commissars proposed to the commission
to revise the draft decree on taxing rural owners with a tax in kind.