Letter to Alexander Tsiurupa, August 8, 1918

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Tsyurupa

Every effort must be made now so that in actual fact both decrees (on harvesting detachments and on collective trains)

are merged in practice and provide us with our detachments.[1]

What is being done in this direction?

1) Instruction: in the collective trains a certain proportion in each (1 in 5, for example) should be from the trade unions,

2) § 7 of the decree on collective trains should be developed and strengthened,

3) their correlation (in effect—help) with the requisitioning detachments....

4) Assign them all to a maximum of 2 uyezds (from among the best) and sweep these clean.

  1. ↑ This refers to the following decrees of the Council of People’s Commissars drafted on the basis of Lenin’s “Theses on the Food Question” written on August 2, 1918 (see present edition, Vol. 28, pp. 45–47): “On Drawing Workers’ Organisations into Grain Procurement” (in Lenin’s letter it is called a decree on collective trains) and “On Harvesting and Harvesting-Requisitioning Detachments”. The decrees were adopted at the sittings of the Council of People’s Commissars on August 3 and 4, 1918, and published in Izvestia on August 6.
    Clause 7 of the decree “On Drawing Workers’ Organisations into Grain Procurement”, mentioned lower down in the document, states: “Detachments setting out to procure grain are obliged to assist the local population in bringing in the harvest.”