Letter to Semyon Sereda and Nikolai Bryukhanov, November 16, 1920

Add a subpage to this text

Read the help page for usage.

 

Written by Lenin after a talk on surplus-food requisition with N. S. Bodyakov, a delegate of the peasants of Mosalsk Uyezd, Kaluga Gubernia, on November 16, 1920. p. 52

16.XI.1920

From Mosalsk Uyezd, Kaluga Gubernia.

1) At first requisition is said to have been in live cattle— this caused extreme dissatisfaction among the peasants. It was even said that they “were being robbed”.

Later (in X. 1920) the requisition is said to have been switched from live cattle to meat (.13 pounds per cow, 26 pounds per pig, 7 pounds per sheep, etc.). The peasants were highly satisfied with this change.

The requisition is now said to be again in live cattle: there is again dissatisfaction and bitterness among the peasants.

2) The former Baryatinsky estate (later owned by a German, something like Schalart) in Silkovo Volost, probably more than 1,000 dessiatines.

This has been taken over for a state farm, the land is lying waste, millions are said to be taken from the treasury, no more than 5 dessiatines ploughed up in 1920. Ten (out of about 100) horses and 30–40 (out of 200) cows remain. No one is working hard. The furniture has been pilfered, etc.

The peasants in the neighbourhood are very much in need of land and are highly disgruntled at not being given either meadow or land.

(Nikolai Semyonovich Bodyakov, Silkovo Volost, the village of Filipkovo, Mosalsk Uyezd, Kaluga Gubernia.)

I request Comrades Bryukhanov and Sereda to order a report and to let me have it, within two days, at the latest.

Can these needs be met? Or is there some obstacle?

Lenin