Bolshevik Leaders correspondence

Bolshevik leadership Correspondence. 1912-1927
Collection of documents 1996.
Compiled by: A.V.Kvashonkin, L.P.Kosheleva, L.A.Rogovaya, O.V.Khlevnyuk.

Telephone message from X. G. Rakovsky to V. I. Lenin

March 31, 1921

Moscow Com. Lenin

Urgently

General condition of Ukraine.

1st. In March, about 32 million [poods of coal] for local needs are expected to be produced in Donbass for local needs, fifteen are expected to be free cash, presumably seventeen, this is the largest figure. In April, in connection with the holiday, strong fermentation should be expected.

2nd. There is no particular fermentation in the cities. Moscow and Petrograd wave 1 swept here in January, especially in Odessa and Nikolaev, but was much weaker.

3rd. We are provided with food only for April. We fear that the announcement of a tax in kind will put an end to apportionment, which we have completed only about one third of. In this case, strong discontent should be expected in May. So far, information from the provinces says that the negative effect of the declaration of a tax in kind on harvesting is not reflected, and that if it has decreased, then this is exclusively in connection with the beginning of the sowing campaign.

4th. We have begun the sowing campaign and it is desirable to know as soon as possible what the method of carrying out the tax in kind will be, as well as other practical measures in order to be able to announce them in time already by the time when the turning point [in] the sowing campaign comes, and, having sowed for his own consumption, the peasant must decide whether he should sow more for the state 2 .

5th. The participation of the Red Army [in] the sowing campaign is yielding results 3 . In one Nikolaev province, about six thousand Red Army horses from the convoy participate in the sowing campaign.

So far, it is reflected very well both among the population and among the Red Army soldiers. I have no reason to expect any complications.

6th. A very large decrease in banditry, but small gangs are everywhere. In April, after the end of the sowing campaign, one should expect an increase in banditry, especially on the right bank.

7th. We have determined the tax in kind [at] one hundred and seventeen million [poods], of which eighteen for the needs of commercial assistance and a fund for the exchange of goods abroad. The remaining allocation for this year was mowed down by more than half. Only fifty million have been left with the expectation that it will be fully completed.

8th. On all questions: tax, financial, simplification of the Soviet apparatus, commissions work, the final decision of which, however, will depend on the decision of the commission in Moscow.

9th. I earnestly ask you to support me before Lezhava in order to use Saliner's stay in Moscow for the practical solution of the issues raised by the well-known agreement on the commodity fund of Ukraine.

Rakovsky.

RTSKHIDNI. F. 5. 0p. 1. D. 2897. L. 65-66v. Typewritten text.

Notes:

1 We are talking about a wave of anti-Soviet actions of the workers in connection with the extreme deterioration of the food and material situation.

On March 27, 1921, Lenin received a telephone message signed by Petrovsky with a request on behalf of the Politburo of the Central Committee of Ukraine on the procedure for taxing the peasant farms of Ukraine with tax in kind. Having made a number of notes, Lenin sent a copy of this telephone message to Tsyurupa and on the same day spoke with Petrovsky by telephone. Petrovsky asked to expedite the answer, and Lenin, in a letter to L. B. Kamenev, suggested urgently discussing the issue in the commission of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) on the development of practical measures for the implementation of the tax in kind (V. I. Lenin. Biographical chronicle. T. 10. P. 249) . On March 27 or 28, 1921, Lenin got acquainted with the minutes of the meeting of the Central Committee commission of March 27 and made a number of numerical calculations opposite the item on food work in Ukraine (Ibid., pp. 251-252).

3 The decision to participate in the sowing campaign of the units of the Red Army liberated from hostilities was an integral part of the plan for the creation of labor armies proposed in 1920 by the Revolutionary Military Council of the 3rd Army and supported by Trotsky and Lenin (Lenin V. I. PSS. T. 51. C .115).