Fighting for Food
Fighting for Food. January 1918
These short newspaper dispatches from January and February 1918 capture the food war tearing through Soviet Russia. In Riazan, local Soviets ordered village grain inventories and peasants disarmed the soldiers sent to requisition surpluses. Starving Petrograders, meanwhile, organized themselves into armed parties and seized railway cars to flee the capital.
Original Source: Pravda, No. 27, 16 February 1918, p. 4.
Pravda, No. 27, February 16, 1918, p. 4.
The villages of Voronezh are engaged in a class war. In almost every village one can see two hostile camps. One is composed of the well-to-do peasants, the village intelligentsia, practically all of them Socialist-Revolutionists of the Right ... and the other of 'the poor peasants who see the need of organizing ... taking the government into their own hands and shaping the village life on a more just basis.
On January 30 the Bukrin Soviet of Riazan Guberniia ... voted to make an inventory of the grain in the township. On the day following ... five soldiers were sent to the village of Alabino to make an inventory of the grain and to requisition any surplus in the hands of the citizens and the pomeshchik Muratov.
The peasants refused to submit to the orders of the Soviet. They not only concealed their supplies but also seized whatever Muratov had ...
Novaia Zhizn, No. 27, February 17, 1918, p. 4.
In one- of the villages of Riazan there was a fight between the peasants and soldiers who came to requisition bread. A number were killed and wounded. The peasants rushed to the city, disarmed the local militia, seized all the guns, and put the soldiers to flight ...
Novaia Zhizn, No. 26, February 16, 1918, p. 3.
Owing to famine and unemployment many people are fleeing from Petrograd. In some cases this is done in the following manner: Those wishing to go organize parties of 100 or 150, collect the necessary money, and reserve a car. On the appointed day they come with their baggage and guns, take possession of the car, and fight off all others who try to force their way into the car.
Novaia Zhizn, No. 27, February 17, 1918, p. 4.
The city of Rzhev is passing through a severe food crisis ... The local Soviet passed a decree that all supplies arriving in the city through the railroads should be first distributed among the soldiers, and what is left ... goes to the rest of the population ... More recently the commissars issued another decree prohibiting the peasants from the neighboring villages bringing food to the city. At first the peasants attempted to ignore the decree with the result that all the supplies which they brought to the market were requisitioned ... The peasants stopped bringing food to the market and the city population had to go to the village.
Source: James Bunyan and H.H. Fisher, ed., Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1918; Documents and Materials (Stanford: Stanford University Press; H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1934), pp. 659-660.