Food Requisition Detachments
V. I. Lenin, Food Requisition Detachments. August 4, 1918
Food requisitioning detachments were important features of Russian life in 1918. They were organized mainly in the cities to requisition grain from the peasantry, especially in the southern regions. They had already commenced work in the spring, but this decree formally authorized their activity in connection with the upcoming harvest and attempted to regulate them.
Original Source: Bednota, No. 69, 21 June 1918.
All guberniia and uyezd Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies, all committees of the poor, all trade union organizations of workers, together with the local organs of the People's Commissariats of Food and Agriculture are to form immediately harvesting and grain requisition detachments. Detachments of workers and peasants from starving guberniias, sent to requisition grain, are to help in bringing in the new harvest. Form immediately new detachments from among local peasants and workers to carry out these tasks.
The tasks of the above-mentioned detachments are:
(a) Harvest winter grain in former landlord owned estates;
(b) Harvest grain in front line areas;
(c) Harvest grain on the land of notorious kulaks and rich people;
(d) Help in harvesting grain in good time everywhere and in the transfer of all surpluses to state storehouses.
All grain, collected by harvesting and grain requisition detachments, is to be distributed on the following basis: firstly, of course, the necessary amount of grain to satisfy the need for food of the poorest strata of the local population is to be distributed. This part of the grain collected is not to be removed but to remain at the local level. All other grain is to be immediately and unconditionally delivered to grain collection centers. The distribution of this grain is to be carried out by the guberniia food committees on the instructions of the People's Commissariat of Food.
Members of harvesting and food requisition detachments, if they are not being rewarded according to previously published decrees (e.g. the decree on the maintenance of volunteer workers, going to the front and in food detachments. their localities and average earnings) are to be rewarded, firstly, by an allowance in natura; secondly, by payment in cash according to local conditions and; thirdly, special bonuses for successful and rapid fulfillment of harvesting work and the transfer of grain to storage centers. The extent of rewards and bonuses are to be determined by guberniia food committees on the basis of instructions from the Commissariat of Food.
Source: Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition, Volume 27 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972), pages 454-456