Delivered: 12 January,
1918
First Published: 1931 January, in Lenin
Miscellany XVIII.
Source: Lenin's Collected Works,
Progress Publishers, Moscow, Volume 26, 1972, pp. 483
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov and George Hanna,
Edited by George Hanna
Transcription\HTML Markup: Charles Farrell and
David Walters
Online Version: Lenin Internet Archive November, 2000
January 12, 1918.
In view of the looming danger of famine in Petrograd, and in accordance with the Council of People's Commissars decision on the inspection of railways in Petrograd and its vicinity to discover any possible carloads of grain in the yards, the Red Guard H.Q. is hereby ordered to help carry out such inspection and apprehend profiteers and saboteurs.
With this aim in view, the required number of detachments must be immediately formed and dispatched tomorrow morning, January 13, to Comrade Nevsky or his Deputy at the Commissariat for Railway Affairs, to conduct the following joint operations with him:
(1) make a round of the stations and get their chiefs and other administrative personnel to sign written statements that there is not a single carload of grain or foodstuffs (at the station or on the railway tracks);
(2) to verify that there are actually no carloads of grain, etc.; the check-up to be conducted jointly with railwaymen;
(3) in the event of false evidence or misleading reports, administrative personnel (by agreement with railwaymen's committees) should be arrested and handed over to revolutionary tribunals.
V. Ulyanov (Lenin),
Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars