Written: July 19, 1919
Published:
First published in 1942 in Lenin Miscellany XXXIV.
Printed from the manuscript.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
2nd English Edition,
Progress Publishers,
1971,
Moscow,
Volume 42,
page 139.2.
Translated: Bernard Isaacs
Transcription\Markup:
D. Walters
Copyleft:
V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org)
© 2003
Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the
terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
The delay in endorsing the instructions concerning food parcels from the army{1} is an outrageous and intolerable piece of red tape.
It is necessary to ascertain who the culprits are and generally have this case investigated, first, in order to establish responsibility, second—and most important of all—in order to work out practical measures to make a repetition of this impossible.
I therefore order the institutions listed below, who were to have taken care of the speedy enforcement of the law on food parcels,
to immediately, rigorously and carefully investigate the cause of this red tape by collecting all relevant documents and questioning all persons concerned
and submit to the C.P.C. on Tuesday their reports together with their proposal of practical measures for eliminating red tape.
The institutions are:
Secretariat of the C.P.C. and Council of Defence
Central Committee of the Food Army
Food Commissariat
Military Commissariat
Commissariat for Post and Telegraph.
V. Ulyanov (Lenin)
Chairman, Council of People’s Commissars
{1} The Council of Defence on May 24, 1919, passed a decision allowing Red Armymen of frontline units operating in the rich grain producing districts to send food parcels to their families in the famine-stricken areas. The Council ordered the Central Committee of the Food Army to submit not later than June 1 a draft of detailed instructions for the implementation of this decision. The draft was endorsed by the Council of Defence on July 23, 1919.
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