The supply of foodstuffs to the cities declined from day to day. During the four months of Peshekhonov’s administration, the general amount of goods carried by the railways dropped to one-third and the amount of food, in particular, to two-fifths. The Ministry of Food was practically inactive.
“The struggle against the catastrophe,” Lenin wrote, “began to be waged by self-appointed democratic organisations—committees of supply and food committees . . . of all sorts.”(1)
The grain monopoly was attacked by the landlords and kulaks from all sides. Public organisations, and above all the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies in Petrograd and Moscow, demanded that the government should take severe measures against grain profiteers. But the “Popular Socialist” Peshekhonov took no measures whatever. At a meeting of the National Food Committee held on August 24, a report was heard on the subject of “a temporary addition to the price of products purchased with credits granted by the Ministry of Food in accordance with the decision of the Provisional Government of May 19, 1917.”(2) The Food Committee unanimously decided to make a temporary addition of 7 per cent on the prices of all food products. Of course, 7 per cent was considerably less than the 100 per cent addition made by the government. But even 7 per cent forced a breach in the fixed prices, a breach that could be widened indefinitely. By voting in favour of this 7 per cent increase, the representatives of the democracy themselves helped the government to destroy the fixed prices.
Nevertheless, when the government abolished the fixed prices, Peshekhonov resigned. The reason he gave was that this measure would increase government expenditures by two billion roubles. He was replaced by Prokopovich, the former Minister of Commerce and Industry, who, it was considered, would display greater firmness in his stand against the workers. Comparing Prokopovich to Peshekhonov, Rokhovich, a representative of the bourgeoisie, said:
“And one can picture the position of the Minister of Commerce and Industry, whose function it is to develop trade in the country, when another member of the government [Peshekhonov—Ed.] opposes him and takes measures tending to destroy trade completely.”(3)
Prokopovich stood for freedom of trade and seemed to be the proper man for the job of abolishing the grain monopoly.
The Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, like their protégé Peshekhonov, put up only a verbal resistance to the government’s offensive against the working classes. Instead of appealing to the masses and demanding Kerensky’s impeachment, they confined themselves to sterile oratory. Lenin described their position in the following terms:
“The government violates the law by adopting in the interests of the rich, the landowners and capitalists a measure which ruins the whole work of control, food supply and salvaging the extremely shaky finances, while the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks continue to talk about reaching an understanding with commercial and industrial circles, continue to attend conferences with Tereshchenko, continue to spare Kerensky, and confine themselves to a paper resolution of protest, which the government very calmly pigeon-holes!”(4)
The doubling of grain prices was equivalent to an enormous tax on the working population. By one stroke of the pen the government made a present of two billion roubles to the landlords and kulaks at the expense of the workers and poor peasants. The doubling of grain prices undermined the State grain purchases, gave a free hand to the profiteers, disturbed finances still more and aggravated the famine and the state of economic disruption. In September the newspapers reported:
“Intense profiteering is going on in the provinces at the present time owing to the discrepancy between prices of agricultural produce and prices of manufactured goods. Instead of bringing their grain to the market and selling it at the fixed prices, the peasants load it into sacks and, by fair means or foul, consign it as baggage to the large cities and sell it at a higher price. In trains and at railway stations you see profiteers laden with sacks who with the help of soldiers or of ordinary bystanders pile sacks crammed with grain into passenger cars or heated freight cars for sale in the large cities.”(5)
The illicit distilling of spirits became widespread and, as the Ministry of Food admitted, destroyed grain in “frightful quantities.” Profiteering became still more widespread. Kondratyev, a prominent bourgeois, wrote as follows:
“The fixed prices were doubled. . . . But in view of the rapidly rising prices in the open market, the new fixed prices and scales lag a long way behind them.”(6)
The doubling of prices not only stimulated profiteering in grain but also contributed to a general rise in prices. “The increase in grain prices by 100 per cent has had a staggering effect; the prices of certain staples have doubled,”(7) it was reported from the Taurida Province.
“There is to be observed a rising tendency in the prices of products which have only an extremely remote relation to grain,”(8) it was reported from Kherson. A report from Kharkov stated that: “The economically well-placed peasants have hopes of a new increase in prices; confidence in a firm food policy on the part of the government has been destroyed.”(9) The government having increased prices once, the grain-owners were certain that it would increase them again. They began to hold back grain—“the currency of all currencies.” Sabotage of the state grain purchases assumed even newer forms: grain was concealed or damaged, or the ploughing of fields for the next year’s crop was performed in a deliberately negligent fashion. A government emissary reported from the Orel Province that sowing was being done on fields overrun with weeds, ploughing was being carelessly performed, and no manure was being used. A report to the Ministry of Food from the Moghilev Province stated that landlords were making obviously false returns of their grain stocks, and that one of them had been detected concealing 10,000 poods of grain. Grain was concealed for profiteering purposes or destroyed, so as to prevent it being dispatched to the working population of the cities.
A famine winter was approaching. Rations were everywhere reduced. Food disorders were rife from the Dnieper to the Amur.
At a meeting of the Council of the Republic held on October 6, Prokopovich, the Food Minister, reporting on the one and a half months of his administration, boasted that the doubling of prices had had a beneficial effect on state purchases. But this was not the case. “The doubling of the fixed prices has not resulted in any increase in grain deliveries,”(10) it was reported from Astrakhan. “Deliveries of foodstuffs have diminished by one-third,”(11) it was stated from Kursk. “With the doubling of the fixed prices grain consignments have diminished,”(12) it was wired from Tula. This was the true story of Prokopovich’s “achievements.” The summaries of state food purchases confirmed these reports and gave the lie to Prokopovich’s statements. The September state grain purchases were a failure, the plan being fulfilled only 31.3 per cent. It is true that 46,730,000 poods of grain were purchased as compared with 19,760,000 poods in August, but this was due to the usual seasonal increase in purchases. Furthermore, fearing that their estate might be wrecked, the landlords hastened to sell their grain. The October plan was fulfilled only 19 per cent, 27,380,000 poods of grain having been purchased as compared with 48,950,000 poods in October 1916. These figures clearly gave the lie to Prokopovich.
State purchases of grain became increasingly difficult. Even the Ministry of Food was forced to admit:
“The system of compulsory alienation of grain . . . continues to be the most effective way of exercising the grain monopoly.”(13)
The dispatch of military detachments to help procure grain became more and more frequent. The deterioration in the food situation became so obvious that even non-revolutionary organisations in the provinces demanded a return to the old system. Public organisations in the Yenisei Province petitioned that the order doubling prices be rescinded on the grounds that it was superfluous in that province. It was reported from Omsk: “The Food Council protests against the unexpected and inexpedient increase in the fixed prices.”(14) The Kherson Provincial Food Committee declared that it was “a senseless and absolutely unjustified measure.”(15)
Some organisations not only protested against the decision of the government, but sabotaged it. The Astrakhan “Committee for the Salvation of the Revolution” resolved: “to sell grain at former prices.”(16) The public organisations of thirteen out of the twenty-five provinces opposed the increase in prices in one form or another.
The rulers grew alarmed. At a secret meeting of the Defence Commission of the Provisional Government summoned on October 10 to discuss the growing food shortage in the army, General Dukhonin himself spoke of “the necessity for reducing the numerical strength of the army.”(17) The government clutched at measures that only tended to hasten the catastrophe. Towards the end of September the Food Minister issued a circular on grain requisitions. He threatened to use military force against those who sabotaged the food policy of the government. But these threats were directed only against the working peasants. Nothing stronger than persuasion was used towards landlords and kulaks who concealed, destroyed and profiteered in grain. The landlords were coaxed but the peasants were coerced into surrendering grain.
The organisations which might have helped the government to avert a famine were not allowed any hand in food affairs. At the beginning of September Prokopovich suspended the sittings of the National Food Committee without the slightest regard for the wishes of its members, and announced that the sittings would be resumed only after he had made a personal tour of Russia. The Novaya Zhizn of October 5 published an interesting letter from a delegation of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, which declared:
“The delegation regards the policy of the Ministry of Food not only as a direct violation of the law, but also as a deliberate attempt to bar the National Food Committee, which represents the opinions of the revolutionary democracy and of social groups, from exercising any influence on food affairs. The delegation of the Central Executive Committee considers this policy a return to the worst days of the old régime, with its contempt for public forces and public initiative.”(18)
Even the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries “revolted.” The government decided to abolish all the various committees of public organisation and to replace them by official agents of the bureaucracy. This was Prokopovich’s last card in the “effort” to avert famine. It was illustrative of the government’s offensive against the working class on the eve of the October Revolution. The government proposed to procure grain with the help of reactionaries.
At a meeting of the Council of the Republic on October 16, Prokopovich declared:
“We must stop being persuaders, we must stop being the persuaders-in-chief. We must create organs of government in all the localities.”(19)
In order to create such a strong government authority in the localities, the Ministry revived the old system of agents and special agents. They replaced all the various democratic organisations. The agents were appointed from among people endowed with authority. For example, the notorious counter-revolutionary Dutov, Ataman of the Orenburg Cossacks, Chairman of the Council of the Union of Cossacks and an active participant in the Kornilov conspiracy, was invited to be special agent of the Orenburg district. The system of appointing special agents of the type of Dutov was not a bad way of mobilising the forces of counter-revolution in the localities. It enabled them to gain control of one of the most important instruments for fighting the revolution—food. It was almost exclusively private food merchants, worthy associates of the new agents, who were almost exclusively invited to take part in the work of food control. The agents coped with their task magnificently. At the Second Congress of Food Emissaries of the Orenburg Province and the Turgai Region, a detailed portrait was drawn of one of the most prominent of these agents—Dutov.
“In particular,” the Chief Emissary stated in his report on the Congress, “with regard to the appointment to the post of Chief Agents for the Orenburg Province and the Turgai Region of Cossack Ataman Dutov, a person who because of his political utterances is not popular among the toiling population of the territory, who has absolutely no knowledge of food affairs and who does not agree with the principles of the food monopoly, and, moreover, bearing in mind a number of the orders on food questions he issued when special agent, which disorganised the machinery that was gradually being set up (increased purchases in the open market, introduction of free-at-granary prices, complete contempt for the generally-recognised local food bodies, pursuit of a policy definitely favouring the interests of the Cossacks, etc.), the Congress particularly stresses the fact that his policy is being carried out exclusively by specially invited former agents, grain merchants and provincial rulers who were swept away in the first days of the revolution, and that such a policy completely discredits the entire food organisation in the provinces. The Congress considers that his activities are absolutely harmful to food affairs.”(20)
The emissary was mistaken in only one respect: Dutov knew perfectly well how to act in food matters in the new state so as to further the interests of the bourgeoisie and the landlords. Restoring the pre-revolutionary food machinery, sanctioning purchases in the open market (which was tantamount to destroying the monopoly) and completely ignoring the public food organisations was just the way to carry out the government’s latest instructions. The emissaries had nothing to teach Ataman Dutov in the art of counter-revolution. Dutov proved to be an “exemplary” agent, because his activities were an example of how approaching revolution should be combated on the food front. The other agents took the cue from him. Such were the measures the government took to “avert” famine. The fact is that they only helped to aggravate the famine with the object of facilitating the mobilisation of the forces of counter-revolution for a more successful struggle against the proletarian revolution, which was already knocking at the gate.
The country was irresistibly moving towards disaster. The bourgeoisie blamed everything on the revolution. Lenin wrote:
“The Cadets are full of malicious glee: the revolution, they say, has suffered collapse; the revolution has been unable to cope either with the war or with economic ruin.
“This is not true. It is the Cadets, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks who have suffered collapse, for this bloc has ruled Russia for half a year, only to increase the economic ruin and entangle and aggravate the military situation.
“The more complete the collapse of the union of the bourgeoisie with the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, the sooner will the people learn their lesson, and the easier will they find the correct way out, namely, a union of the poor peasantry, i.e., the majority of the peasantry, with the proletariat.”(21)
[1] Lenin, “The Threatening Catastrophe and How To Fight It,” Collected Works (Russ. ed.), Vol. XXI, p. 180.
[2] “Regulation of Prices of Agricultural Implements,” Prodovolstvennoye Delo (Food Affairs), 1917, No. 23-24, pp. 12-13.
[3] The Second All-Russian Congress of Commerce and Industry. Verbatim Report and Resolutions, Moscow, 1917, p. 19.
[4] Lenin, “The Threatening Catastrophe and How to Fight It,” Collected Works (Russ. ed.), Vol. XXI, p. 182.
[5] “The Food Collapse,” Izvestia of the All-Russian Soviet of Peasants’ Deputies, No. 102, September 5, 1917.
[6] N. D. Kondratyev, The Grain Market and Its Regulation During the War and Revolution, Moscow, 1922, p. 158.
[7] Central Archives of the October Revolution, Records—1944, The People’s Commissariat of Food, Register 24, File No. 101, 1917, folio 12.
[8] Ibid., folio 14.
[9] Ibid., folio 14.
[10] Ibid., folio 12.
[11] Ibid., folio 4.
[12] Ibid., folio 11.
[13] Ibid., folio 15.
[14] Ibid., folio 12.
[15] Ibid., folio 14.
[16] Ibid., folio 1.
[17] Central Archives of the October Revolution, Records—1239. The Provisional Council of the Republic (Pre-parliament), File No. 26, 1917, folio 3.
[18] “Delegation of the Central Executive Committee on Prokopovich’s Policy,” Novaya Zhizn, No. 145, October 5, 1917.
[19] Y.P.—v, “The Food Reform,” Torgovo-Promyshlennaya Gazeta, No. 227, October 18, 1917.
[20] Central Archives of the October Revolution, Records—2025, The All-Russian Military Food Committee, Register 47, File No. 685, folio 13.
[21] Lenin, “The Threatening Catastrophe and How To Fight It,” Collected Works (Russ. ed.), Vol. XXI, p. 192.
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