February 18, 1920, city of Kharkov.

For the purpose of regularizing the food supply situation in the Donets Basin, the following is prescribed as binding guidance:

I. The Food Supply Commission of the South-Western Front shall communicate to the Central Administration of the Coal Industry and the Transport Department of the South-Western Railways three times a week (on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) at which stations there are food supply cargoes loaded in railway cars from among those designated for the Donbas.

II. The Central Administration of the Coal Industry, together with the Transport Department of the South-Western Front and the Transport Supply Administration, shall immediately transfer these cargoes to the depots of the Donets Basin, as directed by the Food Supply Commission of the South-Western Front.

III. Transportation of food supply cargoes for the Donbas is equated with military-operational shipments.

IV. Mine locomotives are granted the right to travel with coal trains to collect food supplies on the orders of the Food Supply Commission of the South-Western Front.

V. The Food Supply Commission of the South-Western Front shall, within one week, organize a network of representatives at each district, and these representatives are required, over the joint signature of the district administration representatives, to report three times a week (on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays), in the form of operational dispatches, to the Council of the Labour Army on the receipt of food cargoes, broken down by category, at the district cooperative, and to submit weekly summaries of distributions made, indicating the ration size, the number of persons fed, and the period covered.

Chairman of the Council of the Labour Army,

I. Stalin.

Source: Marxism and Modernity. 2003. No. 1-2, p. 14.