V. I.   Lenin

200

TELEGRAM TO K. G. RAKOVSKY AND V. I. MEZHLAUK


Published: First published in 1933 in Lenin Miscellany XXIV. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, [1976], Moscow, Volume 35, page 392.
Translated: Andrew Rothstein
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive.   You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.README


In code

May 26, 1919

Rakovsky, Council of People’s Commissars
Kiev
Mezhlauk, Deputy People’s Commissar for War
Kharkov

I repeat my request I hat you telegraph me twice a week about your actual help to the Donets Basin. I insist on the fulfilment of this request. Don’t lose a moment of your victory over Grigoryev, don’t release a single soldier who has been fighting Grigoryev.[1] Decree and put into effect the complete disarmament of the population, shoot on the spot without mercy for every concealed rifle. The whole problem of the moment is a rapid victory in the Donets Basin, the collection of all rifles from the villages, the creation of a stable army. Concentrate all forces on this task, don’t relax your energies, mobilise the workers en  masse. Read this telegram to all prominent Bolsheviks.

Lenin


Notes

[1] Reference is to the counter-revolutionary “ataman” Grigoryev, who in May 1919 had started an insurrection in the rear of the Red Army in the Southern Ukraine (Elizavetgrad, Ekaterinoslav, Krivoi Rog and Kherson area). The insurrection was crushed at the end of May 1919.


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