Letter to Ephraim Sklyansky, April 24, 1919

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Author(s) Lenin
Written 24 April 1919


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First published on September 23, 1925 in Pravda No. 217. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1971, Moscow, Volume 36, page 506
Collection(s): Pravda
Keywords : Ephraim Sklyansky, Letter

Lenin’s directives to Sklyansky were written on a report from Commander-in-Chief Vatsetis dated April 23, 1919, concerning the military situation of the RSFSR Vatsetis argued the necessity to unite the armed forces of the Soviet Republics and place them under a single command; he also proposed that the system of Universal Military Training should be temporarily done away with and its 24,000 instructors mobilised to strengthen the command of the reserve units on the Eastern Front.

Comrade Sklyansky,

This, by the way, is pertinent to what was decided yesterday.

It is necessary urgently, at once:

1) to draw up the text of a directive from the CC to all “nationals” on army unity (integration)[1] ;

2) to give it also to the press for a series of articles;

3) re universal military training (100% to be taken and not 75%[2]), prepare immediately, today, a draft decree;

4) calculate: 24,000 command personnel. At the ratio of 1 to 10 that means an army of 240,000.

Verify and take as the norm at once for the Central Board of Supply of both Russia and the Ukraine.

  1. ↑ Draft CC Directives on Army Unity”. See present edition, Vol. 29, pp. 404–05.—Ed.
  2. ↑ The report of Vatsetis has a postscript by Aralov, who objected to the total liquidation of the U.M.T. and proposed simply reducing it by 50 to 75 per cent.
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