Letter to Ephraim Sklyansky, June 8, 1919

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8/VI, 2.30 a.m.

Comrade Sklyansky,

I have just received a telegram from Stalin and Zinoviev. I hope you have already issued orders (it is essential! extremity! 1/2 or 1/3, i.e., 2 regiments from the Archangel Front, 1 from the Eastern) and have already replied to Zinoviev. If not, telephone him.

The capture of Izhevsk allows more to be taken from the east (from the southern group of the east, of course).

Send me a reply.

More hostages from among the bourgeoisie and officers’ families must be taken—in view of the more frequent betrayals. Arrange it with Dzerzhinsky.

Send a telegram to Melnichansky (over my signature) that it would be disgraceful to hesitate and not to shoot for non-appearance.

One to Beloborodov, too, that it is necessary not to “ repel”, but to annihilate the enemy, and to reply exactly where and how many have been taken, what stanitsas, what has been cleared and how.[1]

Yours,

Lenin

  1. ↑ For Sklyansky’s telegram to Melnichansky on June 9, and to Beloborodov on June 10, 1919, see the book: V. I. Lenin, Voyennaya perepiska, Moscow, 1957, p. 148.