Letter to Leon Trotsky, August 7, 1919

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The Politbureau of the Central Committee, having discussed the very serious questions raised by you,[1] orders that the directive of the Commander-in-Chief on these questions, addressed to the Southern Front and to the 12th Army, be carried out. The directive will be forwarded at once.

The Politbureau, for its part, insists that Odessa should be defended to the last.[2]

On behalf of the Politbureau of the CC,

Lenin[3]

  1. This refers to Trotsky’s telegram to Lenin reporting that at a meeting in Kiev on August 6, 1919, attended by L. D. Trotsky, Kh. G. Rakovsky, A. I. Yegorov, S. I. Aralov, N. G. Semyonov and V. P. Zatonsky, it was decided to withdraw the Soviet troops to a new line and to surrender to the enemy the Black Sea coast with Odessa and Nikolayev.
  2. See also present edition, Vol. 35, Document 220.—Ed.
  3. There follows the signature of L. B. Kamenev in Lenin’s handwriting.—Ed.