Telegram to Leon Trotsky, March, Not earlier than 8 and not later than 20, 1920

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Via the military

by army line

In CC code

Trotsky

The Poles are advancing further, we have evacuated Rechitsa. Gomel is said to be threatened, therefore, despite Stalin’s optimism, I consider essential and urgently necessary all the extraordinary measures you have proposed. In regard to the Commissariat for Railways, the Politbureau has decided to propose making you People’s Commissar for Railways, since Krasin will be going abroad hi a week, and Lomonosov, after typhus, will have recovered only in six weeks’ time.[1] Reply immediately.

Lenin

  1. On March 8, 1920, the Politbureau of the CC, RCP(b) discussed the question of the People’s Commissar for Railways in view of the fact that Krasin was going abroad. It was decided: “That Comrade Lenin be asked to communicate with Comrade Trotsky” (Collected Works, Fifth Ed., Vol. 51, p. 413). On March 20, the Politbureau adopted a decision to put through the Presidium of the CEC and the Council of People’s Commissars Trotsky’s appointment as Acting People’s Commissar for Railways.