V. I.

Lenin

Commissar Ivanov, Voronezh

The Left S.R. revolt and Muravyov’s betrayal have been completely liquidated. Strong aid to the Czechoslovak
front is needed. [1] All efforts on the Kuban front should
be concentrated on full and reliable protection of the line
from Tikhoretskaya to Tsaritsyn and from Tsaritsyn to the north, not on further
advance. [2] Mekhonoshin, Kobozev and Blagonravov are temporarily in command on the
Czechoslovak front.

Lenin
Chairman, Council of People’s Commissars

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Notes:
[1]
A reference is to the mutiny of the Czechoslovak corps, which was
formed in Russia before the October Revolution from among
Czechs and Slovaks who had been taken prisoner as soldiers of
the Austro-Hungarian army. Under an agreement of March 26,
1918, the Soviet Government allowed the corps to leave Russia
via Vladivostok, provided the corps handed in its arms and
removed Russian officers from its command posts. But in late May,
on instructions from, and with the support of, the imperialists
of the U.S.A., Britain and France, the counter-revolutionary
command of the corps provoked mutiny against the Soviet power.
They operated in close contact with the whiteguards and the
kulaks and occupied a considerable part of the Urals, the Volga
area, and Siberia, everywhere restoring the power of the
bourgeoisie. Whiteguard governments, with the participation of the
Mensheviks and S.R.s, were set up in the areas occupied by the corps.

Many soldiers of the corps came to realise that they had been
duped by their counter-revolutionary command and went over to
the side of the Red Army, refusing to fight against Soviet Russia.
About 12,000 Czechs and Slovaks fought in the ranks of the Red
Army.

In the autumn of 1918 the Volga area was liberated by the Red
Army; the whiteguard Czechs were routed in 1919 simultaneously
with the rout of Kolchak.

[2]
Lenin’s directive was to block the advance of the whiteguard
army towards Tsaritsyn. In mid-July, Tikhoretskaya railway
station was taken by the whiteguards, but their further advance
was halted by the Red Army, which had swiftly re-formed and
organised, on Lenin’s instructions, reliable protection of the
road to Tsaritsyn.