Comrade Sklyansky! We must urgently work out the question of how to reinforce the division taken from the Eastern Front.

Would it be possible to add 20–30% newcomers to it? Mobilised workers? Perhaps we could have 5% communists, 15% workers, 10% peasants? That would mean an increase of 30%.

Perhaps, scientifically, this is permissible (without weakening the entire division in terms of seasoned toughness)?

This must be urgently considered and decided.

Next, the dispatch of rifles to the Eastern Front must now be stepped up.

Should we not give the Eastern Front the assignment: to consider and carry out a regrouping of troops so as to reinforce all divisions by 15–30 per cent and thereby bring the whole army back to its previous establishment.

Lenin