6/IV. 1918

Comrade Dzerzhinsky

I charge you to arrest immediately (search and confiscate all papers similarly) Spiro, delegate from the Black Sea Central Fleet and from the Tauride Central Executive Committee, under accusation of crime in office.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars V. Ulyanov (Lenin)

1 The note of V. I. Lenin was written after acquaintance with protocol No. 34 of the emergency plenary session of the central committee of the Black Sea Fleet of 23 March 1918, at which with active participation of the extraordinary commissar on the Rumanian Front, the left Socialist-Revolutionary V. B. Spiro, a resolution was adopted proclaiming the Central Fleet the "highest organ independent of the Council of People's Commissars for management of the entire Black Sea Fleet" (Central Party Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the CPSU). At this same session Spiro made a speech disclosing secret diplomatic information. This question was discussed at a session of the Council of People's Commissars on 6 April 1918.