Secret

Telegram (in cipher)

To Trotsky. Balashov and at the location of

I am extremely concerned about Nosovitch's flight1and consider Vatsetis's reply to be unfounded and optimistic.

Report your opinion and your measures, as well as the state of affairs in Astrakhan. Can we defeat the English on the Caspian and soon?

November 7, 1918 Moscow.

Lenin.

Published - The Trotsky papers. 1917-1922. V. I, p. 176.

Fund 2, op. 1, d. 26160 - copy.

1A.L. Nosovich, a former colonel in the Tsarist army, from May 1918 served as Chief of Staff of the North Caucasus Military District, participated in a counter-revolutionary conspiracy in Tsaritsyn, led by engineer Alexeev. On August 10, by order of Stalin, Nosovich was arrested together with a member of the Military Council of the North Caucasus Military District, A.N. Kovalevsky, but by order of Leonid Trotsky they were released and sent to the headquarters of the Southern Front. After Nosovich fled to the White Guards, Kovalevsky was shot. K.E.Voroshilov spoke about Nosovich and Kovalevsky at the evening closed session of the VIII Congress of the RCP(b) on March 21, 1919 (see: Izvestia of the Central Committee of the CPSU, 1989, No. 11, p. 160).