Comrades, on behalf of the old Central Committee I am obliged to inform the Congress that at the meeting which we had at the beginning of the arrival of the delegates to the Congress and at which Trotsky was present when we considered the statement of Volodymyr Smirnov in connection with the irrevocable cancellation of his application. Smirnov in connection with the then unrevoked resolution of the Central Committee on the departure to the front of the delegates of front-line responsible workers, Trotsky spoke out and the Central Committee tacitly approved it in the sense that t. Smirnov could stay at the congress. Smirnov could remain at the congress, and t. Trotsky added that he would remain at the congress. Trotsky added that to remain in the army, t. Smirnov could not, on the basis of all the material that T. Trotsky had. Trotsky has. So we all heard Trotsky's decision in the Central Committee at a time when there could not have been even a shadow of a thought about the connection of this decision with the votes at the Congress1.

Fond 41, op. 1, d. 9, fol. 80 - transcript (typewritten text).

1In addition to Lenin's statement, a statement was read out at the Congress, the authors of which are not entered in the minutes: "Kamenev (reads the extraordinary statement): The undersigned hereby bring to the attention of the Congress the following: t. Vl. Mikh.Smirnov, who was the speaker on the question of military policy, by order of Vol. Trotsky has just been suspended from all work in the army. The undersigned protest against this act (inaudible)" (RCCHIDNI, f. 41, op. 1, d. 9, fol. 80).

After the Congress V.M.Smirnov continued to serve in the army: from September 26, 1918 to April 7, 1919 he was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army, and from July 18 to September 20 - of the 16th Army.