## YEARS


## NOTE TO L. D. TROTSKY
24. V . 1918

Comrade Trotsky, The bearer, comrade Ter-Gabrielyan,¹ is traveling to Baku with a military detachment, with funds, etc. I ask you to receive him outside the usual order and to utilize the detachment's journey for urgent measures of military assistance to the Bakians.²

Lenin

---

¹ S. M. Ter-Gabrielyan — one of the activists of the Baku Commune. On May 23, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued him a certificate signed by V. I. Lenin stating that Ter-Gabrielyan was being dispatched to Baku to take all measures for the immediate export of oil from Baku via the Volga (see "Bolsheviks in the Struggle for the Victory of the Socialist Revolution in Azerbaijan," Baku, 1957, p. 421).

² Military assistance was dictated by the threat to Baku from the Turks. This was mentioned in all dispatches from Tiflis (see the present collection, pp. 86—87).

---

## EXCHANGE OF NOTES WITH L. D. TROTSKY

[1918, May, before May 29]

German-Austrian troops in Ukraine — 500,000
Purely German — 350,000

There is a treaty of Krasnov with the Germans:
1) general strategic direction by the Germans
2) union of the Don, Kuban, Ural, and Siberian Cossackdom
3) Germany supplies weapons and instructors on the same basis as with Ukraine

Where are these reports from?

When is the offensive [supposed to begin]?

This is Odintsov — a general, military expert of the peace delegation, brought [the information]. This intelligence cost 12,045 rubles. He says he saw the text of the treaty. The Germans are not providing troops, but are providing officers and non-commissioned officers (25 and 10 marks per day, all expenses covered). The offensive is apparently already considered to have begun.

1) How is this so?
2) Unclear?
3) Should not Chicherin send a written note to Mirbach with a statement that the Germans did not reach an agreement with Krasnov?
4) Or did this only appear to Odintsov out of "patriotism," out of a desire to "wage war"?

---

It seems to me that Odintsov's information is entirely consistent with the logic of things:

The refusal to establish a demarcation line on the Don, the rosy-cheeked delegation in Kiev, etc. Unable to deploy their own forces, the Germans want to engulf us with a Cossack uprising of the Don, Kuban, Lower Volga, Urals, and Siberia.

I consider it necessary to publish this report in the press, and then communicate it via radio through Ioffe as a voice of the press.

---

Really?? As for Ioffe¹ and so on.

One must consult with Chicherin.

Do you not know that the Germans refused to bind their hands regarding the Don Republic?! This is worse than forgetting about... the Soviet Constitution.

I am sending this correspondence of ours to Chicherin.

---

¹ The correspondence was apparently conducted at a session of the Council of People's Commissars on May 29, 1918, when an appeal to the Cossacks of the Don and Kuban was being discussed in connection with negotiations between P. N. Krasnov, P. P. Skoropadsky, and representatives of the German Empire. The underlining in L. D. Trotsky's responses belongs to V. I. Lenin.

² S. I. Odintsov — major general of the old army. From April 1917 — commander of the 3rd Caucasian Cossack Division. In 1918 — head of the office of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs.

³ A. A. Ioffe — from April to November 1918 — Plenipotentiary Representative of the RSFSR in Berlin.

---

## NOTE FROM A. A. IOFFE
31/V - 1918

Comrade Ioffe!

The bearer — comrade Valentina Bogrova¹ — was in 1905 a secretary of the Petrograd Soviet of Deputies. Please help her remain in Berlin for a serious operation with one of the famous doctors there. I sent you (and Zagorsky)² one more little note³ today. I hope you received it.

Greetings! Your Lenin

---

¹ See the present collection, pp. 30, 69, 75, 76.

² V. M. Zagorsky (Lubotsky) — after the October Revolution worked in the Soviet embassy in Berlin. In June 1918 he came to Moscow and was soon elected secretary of the Moscow Committee of the Party.

³ [As in the original.]