Date: 1918-07-22
Source: ru:PSS/v50
Source: CW vol 50

20. VII. 1918

Comrades Zinoviev and Lashevich and Stasova

It is necessary to send the maximum number of workers from Petrograd:

(1) "leaders" several dozen (à la Kayurov)

(2) thousands of "rank and file."

Otherwise, we will fall, for the situation with the Czechoslovaks is deplorable.

It is foolish, in such a situation, to "sit" on the "well-being" of Petrograd and "pity" giving
from there: even if

* At the top of the document, V. I. Lenin wrote: "(and for Comrade Brukhanov)." Ed.

RADIOGRAM TO S. G. SHAUMYAN. 22 JULY 1918

the majority of seats in the Petrograd Soviet falls from 98% (do you have 98%?) to 51%! What a disaster!

We will not perish even if (even!) in Petrograd the non-ours in the Soviet reach 49% (when will this happen?). But we will surely perish from the Czechoslovaks if we do not make desperate efforts to add hundreds and thousands of leading workers to transform the mush into something solid. This is not an exaggeration but an accurate assessment. You will be responsible for the destruction if you are stingy and save "for Petrograd."

Greetings! Your Lenin
P. S. Reply!

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First published partially in 1942 in the Lenin Collection

XXXIV

Published in full in 1950 in the 4th edition of the Collected Works of V. I. Lenin, vol. 27

Printed from the manuscript