TO ALL PARTY MEMBERS—
COMMISSARS, COMMANDERS AND RED ARMY MEN
Autumn 1918

The Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party notes a slowing down, an almost complete halt to military successes on the Eastern Front, and simultaneously a series of failures on the Southern Front, particularly in the operational zone of the IX and VIII Armies.

The September military successes on the Eastern Front were brought about in the first instance by the energetic, decisive and self-sacrificing work performed by party members on the Eastern Front in their capacity as commissars, commanders and ordinary Red Army men. The September upsurge was nourished by a universally held and completely correct conviction that without successes against the Czechoslovaks, the Soviet republic would be liquidated within a more or less short period. It may be assumed that the evident weakening of energy among party workers along the front line is caused by a certain complacency following the successes achieved and by a completely false calculation that the revolution unfolding in the West gives us the right to confine ourselves to passive defense. In all preceding party resolutions and statements on this question, the party's point of view has been fully defined: never has the danger to the very existence of the Soviet republic been so grave and imminent as at the present moment. It is precisely in the coming weeks that our army must deploy the utmost energy of offensive on all fronts, first and foremost on the Southern Front. This energy of offensive cannot be achieved without corresponding concentrated, self-sacrificing work by all party members on the Southern Front.

In view of the fact that Red Army units of the Southern Front, particularly the Voronezh Front, continue to remain utterly unstable, abandon positions with impunity, and commanders fail to execute combat orders—the Central Committee categorically prescribes to all party members: commissars, commanders, Red Army men, through combined energetic efforts to bring about the necessary and immediate change in the mood and conduct of the units.

It is necessary to compel the command staff, both senior and junior, with an iron hand to execute combat orders at any cost whatsoever. One must not hesitate before any sacrifice to achieve the lofty tasks now imposed on the Red Army, particularly on the Southern Front.

Red terror is now more obligatory than anywhere else or at any other time, on the Southern Front—not only against direct traitors and saboteurs, but against all cowards, careerists, abettors and concealers. Not a single crime against discipline and revolutionary military spirit shall go unpunished.

All Red Army units must understand that the matter concerns the life and death of the working class, and therefore there shall be no leniency. The command staff must be placed before a single choice: victory or death.

The Central Committee makes it the duty of all party members to establish on the front a genuine revolutionary dictatorship, commensurate with the magnitude of the danger threatening the socialist homeland.

# LETTER
TO THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ASTRAKHAN COSSACKS
25 September 1918

Comrade Bagaev!

With all my heart I thank you for your greetings and good wishes. I apologize that due to ill health I cannot arrange a meeting. I ask you to turn to Comrade Sverdlov.

I ask you to convey to the Astrakhan Cossack comrades my very best wishes and greetings.

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

# RESOLUTION ON A NOTE FROM THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR COUNCIL
OF THE REPUBLIC ON AGITATION AMONG CONSCRIPTS
1 October 1918

Could you not provide (today or by tomorrow before 12 o'clock)
1) a list of these locations
2) an approximate number of agitators needed
3) a draft directive from the Central Committee.

# RESOLUTION ON A DRAFT TELEGRAM
COMPOSED BY L. B. KRASIN
9 October 1918

I do not agree to sign it*.

# NOTE TO L. A. FOTIEVA AND L. B. KRASIN
9 October 1918

I gladly sign the telegram concerning oil, ships, etc.

Regarding Mukhin I do not agree to sign:

(1) Krasin writes that Mukhin concealed money from Stalin. He had no right to do this, even if "by order of his (!!??) superiors"—for Stalin is also a superior, and if not "his own," then a higher one.

(2) It is formally incorrect and altogether inadmissible to decide this without asking Stalin (and Stalin is in Moscow!!).

Greetings! Lenin

* L. B. Krasin asked V. I. Lenin to sign a telegram addressed to the Extraordinary Commission in Tsaritsyn concerning the release from arrest and dispatch to Moscow of N. Mukhin, an employee of the Chief Oil Administration.