V. I.

Lenin

192

To:   A. A. JOFFE

18/X. 1918

Dear Comrade Joffe, I received your letter of 13. X after sending off a
letter to you.

I am not against continuing the “diplomatising”. But its importance has diminished. The whole point is
whether the Entente manages to land in force in the Black Sea.
I have long been talking to everyone everywhere about this
danger, and have said it clearly in the letter to the Central
Executive
Committee. [1] The radical difference from II.
1918 is that at that time we had a chance to win time by
giving away territory. Now there is no such chance.

Mit besten Grüssen, Ihr Lenin

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Notes:
[1]
This refers to the “Letter to a Joint Session of the All-Russia
Central Executive Committee, the Moscow Soviet and
Representatives of Factory Committees and Trade Unions, October 3, 1918”
(see present edition, Vol. 28, pp. 101–04). The possibility of the
Entente countries extending intervention against the Soviet
Republic was dealt with by Lenin in greater detail in his report at the
joint session of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee, the
Moscow Soviet, factory committees and trade unions on
October 22,1918, and in the speech on the international situation at the
Sixth Congress of Soviets on November 8, 1918 (ibid., pp. 114–27,
151–64).