[November 20, 1918]
Please call Sklinsky back and convey my request: to establish covert surveillance and monitoring of these physicians’ conduct, so as to expose their misconduct by gathering witnesses and documentary evidence, and then to bring them to trial.
Lenin.
1 This directive was prompted by a telegram from I. I. Khodorovsky, a member of the Political Department’s Collegium of the Southern Front, reporting several instances in which Red Army soldiers had been discharged from service by physicians at the 18th Moscow Evacuation Hospital without just cause—cases that, according to Khodorovsky, had been brought to his attention by one of the Red Army soldiers who had returned from Moscow after being dismissed from service on his own application, without undergoing any medical examination whatsoever.
III.
Zo18
[December 18, 1918]
Draft a telegram stating: “Without releasing him, review the case and immediately inform me of the reasons for his arrest and the possibility of securing his release.” Then submit it to me for signature. [1252]
1 Written by Lenin on the letterhead of a telegram he had received from Simbirsk, addressed to V. M. Ilyin, who had petitioned for the release of A. M. Ilyin from detention. To the left of Ilyin’s telegram text, Lenin had made a marginal note reading: “To be filed in the archives.”

TELEGRAM TO THE KOTELNICH EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
Kotelnich
Executive Committee.
Copy to Vyatka
Executive Committee.
November 17, 1918
I have received a complaint from Lubnina alleging that her husband, Lubnin, was beaten by Nikitin, Chairman of the Extraordinary Commission, and that Lubnin is being unjustly held in prison. I order that explanations be demanded from Nikitin without delay and that a telegram be sent to me, along with the opinion of the Vyatka Provincial Executive Committee, regarding whether Lubnin can be released—if he is not a counterrevolutionary. G687]
Lenin, Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars.

TELEGRAMS, MEMORANDA, DIRECTIVES