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LENIN COLLECTION

b) Charge Stalin's commission to supplement tomorrow the resolution it has worked out (the first part), including the question of crowding into barracks and the use of the riding school and almshouses. Authorize comrades Lenin, Stalin, and the representative of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic to sign the resolution thus reworked on behalf of the Council of Defense.

c) Charge the military department to form a commission by agreement with the Moscow Soviet [of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies] for the purpose of accelerating work on the completion of 3,000 houses in Moscow.

ON THE STATEMENT OF I. V. STALIN
CONCERNING HOMELESS WOUNDED ON THE NORTH CAUCASIAN FRONT

Charge the Commissariat of Public Health to take urgent measures to improve the sanitary situation on the Southern Front (XI and X Armies).

Chairman of the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense
V. Ulyanov (Lenin)

Printed from the minutes No. 4 of a session of the Council of Defense
of December 11, 1918

23658
TO THE REVOLUTIONARY MILITARY COUNCIL OF THE REPUBLIC
DECEMBER 12, 1918

They are telegraphing from Astrakhan about the necessity of intensified work by the flotilla*, in view of the uprising of Bolsheviks in Georgia and the most dangerous threat of British advance. Would you not find it useful to send Raskolnikov to Astrakhan, who for some reason is stuck in Moscow.

Lenin

* This concerns the Astrakhan military flotilla.

1917—1918

23929
LETTER TO A MEMBER OF THE REVOLUTIONARY MILITARY COUNCIL
OF THE CASPIAN-CAUCASIAN FRONT
DECEMBER 12, 1918

I take the opportunity to send you greetings and materials for investigation. Think carefully beforehand and discuss with 2–3 of the most reliable members of the Extraordinary Commission and catch the scoundrels mentioned here without fail*. Strain every effort to catch and shoot the Astrakhan speculators and bribe-takers. This rabble must be dealt with so that everyone remembers it for years.

Regarding your requests and assignments I have called, asked, and repeated**. I hope the most essential part will be carried out. Of course, it is impossible to accomplish everything.

Telegraph what is most urgent from what remains unaccomplished.

Strain every effort on the repair and increase of the carrying capacity of the Astrakhan railway.

What has been accomplished at sea? With our fleet? With the base near Kizlyar?

Write!

The materials, as I have been told, come from an honest merchant who remained here.

Greetings! Your Lenin

* Materials were received in Moscow from a private person concerning a gang of speculators and bribe-takers who had infiltrated Soviet bodies in Astrakhan and were disrupting the supply of the army.

** The Revolutionary Military Council of the Front had requested acceleration of the dispatch to Astrakhan of weapons and equipment. In telegrams to Lenin, it was reported that the occupants and White Guards were attempting to establish themselves in the southern part of the Caspian, in Baku and Krasnovodsk. They had armed the largest vessels with powerful naval artillery. The Revolutionary Military Council pointed to the unsatisfactory condition of our Astrakhan flotilla. Submarines and minesweepers were idle due to the lack of mines, which had not been delivered to the flotilla in time.

э
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