1917 (DECEMBER) — 1918


DIRECTIVE TO THE SECRETARY

[1918, not before December 2]
Request the Main Artillery Directorate. Demand a w r i t t e n response from it immediately.

Lenin

¹ Written on a telegram from the chairman of the Tambov Provincial Executive Committee and the head of the Labor Department of the Provincial Soviet with a complaint about the criminal inactivity of the Main Artillery Directorate with respect to the Tambov powder mill regarding its use of high-value technical and economic equipment and improvements to housing conditions for workers. In the text of the telegram, the words "Main Artillery Directorate" were underlined by V. I. Lenin.


TELEGRAM TO A. G. SHLYAPNIKOV

[December 9, 1918]
Accelerate your response to my inquiries¹. Accelerate the delivery of goods and the departure of my courier. Money and everything else is needed. Issue the appropriate directive to Schmidt. He knows where to find the courier. It is necessary to arrive immediately. Shlyapnikov*.

To Astrakhansk
To Shlyapnikov

I have already sent you a telegram. A commission from the Supreme Council of the National Economy has departed for Astrakhansk².

We are preparing a courier in the coming days.

Lenin

¹ See the present collection, p. 110.
² Apparently, a commission from the Supreme Council of the National Economy was sent in connection with a letter from A. G. Shlyapnikov of November 26, 1918, concerning the necessity of organizing the extraction and utilization of food and industrial resources of the Astrakhan region (see Lenin Collection XXI, pp. 140–141).

* There is a notation by V. I. Lenin on the telegram: "and archive."


EXCHANGE OF NOTES WITH L. B. KAMENEV

[December 15, 1918]

You—get down to the garrison firmly: we will give you all the directives and authority from the Central Committee.

Done. There existed 11 "cultural-educational" and "political" organizations serving the garrison. We consolidated them. We created a special group with Myasnikov. A report twice a week. We are reducing the Soviet apparatus.

Wonderful. Indeed, everything is now in the army.

Only do not weaken!

¹ The correspondence apparently took place at a session of the Council of Defense during the discussion of the question of political agitation in the army and the dispatch of commissars to the forming divisions.


RESOLUTION ON A DECLARATION OF THE TEMPORARY
WORKERS AND PEASANTS GOVERNMENT OF UKRAINE

[1918, December, later than the 18th]

To the members of the SNK (in accordance with the text of this declaration) for information.

¹ The reference is to a declaration addressed to the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Comrade V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin), in which the Temporary Workers and Peasants Government of Ukraine expresses a request to accept a route train with sugar as an expression of the fervent desire to "unite with Soviet Russia in the very near future in a single and indivisible socialist republic." The declaration states that the workers and peasants of localities adjacent to Soviet Russia and cleared of Haidamaks and Germans are prepared with great joy to surrender the food supplies they have for their hungry elder brother.


1917 (DECEMBER) — 1918

DIRECTIVE TO D. I. KURSKY

[December 20, 1918]

To Kursky.

I request that you immediately appoint an investigation of this matter².

Lenin

¹ D. I. Kursky — People's Commissar of Justice.
² The directive was written on a telegram from G. V. Skolditzky, "superintendent of the train named after V. I. Lenin," sent from the Butyrsky Prison hospital. Skolditzky explained the reason for his arrest by saying that, not knowing railway regulations, he had placed the train on the first track at Arzamas station. Appealing to V. I. Lenin, he requests his release and the restoration of justice and legality.


TELEGRAM TO V. N. YAKOVLEVA

December 20, 1918
Petrograd, Gorokhovaya, 2, To Yakovleva
Copy: Smolny, to Zinoviev

Your arrival here is necessary immediately for central work.

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars
Lenin

¹ V. N. Yakovleva — after the October Revolution, member of the collegium of the NKVD and People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, manager of the affairs of the Supreme Council of the National Economy, held a number of other responsible positions in Soviet and Party work. On May 18, 1918, by a special decision of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) "on strengthening the Cheka with new comrades," V. N. Yakovleva was engaged to head the department for combating counterrevolution at the Extraordinary Commission. Regarding her transfer to work at the Center, Y. M. Sverdlov also twice inquired by telegrams of December 24 and 31, 1918 (see From the History of the Cheka: Collection of Documents 1917–1921, Moscow, 1958, pp. 110–117).