NOTE TO L. D. TROTSKY

[August 1918, not before the 20th]
Comrade Trotsky!
Think about this.
Should we not appoint
Vatsetis as
Supreme Commander-in-Chief?

Lenin
1 The note was written on a report by military commissar A. I. Egorov concerning the necessity of immediate unification of the management of combat operations of troops in one hand, on the appointment of a Supreme Commander-in-Chief answerable to the Council of People's Commissars, and the formation of a Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
1 I. I. Vatsetis — colonel of the old army. After the October Revolution went over to the side of Soviet power. Participated in the suppression of the Left Socialist Revolutionary rebellion in Moscow as commander of the Latvian Rifle Division. Subsequently was commander of the Eastern Front, and from September 1918 to July 1919 — Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the RSFSR.