First question: what are the latest data in military intelligence? 2) second: what measures have been taken to strengthen the security of your border from the west? 3) third: how are the much respected barons feeling, what has become of them? 4) fourth: what, in your opinion, should the Council of People’s Commissars undertake with regard to the barons in order to demonstrate, as it were, external kindness, while this demonstration must in no way weaken the force of repression against the said barons???
Lenin *
Printed from the telegraph tape 1 J. J. Anvelt — one of the leaders of the Bolsheviks of Estonia. The conversation was prompted by Anvelt’s telegram from Revel to the Council of People’s Commissars reporting the discovery of a conspiracy of former Baltic nobles in connection with the forthcoming German offensive against Estland (see Central Party Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU).