Kamenev, Ioffe, Rakovsky1

The CECA considers the most important task of the next two weeks to mobilize at least 20,000 workers, not for the formation of new units, but to integrate them into the best cadres of the Southern Front. The workers of Kharkov and Yekaterinoslav should be mobilized in their entirety. Comrades Kamenev and Ioffe should devote all their energies to this work. Comrade Kamenev must see to its fulfillment in Kharkov and Yekaterinoslav, and comrade Ioffe from Kiev. The whole point now is to gain time. Mobilization must be quite completed in 14 days. It is necessary to make the party workers imbued with the idea that the fate of the revolution depends on the success of this mobilization. We need a broad agitation and energetic rapid organizational measures. Those mobilized by marching companies should be sent out as soon as possible, including in each marching company the necessary number of Communists. Prepare uniforms, at least non-staff uniforms, in advance. Because of the lack of uniforms, do not delay the dispatch of marching companies. Involve party committees and trade unions in mobilization, assigning them certain work. CEKA considers the figure of 20,000 to be the minimum, the two-week period to be the maximum for saving our position on the Southern Front. The work must be carried out with exceptional vigor. Report immediately on all measures you have taken. Every three days telegraph to the CECA about the results achieved.

May 92

Lenin.

Trotsky.

Krestinsky.

Stalin.

Published with cuts - "Proletarian Revolution", 1925, No. 6, p. 148.

Fond 2, op. 1, d. 9686 - archival copy.

1The telegram was signed by four members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) and sent to the fifth member of the Politburo, L.B.Kamenev, who was the extraordinary commissioner of the Defense Council on the Southern Front.

On May 8, Lenin, Stalin and Krestinsky, also on behalf of the Central Committee of the RCP(b), sent a telegram to the Sovnarkom of Ukraine with the instruction to mobilize all forces to help the Southern Front. The telegram ends with the phrase: "Remember that without the rapid capture of Rostov, the death of the revolution is imminent" (Lenin V.I. Complete Collected Works, vol. 38, p. 378).

2This document appears to be the date of the telegram, written on May 8; it was handed to Kamenev on May 11, 1919.