V. I.

Lenin

339

TELEGRAM TO A. A. JOFFE [1]

In code
29. V. 1919

Rakovsky for Joffe
Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukraine
Kiev

Read this telegram to Rakovsky, Mezhlauk, Voroshilov, Pyatakov, Bubnov, Kviring and other prominent
functionaries.

I consider it criminal on your part to have persuaded
Trotsky to leave Podvoisky.

Not a single promise is being fulfilled: the Donets Basin
has no reinforcements; the mobilisation of workers is proceeding at a disgracefully sluggish pace. You are
personally responsible for the inevitable catastrophe. All
prominent functionaries must be taken off their jobs and
installed in Kharkov and Ekaterinoslav for the total mobilisation of workers; further, one prominent functionary to
be sent to each army unit for its advance to the Donets
Basin; and everything set in motion for clearing out uniforms from the stores. The ruin of the entire revolution
is absolutely inevitable unless there is a swift victory in
the Donets Basin, for which it is essential to abandon routine in the Ukraine, to work in a revolutionary spirit,
to rally all and sundry, to keep an eye personally on each
army unit, each step in the work, to set aside everything
except the Donets Basin, to have three soldiers to one rifle. From you not one factual report.

Lenin