June 14 [1919]

On the same day E. M. Sklyanski was instructed to send the required regiments (see Lenin Collection XXXIV, pp. 167-168).

³ Ya. Kh. Peters—member of the RSDLP since 1904. After the October socialist revolution held responsible positions in Soviet and Party work, was Deputy Chairman of the VChK.

⁴ What materials are in question could not be established.

⁵ N. I. Bukharin—at that time editor of *Pravda*.

⁶ I. V. Stalin and G. E. Zinovyev reported in a note that E. M. Sklyanski's request was received only on June 10 and they could not respond to it, since "the last two days we were at the front."

LETTER TO I. T. SMILGA¹
14/VI [1919]

Comrade Smilga! This letter was delivered to me by comrades Petrovsky and Muravin², who came from the Crimea from my brother.

Please give proper legal course to this statement and for directing the matter to court, if possible to Moscow and to court.

Your Lenin

¹ The letter to I. T. Smilga was written in connection with a letter to V. I. Lenin of June 9, 1919 from D. I. Ulyanov, Deputy Chairman of the Crimean Council of People's Commissars, regarding L. Trotsky's order for the arrest of Petrovsky, commander of the staff of the 1st Division in the Crimea, with a request to look into the matter.

Petrovsky and the political commissar of the 1st Division Astakhov were accused of unauthorized conclusion on April 20, 1919 of an agreement with the command of the Allied forces on the evacuation of Entente ground forces from Sevastopol.

V. I. Lenin was informed of this by People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs G. V. Chicherin and Kh. G. Rakovksy; the latter initiated proceedings to bring Petrovsky and Astakhov to court.

² Who is in question could not be established.

EXCHANGE OF NOTES WITH N. N. KRESTINSKY
[June, no later than 19, 1919]

What is your view on the appointment of Gaishe (Latvian) as commissar to Rattel¹ (Trotsky is pressing with a telegram). Gaishe is a serious, conscientious man, not a separatist.