V. I.

Lenin

The whiteguard offensive is clearly a manoeuvre to reduce
our pressure in the South. Beat off the enemy, strike at
Yamburg and Gdov. Mobilise office staff for the front. Close
down nine-tenths of the departments. Mobilisation of all
our forces for the front has never yet been carried out
anywhere, although much has been written about it, and there
are circular letters and a resolution of the Central
Committee. [1] You must drive them off in time so as to resume
your help to the South.

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Notes:
[1]
A possible reference to the resolution of the Plenary Meeting of
the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.) on September 21 and
26, 1919, on the mobilisation of Communists and the dispatch
of the best members of the Party and the working class to the
Southern Front; a circular issued by the Central Committee of the
R.C.P.(B.) as a follow up to the September decisions stating the
need to gear the whole state apparatus to the defeat of the
Denikin army; and a letter of the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.)
to the Moscow, Kaluga, Tula, and Ryazan gubernia, and the
Sychov, Gzhatsk, Vyazma and Yukhnov uyezd Party committees.