V. I.

Lenin

440

To:   L. D. TROTSKY

17/X.

Comrade Trotsky, Last night in the Council of Defence we adopted a
decision of the Council and sent it to you in code (it would
be better for you to use your own code, as Karakhan’s, used by Zinoviev, causes a delay of several hours).

As you see, your plan has been adopted.

But the withdrawal of the Petrograd workers to the south,
of course, is not rejected (it is said that you expanded on
this to Krasin and Rykov); to talk about this prematurely
would mean diverting attention from the struggle to the
last. [2]

The attempt to envelop and cut off Petrograd, of course,
will call for corresponding changes, which you will carry
out on the spot.

Instruct some reliable person in each department of the
Gubernia Executive Committee to collect Soviet papers and
documents in preparation for evacuation.

I enclose the appeal which the Defence Council instructed me to draw
up. [1]

I was in a hurry and it is none too good .

Better put my signature beneath your appeal.

Greetings, Lenin

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Notes:
[1]
This refers to the appeal: “To the Workers and Red Army Men
of Petrograd” (see present edition, Vol. 30, pp. 68–69).— Ed .

[2]
Lenin is referring to the decision of the Council of Defence dated
October 16, 1919. It contained a directive to defend Petrograd
to the last drop of blood, without yielding an inch of ground
and fighting in the streets. In his proposed plan of struggle against
Yudenich’s forces, Trotsky also spoke of the need to prepare
for street fighting in the city. But, in issuing its main directive
for holding Petrograd at all costs until the arrival of
reinforcements, the Council of Defence allowed for street fighting only if
the enemy succeeded in penetrating into the city, whereas Trotsky’s
argument was different. He asserted that “for purely military
considerations” it would be advantageous to allow the enemy to
break into Petrograd which should therefore be converted into “a
big trap for the whiteguard troops”.