Comrade Trotsky!

For Your Information

For the southern railways:

Zabarov knows the southern railways magnificently. An absolutely reliable party member, a railway worker by profession.

Blizhnichenko — for the North-Donetsk railway. Also absolutely reliable. Built a heavy armored division. A railway worker.

Completely useless is Aleksei Ivanov, a loafer (appointed to the southern railways by the "new" Ukrainian Tsentral'nyi Komitet).[188]

The recommendation comes from Shvarts ("Seeds"), an old Bolshevik, the most reliable party member, outraged by the persecution of Rakovsky by the semi-Makhnoist elements in Ukraine.

28/III. 1920. Lenin

Published for the first time, from the manuscript