## DIRECT-LINE MESSAGE TO THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE OF THE URAL REGION AND THE SARATOV GUBERNIA EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE*
August 2, 1920

A revolt has been raised in the Buzuluk district by Sapozhkov, former commander of the 2nd Turkestan Division. Sapozhkov has succeeded in winning over to his side certain Red Army units and part of the kulak population, and at present he is striving to break through to Novouzensk and further, probably to the lower reaches of the Volga and Ural rivers. With the aim of facilitating the struggle against Sapozhkov and preventing his successful flight, I propose: 1) oblige all revolutionary committees and executive committees to remain at their posts to the last possible moment, energetically conducting agitation against the traitor and hindering his agitation among the population by every means; 2) dispatch a number of serious workers to the disposal of the army commander; 3) establish the closest possible liaison between the revolutionary committees and executive committees subordinate to you and the military detachments, ensuring coordination of actions, and take measures to safeguard technical communications; 4) conduct the most careful observation of the movement of Sapozhkov's detachments, using local inhabitants, and report the results of observation to the nearest military commanders; 5) suppress at the root any manifestation of sympathy, and even more so any assistance to Sapozhkov from the local population, using the full power of revolutionary authority; in those cases where assistance has occurred, demand the surrender of the guilty ringleaders; from villages lying on the route of Sapozhkov's detachments, take hostages in order to prevent the possibility of assistance. This directive requires the most urgent and energetic implementation, under the personal responsibility of all executors.

Chairman of the Council of Labour and Defence
Lenin

* Published from a typewritten copy with V. I. Lenin's notation: "to the archives." In the margins there is an order from the Revolutionary Military Council: "Transmit via the staff of the Trans-Volga Military District, placing responsibility on the commissar of the staff."