# LETTER TO TULA COMRADES

LETTER TO TULA COMRADES*
October 20, 1920
Dear comrades!
Based on your account, I agree with you, but if you wish to use my opinion against your "opposition,"
then give them both your letter to me and my reply. Then they
will be informed, will be in a position to give me their account,
then I will be informed not one-sidedly.
On the substance of the matter, I will speak briefly. Until Wrangel is completely smashed, until the whole of Crimea is taken, military tasks remain in the f i r s t p l a n e. This is absolutely indisputable.
Then, for Tula, in view of its arms and cartridge factories,
it is very possible that for a certain time even after the victory
over Wrangel, the tasks of completing the work on the production of rifles and cartridges will remain of primary importance, for the army must be prepared for spring. I apologize for the brevity and request
that you inform me whether you have shown this letter of mine
and your letter to me to the "opposition."
With communist greetings,
Lenin
Printed from a typewritten copy.
* Certain members of the presidium of the Tula Gubernia Committee of the RCP(b) in a letter
addressed to
V. I. Lenin requested his instructions on the question of "which of the two positions at the present moment being experienced by Soviet Russia is correct—the position placing peaceful construction in the first plane, or the other, advancing the necessity of straining all forces for the solution of our military tasks." The authors
of the letter expressed the fear that placing economic
and educational tasks in the first plane, as certain
members of the Tula Party organization were striving for, would weaken the tension and discipline in the work of the Tula military factories (IMEL Archive No. 5717).