V. I.

Lenin

TELEGRAM TO M. V. FRUNZE [1]


In code
28. X. 1920

Frunze, Commander of the Southern Front
Copy to Trotsky

In reply to your No. 001/ IIIII . I am indignant at your
optimistic tone, when you yourself report that there is only
one chance in a hundred that the main task, set long ago, will
be successful. If things are so outrageously bad, I ask you
to discuss measures of the utmost urgency for bringing up
heavy artillery, for constructing lines for its transport, for
getting sappers, and so on.

Lenin


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Notes:
[1]
The document is the reply to a telegram from Frunze sent to Lenin
on October 26, 1920, from Apostolovo station, in which Frunze
reported: “I have just given the final order for a general offensive.

The decisive days will be October 30 and 31 and November 1. I have
no doubt about the rout of the enemy’s main forces. They will
not succeed in withdrawing beyond the isthmuses by the time
we strike. I consider that the chance of an immediate capture of
the isthmuses is not more than one in a hundred.” ( M. V. Frunze na frontakh grazhdanskoi voiny, Sbornik dokumentov , Moscow,
1941, p. 415.)