V. I. Lenin

March 2, 1921

Serge Orjonikidze

Please convey to the Georgian Communists, and in par-ticular
to all members of the Georgian Revolutionary Com-mittee, my warm greetings
to Soviet Georgia. My special request to them is to inform me whether or
not we are in complete agreement on the following three questions:

First, immediate arming of the workers and poor peasants and formation
of a strong Georgian Red Army.

Second, there is need for a special policy of concessions with regard to
the Georgian intelligentsia and small mer-chants. It should be realised
that it is not only imprudent to nationalise them, but that there is even
need for certain sacrifices in order to improve their position and enable
them to continue their small trade.

Third, it is of tremendous importance to devise an acceptable compromise
for a bloc with Jordania or similar Georgian Mensheviks, who before the
uprising had not been absolutely opposed to the idea of Soviet power in
Georgia on certain Terms.

Please bear in mind that Georgia’s domestic and interna-tional
positions both require that her Communists should avoid any mechanical
copying of the Russian pattern. They must skilfully work out their own
flexible tactics, based on bigger concessions to all the petty-bourgeois
elements.

Please reply, Lenin