V. I.

Lenin

271

TELEGRAM TO G. K. ORJONIKIDZE

Cipher what is marked in blue pencil [1]

Orjonikidze

I have received your cipher message about the desperate
food situation in Transcaucasia. We have taken a number of
steps, given a little gold to Armenia, confirmed all kinds
of instructions to the Commissariat of Food. But I must
warn you that we are in great need here, and will not he
able to help. I urgently require that you should set up a
regional economic body for the whole of Transcaucasia, make the utmost effort with concessions, especially in
Georgia; try and buy seed, even if it be abroad, and push
forward irrigation in Azerbaijan with the help of the resources of Baku, in order to expand agriculture and
cattle-breeding, and also try and develop commodity exchange
with the North Caucasus. Have you and the Georgian comrades grasped the significance of our new policy in
connection with the tax in kind [2] ? Read this to them
and keep me more frequently informed; read my letter to
Serebrovsky in Baku.

Lenin