V. I. Lenin

Letter To G. K. Orjonikidze On

The Strengthening Of The Georgian Red Army [1]

Comrade Sergo, It is absolutely essential that the Congress of Soviets of
Georgia should adopt a decision to strengthen the Georgian Red
Army without fail, and that the decision is really carried
out.

In the last resort, if the peasants are opposed to this, a
decision, couched in the most general terms, should be adopted,
such as it is deemed essential "without fail to strengthen the
Georgian Red Army and to call upon all government bodies and all
the working people to work to secure this", etc.

Actually , however, it is necessary, at all costs, and immediately , to develop and strengthen the Georgian Red Army. As
a beginning let it consist only of one brigade or even less; two
or three thousand Red cadets-of whom 1,500 should be
Communists-who (as cadres) could serve as the nucleus of an army
when the contingency arises . This is absolutely essential.

Perhaps Stalin will enlarge on the military and technical
methods of carrying this out.

I am confining myself to the political aspect of the matter:
those who fail to carry this out will be expelled from the Party
without compunction . This is not a matter to be trifled with. It
is absolutely essential politically; and you personally, and the
entire Georgian Central Committee, will be held responsible to
the whole Party for this.

I await your reply.

Yours,

Lenin

February 13

This is for Comrade Sergo and for all the members of the
Central Committee of the Georgian Communist Party.

Endnotes

[1] This letter was
written on the eve of the First Congress of Soviets of Georgia,
which was held on February 25-March 3, 1922.

Lenin’s suggestion to strengthen the Georgian Red Army was
called forth by the aggressive stand of the British imperialists
and by the campaign of slander started against the Soviet
Republic by the reactionary imperialist press together with the
leaders of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals and the
Georgian Mensheviks. They demanded the withdrawal of the Red
Army from Georgia with the objective of wresting that territory
away from Soviet Russia.

The First Congress of Soviets of Georgia adopted statement "On
the Red Army", which declared that the strengthening of the
existing nucleus of the Georgian Red Army was the cardinal task
and requested the Government of the fraternal Russian Soviet
Republic not to withdraw the Red Army from Georgian territory.

Lenin’s suggestion on strengthening the Georgian Red Army
was accepted by the Political Bureau on February 25, 1922.