Written: 29 May, 1919
First Published: 1938; Published according to the signed original
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, 4th English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972 Volume 29, page 402
Translated: George Hanna
Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters & Robert Cymbala
Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002; Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
Stalin,
Smolny,
Petrograd
The circumstances of the whiteguard offensive against Petrograd, taken in their totality, compel one to assume the existence of organised treason behind our lines or, perhaps, even at the front. This is the only explanation for the attack with relatively small forces, the rapid advance and the frequent blowing-up of bridges on the main lines leading to Petrograd. It seems that the enemy is confident that we have no organised armed forces of any importance to resist him and that he can depend on help from the hinterland (the fire in the artillery magazines in Novo-Sokolniki, the destruc-tion of bridges, today’s news of the revolt at Oredezh). Please pay greater attention to these circumstances and take extraordinary measures to expose the plots.
Lenin