V. I.   Lenin

Proposals on
Military Questions[1]


Written: Written in August, not before 20, 1920
Published: First published in 1959 in Lenin Miscellany XXXVI. Printed from the manuscript.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, 2nd English Printing, Progress Publishers, 1971, Moscow, Volume 42, pages 205c-206a.
Translated: Bernard Isaacs
Transcription\Markup: D. Walters
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (2003). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.README


It having been certified that there remain (with Budyonny) not <10,000,

1) I vote for taking the 6th Cavalry Division from Budyonny for the Wrangel front;

2) for reinforcing Budyonny’s Mounted Army with those 3-4 thousand sabres which the Commander-in-Chief promises the South (urgent);

+4) more horses to be taken from the Byelorussian peasants to reinforce Budyonny’s cavalry;

5) for replacing Gittis by Comrade Frunze immediately (see opinion of Commander-in-Chief and Tukhachevsky).

Lenin


Notes

[1] The situation on the Polish and Wrangel fronts was discussed at a meeting of the Politbureau on. August 19, 1920. The Wrangel front was found to be the main front, and the Politbureau out-lined a number of measures aimed at strengthening it, speci-fically, it passed a decision to transfer the 6th Division of the First Mounted Army to the Wrangel front.

On August 20, 1920, the Commander-in-Chief forwarded a memorandum to the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic objecting to this transfer on the grounds that the 6th Division formed the core of the First Mounted Army and in quality was equal to the three remaining divisions. The memorandum bears I. V. Stalin’s superscription: “This information is incorrect: the remaining three divisions have no less than 10,000 sabres, and the 4th Cavalry Division remaining in the Mounted Army is older and more indigenous than the 6th”. On reading this memorandum Lenin wrote his proposals. Lenin made the following notes, apparently during the discussion of these proposals: under points I and 2 “Krestinsky against”, under point 4 “Krestinsky abstained”, and under point 5 “Krestinsky is for”. The numeration of the points has been retained as given in the manuscript.


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