Carbon TLS in Russian, signed in ink “Stalin,” three pages on two adjoining sheets, 8.75 x 14, July 12, 1918. Letter to Leon Trotsky, informing him a copy of this letter is being sent to Lenin, and headed at the top, “Trotsky Copy Lenin.” In full: “Since time is short, I will write concisely and to the point.
1. – All of us and you were wrong in declaring a separate Cossack mobilization: a/ we were late in comparison to Krasnov, and, b/ we did not have a revolutionary Cossack core capable of rallying the Cossack populace round the Soviet system / the ‘Don Soviet Government’ was a myth; at the insistence of ‘out-of-towners’ and the few Cossacks still behind us, the ‘government’ yesterday declared itself insolvent/. This also basically accounts for the fact that the Cossack mobilization we declared worked in Krasnov’s favor: the mobilized Cossacks, having received guns and cannons, flocked to Krasnov’s side by the thousands / they primarily account for Krasnov’s ‘army’.
2. – People familiar with the situation unanimously maintain that our support in the Don area consists of the ‘out-of-towners’ and that reference can only be made to a ‘universal’ mobilization without separating the Cossacks into a special curia. Only in this way can the Cossacks be used as a military force. The ‘Cossack Committee’ that exists in Moscow is divorced from reality and has no idea of actual local conditions.
3. – The separate Cossack mobilization hurt us not only in the Don region, but also in the Kuban and Tersk regions. Having obtained weapons and being placed under the command to their old captains, the Cossacks engaged in local overt actions and began blowing up railroads throughout the North Caucasus. Here, grounds exist for claiming that not only Krasnov’s agents, but also the French and the English supplied them with pyroxylin.
4. – The situation is complicated by the fact that the Headquarters of the North Caucasus [Sevkaokr] has proven to be totally unadapted to combat under counterrevolutionary conditions. The truth of the matter is not only that our ‘specialists’ are psychologically incapable of decisive warfare against counterrevolution, but also that they, as ‘headquarters’ workers who only have the ability to ‘sketch drawings’ and to provide remarshaling plans, are absolutely insensible to operational actions, to the matter of supply, to controlling different commanders, and in general feel themselves to be outsiders, guests.
The military commissars have not been able to fill the void. Zedin, who is not the brightest of the bunch, has a poor understanding of the situation and is drifting with the current. Ansimov is more aware and mobile, but he is alone. And the military leader and his assistants were up until then oblivious to the fact that two days after the Tikhoretsk line was breached, they, Snesarev and Zedin, were to meet in Baku / where no one had invited them, and only my protest I began accusing them of desertion forced them to postpone the trip; here I cannot help but note that even though they stayed in Tsaritsyn, they nonetheless did not try to take steps to restore the breached line, which remains breached to this day.
5. – All this, together with the fact that the food problem in the south my area ran aground against the military, forced me to intervene in the affairs of headquarters. I am not even talking about the fact that delegations of the fronts and the divisional headquarters requested that I intervene due to the gross negligence of the Headquarters of the Sevkaokr in the matter of supply support. I dispatched three colleagues on the recommendation of local people to headquarters, one of whom, at my request, was confirmed as the head of the military control department Rukhimovich, while the other two Vadim and Parkhomenko were approved as his assistants. These colleagues uncovered a number of impermissible derelictions, finding large-caliber cannons and armored vehicles, the availability of which Zedin had denied and without which the front had already suffered for 2-3 weeks. The items found were put into action.
Then came a general malaise: the availability of a multitude of commanders and the inability or the unwillingness of Headquarters to place them under a single command. If not for this malaise, the road would not have been breached. I feel it is not right to look at this indifferently, when the Kalinin front is cut off from the supply points and the North is cut off from the grain district. I will correct these and many other local shortcomings; I am taking / and will continue to take a number of steps, up to and including the removal of the bureaucrats and commanders who are ruining things, despite official opposition, which I will crush if necessary. Here, it is understood that I am assuming full responsibility before all superior establishments.
6. – Tsaritsyn is being transformed into an equipment and arms depot for military operations, etc. a sluggish military leader such as Snesarev is of no use here. Do you have other candidates? The military commissars must be the soul of military affairs, leading the way for the specialists, but, well in Tsaritsyn, the reverse is proving true Give Anisimov another colleague, a little better tan Zedin.
7. – Trifonov has ‘humbled himself’ and has remained loyal, although he is not fit as a military commissar. We have dispatched him to you as a military freight expediter and he seems to be suited for this. Avtonomov is friendly with the French and the general conviction is he condones the Cossack gangs that are blowing up the railroad. The doors of headquarters are for some reason open to the member of the French mission; here, according to evidence from colleagues, the risky undertaking of our Kuban people against the Germans is the handiwork of the French and the simpletons who trust them. I declare that if they/the French get into my clutches, I will not let go.
8. – Why aren’t the navy fighters rotting in Tsaritsyn being used against the Czechoslovaks?”
In very good to fine condition, with intersecting folds, scattered light creases and wrinkles, a bit of paper loss near hinge, light transfer of text from second page on to last page, and scattered light soiling.
As with almost all Soviet history, the months immediately following the 1917 Russian Revolution were turbulent times filled with political intrigue and jockeying for power...even at the highest level. After the revolution, Trotsky assembled and organized the Soviet Red Army to combat threats against the new regime, including the Cossacks who were members of the opposition White Army. Stalin, lusting for power, soon set out to discredit Trotsky—one of Lenin’s closest advisors—by questioning Trotsky’s military tactics. In fact, this offered correspondence was a follow-up to a letter Stalin dispatched to Lenin to protest Trotsky’s military tactics around Tsaritsyn, an area later known as Stalingrad.
This lengthy correspondence brims with historically significant material, including Stalin’s distrust of career military men. Here he notes how “the Headquarters of the North...has proven to be totally unadapted to combat under counterrevolutionary conditions” and how a “general malaise” led to various security breaches. “I am taking...a number of steps, up to and including the removal of the bureaucrats and commanders who are ruining things, despite official opposition, which I will crush if necessary.” Stalin followed through on his threats, with the execution of career military officers becoming part of his legacy. Many of these officers had been recruited by Trotsky from the old Russian army to lead the fight against the Cossacks—a controversial move Trotsky insisted was necessary.
Furthermore, Stalin’s harsh inquiry into why “the navy fighters rotting in Tsaritsyn being used against the Czechoslovaks” is a reference to members of the new Czech army who, while being transported by train, were ordered by Trotsky to join the Red Army as part of its labor force. The Czechs resisted, seizing much of the rail system, as Stalin references in one of his points, and emboldening the scattered Russian anti-Communists. This letter was sent less than a week before the execution of Tsar Nicholas II, cementing Communist rule. Correspondence from Stalin is scarce and desirable, with this example—linking a triumvirate of Soviet Union’s ‘founding fathers’—exceptionally so. Pre-certified John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and RRAuction COA.
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