Comrade Lenin,

Just a few words.

1) If Trotsky is going to hand out credentials right and left without thinking—to Trifonov (Don region), to Avtonomov (Kuban region), to Koppe (Stavropol), to members of the French Mission (who deserve to be arrested), etc.—it may be safely said that within a month everything here in the North Caucasus will go to pieces, and we shall lose this region altogether. Trotsky is behaving in the way Antonov did at one time. Knock it into his head that he must make no appointments without the knowledge of the local people, otherwise the result will be to discredit the Soviet power. 2) If you don’t let us have aeroplanes and airmen, armoured cars and 6-inch guns, the Tsaritsyn Front cannot hold out and the railway will be lost for a long time.

3) There is plenty of grain in the South, but to get it we need a smoothly-working machine which does not meet with obstacles from troop trains, army commanders and so on. More, the military must assist the food agents. The food question is naturally bound up with the military question. For the good of the work, I need military powers. I have already written about this, but have had no reply. Very well, in that case I shall myself, without any formalities, dismiss army commanders and commissars who are ruining the work. The interests of the work dictate this, and, of course, not having a paper from Trotsky is not going to deter me. J. Stalin

Tsaritsyn,

July 10, 1918

Published for the first time