226. NOTE ON A LETTER FROM G. K. ORJONIKIDZE (original) (raw)

V. I. Lenin

226

NOTE ON A LETTER FROM G. K. ORJONIKIDZE[1]

Written: Written not earlier than October 15, 1919
Published: First published in Pravda No. 298, October 28, 1936. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers,[1976], Moscow,Volume 35, page 423.
Translated: Andrew Rothstein
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive. 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

In the opinion both of Unshlikht and of Stalin, Sergo is a most reliable military worker. That he is a most loyal and most practical revolutionary, I know from my own experience of over 10 years.

Notes

[1] This was written on a letter from G. K. Orjonikidze (Sergo) of October 15, 1919, reporting disorder and criminal lack of discipline in the armies of the Southern Front.

Orjonikidze had written: “Something unbelievable, something bordering on treachery. A light-minded attitude to the work, an absolute failure to understand the seriousness of the situation. Not a sign of order at any of the headquarters. Front H.Q. is a riot.... Where is this order and discipline, where is Comrade Trotsky’s regular army?! How could he have allowed such a collapse? This is beyond all bounds.”