Leon Trotsky: Telegram to Lenin and Sverdlov

[Copy. Telegram. True Copy. (File of outgoing papers for 1918) The Trotsky Papers 1917-1922, edited and annotated by Jan M. Meijer, The Hague. 1964, Vol. 2., p. 213, 215]

From: Kursk

26/XII. No. 1515

To: Moscow - Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, Lenin.

Chairman of the Central Executive Committee, Sverdlov.

Panyushkin is complaining to you about the Military Revolutionary Council of the Fifth Army and accompanying his complaints with sinister hints. The Party members of the Military Revolutionary Council of the Fifth Army, Smirnov and Kizelshteyn, are complaining of Panyushkin’s total lack of discipline. It is undoubtedly the case that the Fifth Army misemployed the Central Executive Committee detachment, it being a steadfast unit. There was no evil intention behind it; the reasons for this occurrence are clear in themselves. A repeat order has been issued for the detachment’s withdrawal to the reserve to rest and obtain replacements. At the same time Smirnov and Kizelshteyn are perfectly right in pointing out the extreme inconvenience arising from the undefined powers wielded by Panyushkin as Extraordinary Commissar for the Simbirsk and adjacent gouvernements. Even at the time when I was in Kazan he sought to show himself independent of command headquarters. This has now grown more pronounced.

Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Council, Trotsky