Leon Trotsky: Letter to Lenin

[Copy. True Copy. (File No. 3, 1919, part II, page 41) The Trotsky Papers 1917-1922, edited and annotated by Jan M. Meijer, The Hague. 1964, Vol. 2., p. 267]

Before [9-31] January, 1919

Vladimir Ilyich,

l most emphatically draw your attention to the fact of the outrageous arrest of Zagyu. He was arrested by a Commission on which there was no one representing the War Department. This is incorrect from the procedural point of view. He was arrested without the knowledge of his direct superiors. This is incorrect from the procedural point of view. He was arrested by a Commission among the members of which were persons who, in the course of their official duties, had had clashes with him. Bakinsky who at one time, when in charge of the military communications of the Eastern Front, used to have clashes of the utmost acrimony with him, was on the Commission. Since Bakinsky had displayed no administrative ability but sought to cover up his own failings by constantly picking quarrels with everyone, after giving him several cautions I had removed him from his post at that time. Now Bakinsky is arresting Zagyu.

Next. Zagyu failed to cope with his responsibilities just as the majority of, if not all, the personnel of the present time have done. Zagyu did not display any evil intention - such is our general conviction. There are at least just as many grounds for having Podbelsky arrested for his inability to put the Moscow telephone system in order or on the score that virtually one in five of the telegraph posts over the entire Southern Front, which were left uninspected and happily rotted away during Podbelsky’s tenure of office, have now collapsed. Signal communications between the armies of the Southern Front have ceased to exist. One could equally well arrest Bryuchanov, undoubtedly Nevsky and, I think, me too. Zagyu has been arrested only because he is a former General. If a Communist had sat in his place, he, perhaps, would have achieved even less and not been arrested. This is an arbitrary action. It engenders a conviction among our specialists to the effect that they are in no way covered and that there is no point in their being conscientious, since a Bakinsky may arrest them in any case.

I most categorically insist that Zagyu be released. He will not make off.

I go guarantor for him. The investigation can continue. If the court find him guilty, he can be sentenced to be punished accordingly.

Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Council of the Republic, Trotsky