Written: Written on June 18, 1918
Published:
First published in 1959 in Lenin Miscellany XXXVI.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1975,
Moscow,
Volume 44,
page 106b.
Translated: Clemens Dutt
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
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Tell Minkin that Syzran has been taken by the Czechs.[1] But we must not give way to panic. Our forces are preparing to hit back. The Penza people, too, should prepare firmly and energetically. Our success is assured if we do not remain inactive.
[1] This refers to the capture of Syzran by units of the Czechoslovak Army Corps.
This Corps was formed in Russia before the October Revolution from among Czechs and Slovaks who were taken prisoner as soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army. By the agreement of March 26, 1918, the Soviet Government gave the Corps the opportunity of leaving Russia via Vladivostok on condition that it surrender its weapons and remove its Russian commanders. But on the orders and with the support of the imperialists of the U.S.A., Britain and France, the counter-revolutionary commanders of the Corps engineered an armed revolt by the Corps against the Soviet government at the end of May. Acting in close contact with the whiteguards and kulaks, the White Czechoslovak Corps occupied a considerable part of the Urals, the Volga area and Siberia.
In the districts occupied by the Czechoslovak mutineers, whiteguard governments were formed with the participation of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries.
Many soldiers in the Corps, seeing how they had been betrayed by their counter-revolutionary command, refused to fight against __PRINTERS_P_481_COMMENT__ 16—2075 Soviet Russia and deserted from the Corps. About 12,000 Czechs and Slovaks fought in the ranks of the Red Army.
The Volga area was liberated by the Red Army in the autumn of 1918. The White Czechoslovak Corps was completely routed simultaneously with the wiping out of Kolchak’s forces.
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