TELEGRAM TO V. A. ANTONOV-OVSEYENKO (January 17, 1918)

Written on January 17 (30), 1918 · First published in part in 1924 in the book by V. A. Antonov- Ovseyenko, Zapiski o grazhdanskoi voine (Notes on the Civil War), Vol. I, Moscow. Published in full in 1932 in V. I. Lenin, Sobraniye Sochinenii (Collected Works), Second and Third editions, Vol. XXIX. Sent from Petrograd to Kharkov. Printed from the telegraph form text. · page 472

People’s Commissar Antonov, Kharkov

Your telegram received. I welcome the adherence of the Cossacks,^[1] whose delegates are already here and have joined the Congress of Soviets. As regards Mogilev, I have just informed Podvoisky and shall also inform Krylenko; as for the land question on the Don, I advise you to bear in mind the text of the resolution adopted the day before yesterday at the Congress of Soviets on the federation of the Soviet Republics.^[2] This resolution should fully reassure the Cossacks. Please inform the Secretariat that Zatonsky has left for Kharkov; and that, when leaving, he asked Comrade Artyom to be appointed his deputy. Reply immediately.

Lenin

[1] A reference to a resolution adopted by a congress of frontline Cossacks on January 10 (23). The Congress was held in Kamenskaya and was attended by delegates from 46 Cossack regiments. It recognised the Soviet power, and set up the Don Revolutionary Military Committee, which declared war on Kaledin.

Cossack delegates took part in the work of the Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies held in Petrograd from January 10 to 18 (23-31), 1918.

[2] The resolution, “On the Federal Institutions of the Russian Republic”, adopted by the Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies on January 15 (28), 1918, said that the Russian Socialist Soviet Republic was being established on the basis of a voluntary union of the peoples of Russia as a Federation of their Soviet Republics.