192. To A. A. JOFFE

First published in 1942 in Lenin Miscellany XXXIV. Sent to Berlin. Printed from the original. · page 156

18/X. 1918

Dear Comrade Joffe,

I received your letter of 13. X after sending off a letter to you.

I am not against continuing the “diplomatising”. But its importance has diminished. The whole point is whether the Entente manages to land in force in the Black Sea. I have long been talking to everyone everywhere about this danger, and have said it clearly in the letter to the Central Executive Committee.^[1] The radical difference from II. 1918 is that at that time we had a chance to win time by giving away territory. Now there is no such chance.

Mit besten Grüssen,
Ihr Lenin

Notes

[1] This refers to the “Letter to a Joint Session of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee, the Moscow Soviet and Representatives of Factory Committees and Trade Unions, October 3, 1918” (see present edition, Vol. 28, pp. 101–04). The possibility of the Entente countries extending intervention against the Soviet Republic was dealt with by Lenin in greater detail in his report at the joint session of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee, the Moscow Soviet, factory committees and trade unions on October 22,1918, and in the speech on the international situation at the Sixth Congress of Soviets on November 8, 1918 (ibid., pp. 114–27, 151–64).