738. TELEGRAM TO M. V. FRUNZE[1]
In code
28. X. 1920
Frunze, Commander of the Southern Front
Copy to Trotsky
In reply to your No. 001/IIIII. I am indignant at your optimistic tone, when you yourself report that there is only one chance in a hundred that the main task, set long ago, will be successful. If things are so outrageously bad, I ask you to discuss measures of the utmost urgency for bringing up heavy artillery, for constructing lines for its transport, for getting sappers, and so on.
Lenin
__SU Notes
[1] The document is the reply to a telegram from Frunze sent to Lenin on October 26, 1920, from Apostolovo station, in which Frunze reported: “I have just given the final order for a general offensive. The decisive days will be October 30 and 31 and November 1. I have no doubt about the rout of the enemy’s main forces. They will not succeed in withdrawing beyond the isthmuses by the time we strike. I consider that the chance of an immediate capture of the isthmuses is not more than one in a hundred.” (M. V. Frunze na frontakh grazhdanskoi voiny, Sbornik dokumentov, Moscow, 1941, p. 415.)