63. To E. M. SKLYANSKY

First published in part in 1938 in the magazine Bolshevik No. 2. Published in full in 1942 in Lenin Miscellany XXXIV. Printed from the original. · page 83

6.II.1921

Comrade Sklyansky:

Let me have the telegram from the Saratov Gubernia military commissar, the “reply” to which from the Commander-in-Chief you sent me today.

The reply is stupid and here and there illiterate.

It is a bureaucratic handout, instead of a business-like approach: banditry must be wiped out, instead of being formally written about.

Let them give me, twice a week, brief, very brief results of the fight against banditry.

Also bring home to the field staff that they should work, instead of writing formal notes.

Who is this “field staff military commissar” Ilyushin, what is his record?

Lenin