Lenin Authorizes the Invasion of Georgia
Vladimir Lenin, Copy Top Secret 14/11-1921. February 14, 1921
After Sovietizing Azerbaijan and Armenia, Bolshevik leaders targeted Georgia, where Communist coups had failed and a stable government still enjoyed broad support. Caucasus leaders pressed for a military solution disguised as aid to an "uprising." Lenin ultimately authorized active Red Army support for the staged revolt; units crossed into Georgia on February 16, beginning the Soviet takeover.
The Central Committee is inclined to allow the Eleventh Army to give active support to the uprising in Georgia and to occupy Tiflis provided that international norms are observed, and on condition that all members of the Military Revolutionary Council of the Eleventh Army, after a thorough review of all the information, guarantee success. We give warning that we are having to go without bread for want of transport and that we shall therefore not let you have a single locomotive or railroad truck. We are compelled to transport nothing from the Caucasus but grain and oil. We require an immediate answer by direct line signed by all members of the Military Revolutionary Council of the Eleventh Army and likewise by Smilga, Gittis, Trifonov and Frumkin. No decisive steps are to be taken before receipt of our answer to telegrams from all these persons.
On behalf of the Central Committee, Krestinskii "Sklianskii" (Typewritten, signed by Comrade Sklianskii)
Comrade Sklianskii. Have this enciphered at once ultra-carefully, in your own presence, keeping the original. Send it to Smilga, making sure that he is at the receiver in person and deciphers it himself (tell the C.-in-C. about it without showing it to him). Stalin will send it himself to Ordzhonikidze.
Triple caution and the utmost caution, then. It is on your responsibility.
Lenin (in Comrade Lenin's handwriting)
Return all this.
(Written by Comrade Lenin)
Source: Leon Trotsky, The Trotsky Papers, 1917-1922 (The Hague: Mouton, 1975), p. 656.