We advise the Executive Commission of the
Petrograd Committee and all district committees of the Bolshevik Party to rouse all the workers without a moment’s delay and, in accordance with the decision to be adopted this evening by the Petrograd Soviet, to muster tens of thousands of workers and to set to work all the bourgeoisie without exception, under the control of the workers, for digging trenches outside Petrograd. Now, when the revolution is in danger, this is the only way in which it can be saved. The line of trenches will be indicated by the military. Get your weapons ready and, the chief thing, organize and mobilize to a man. Lenin

Stalin

February 21, 1918

Published for the first time

TELEGRAM

TO THE PEOPLE’S SECRETARIAT,

UKRAINIAN SOVIET REPUBLIC

Five days ago General Hoffmann announced that the term of the armistice had expired,9 and two days later he started hostilities. The Council of People’s Commissars intimated its willingness to resume peace negotiations, but no reply has yet been received. The German Government is evidently in no hurry to reply, its idea being to pillage the country to the limit and only then to open peace negotiations. The Germans have captured Dvinsk, Rovno, Minsk, Volmar and Gapsal and are advancing on Petrograd and Kiev. Obviously, the object of the campaign is not only conquest, but, chiefly, the suppression of the revolution and its gains. The Council of People’s Commissars has decided to organize resistance from Petrograd and to mobilize the entire working population, and the bourgeoisie as well, and if the latter should refuse to dig trenches, to take them by force and compel them to do so under the control of the workers.

It is the general opinion of the comrades that you, in Kiev, should without a moment’s delay organize similar resistance from Kiev westward, muster every able-bodied person, set up artillery, dig trenches, force the bourgeoisie to do trench-digging under the control