Wired: 3 July, 1918
First Published: 21 January, 1936 In Pravda No. 21 Published according to the manuscript
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, 4th English
Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972 Volume 27, page 523
Translated: Clemens Dutt; Edited by Robert Daglish
Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters & Robert
Cymbala
Online Version: Lenin Internet
Archive March, 2002
Today at about three p. m. a Left Socialist-Revolutionary killed Mirbach with a bomb. This murder is obviously in the interests of the monarchists or Anglo-French capitalists. The Left S.R.s, not wanting to surrender the assassin, arrested Dzerzhinsky and Latsis and began an uprising against us. We are liquidating it mercilessly this very night and we shall tell the people the whole truth: we are a hair’s breadth from ’war. We have hundreds of Left S.R.s as hostages. Everywhere it is essential to crush mercilessly these pitiful and hysterical adventurers who have become tools in the hands of the counter-revolutionaries. All who are against war will be for us.
As regards Baku, the most important thing is that you should be continuously in contact with Shahumyan, and that Shahumyan should know of the Germans’ proposal, made to Ambassador Joffe in Berlin, to the effect that the Germans would agree to halt the Turks’ offensive against Baku if we guaranteed the Germans part of the oil. Of course, we shall agree. And so, be merciless against the Left S.R.s and report more frequently.
Lenin