L. Trotsky’s Letter to the Politburo and B. Chicherin. 1921

To the members of the Politburo, and com. Chicherin: To add to the note of com. Lenin from the 27th of

December regarding Georgia, I would like to remind you of some facts that I brought up in my report:

1) In the Maikopsky area, there is a “peasant militia” which is controlled by “The Black Sea Committee to Save Russia.” It is headed by S.R.s. According to completely reliable information collected during our investigation, the committee is subsidized by Armenian and Russian industrialists, behind whom stand two groups: English oil industrialists and Italian manganese industrialists.

2) “The Black Sea Committee to Save Russia” (subsidized by English industrialists) recently entered an agreement with the Georgian rebel committee with the goal of taking Tiflis. This is being mentioned a lot in S.R. emigrant communities (in Prague and so forth).

3) In this situation, Henderson and other chatter- boxes of the Second International demand that we get the soldiers out of Georgia.

Conclusions:

If Henderson cannot give us a guarantee that the English oil industrialists, through their armed mercenary bands, will not take Georgia or Azerbaijan (and this kind of guarantee he cannot give), Henderson would be defending the idea of Georgian democracy without Soviet troops, acting, most certainly, as an agent for English oil industrialists. This is the real essence of the matter.

L. Trotsky

P.S. I would like to add the following portion of a telegram from Krasin: “Briande has managed to attract the interest of the British government in a plan to take Transcaucasia, leaning against the Turks. The existence of such a plan is proven by a special oil- industry press. 24th of December, 1921. Krasin.” 28.12-21


[The original was typed, signed by Trotsky by hand. Also by his handwriting was a note at the beginning: “To com. Lenin.” Further in the document is a note written by Stalin:

“C. Lenin! I have a proposal, to add to your document, something in the way of an answer to the worker’s party that it (the worker’s party) is too late with its referendum, since all of the Georgian soviets of worker and peasant deputies (in Tiflis, Batumi, Kutaisi, Sukhumi, etc.) have been formed, connecting hundreds of thousands working in Georgia and defining their way in the soviet form, is it not too late to raise the matter of referendum with the British government in regards to Ireland, India and so on—why doesn’t the worker’s party work on this also.]

[Reserve 558, list 1, case 5196, sheet 106.]

Maikopsky Area—a region in the Krasnodar krai, in the center of Adygeya. Maikop is the capital of the Adygei Autonomous Republic. Soviet rule began in January 1918; in September, the city was taken by the White Army; in January 1920, Soviet rule took over. 

S.R.s—Socialist Revolutionary Party of Russia, which existed from 1902 to 1922. 

Tiflis—name for Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia until 1936.

Second International—international union of the workers’ parties. Started in 1889. During World War I, the Communist Party emerged from it; in 1919, the Communist International was founded. What was left became the Socialist Workers International.

Briande, Aristide (1862–1932)—involved in the French government, a socialist. Between 1909 and 1931, held the post of prime minister of France eleven times, and the post of minister of foreign affairs seventeen times.