by Ian Grey
In its struggle for survival, the Soviet government resorted to war communism, which involved centralized government control of the economic life of the nation. An immense bureaucratic machine was hastily erected and was soon wielding tremendous power, usually with gross inefficiency.
The food kommissariat was the most crucial of the new bureaucratic institutions. Food products had to be requisitioned from the peasants and distributed by a system of rations cards, issued strictly on a class basis. The rate of death from starvation and malnutrition was high, especially in cities and towns. The food kommissariat had absolute power and responsibility for providing the people “with articles of prime necessity and food stuffs.” It mobilized workers’ detachments for the collection of grain. By July 1918, these detachments had more than 10,000 members. They operated on military lines, each unit containing not fewer than seventy-five men with commander and political kommissar, and armed with machine-guns. Their task was to wrest the grain from class enemies, namely village bourgeoisie, speculators, and the kulak, literally “the fist,” who hired labor, leased land, and was comparatively well off.
Class hatreds were intensified by a special decree, signed by Lenin and Sverdlov in June 1918, ordering the formation of Committees of the Poor, the Kombedy. They were responsible for distributing food and goods, and, in particular, for requisitioning surplus grain from kulaks. In practice, they acted as though they had license to take what they wanted. Envy, greed, and hatred had full rein. The whole country was soon in the throes of a bread war as savage and inhuman as the Civil War. Men and women were burned alive, cut up with scythes, tortured, beaten to death.
Lenin was soon appalled by the ferocity and scale of the war that he had unleashed in the villages. On August 18, 1918, he sent a circular to all provincial Soviets and food committees, stressing that “the Committees of the Poor must be revolutionary organizations of the whole peasantry against former landlords, kulaks, merchants, and priests, and not organizations only of the village proletarians against the rest of the village population.” Admonitions were useless. The savagery still raged, causing untold suffering. In November 1918, the Kombedy were abolished, but the hatreds endured and the plunder of grain continued.
The Socialist Revolutionaries, the party of the peasants, had become increasingly opposed to the Bolshevik government. They had never ceased condemning the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. They now castigated the government for causing civil war in the villages.
The Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets met on July 4, 1918, in the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. The All-Russian Soviet executive committee had expelled Right and Center Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks in the previous month. The Left Socialist Revolutionaries were now the sole legal opposition party, and they planned to challenge the government.
On July 6, two Socialist Revolutionaries gained admission to the German Embassy and shot to death Count Wilhelm von Mirbach, the German ambassador. The purpose of the assassination was to provoke the German government into denouncing the peace treaty and attacking Russia, thus forcing the Soviet government to wage a revolutionary war against Germany. The Germans were, however, fully extended on the Western Front, and in no position to renew war in the east.
On the same day, the Socialist Revolutionaries attempted to take over the city with a force of several thousand men. Their troops reached the Bolshoi Theater in the evening. There they found strong Bolshevik forces on guard, and instead of fighting, they retreated to their headquarters, where later they tamely surrendered.
The Socialist Revolutionary party was now outlawed. Fanatics among them, however, resorted to terrorism, which had been their chief political weapon before the Revolution. On August 30, 1918, M. S. Uritsky, head of the Petrograd Cheka, was shot dead. An attempt was made on the life of Trotsky. Lenin was shot and wounded by Fanya Kaplan, a young Jew. He was carried to the Kremlin, where after two anxious days, he began to recover; by September 19, he was back at work.
At this time, which Lenin had called the most critical of the Revolution, when the Civil War and the bread war were reaching a climax of savagery, these acts of terrorism aroused the Bolsheviks to a frenzy. Mass terror was ordered. In Petrograd, more than 500 people were shot in reprisal for Uritsky’s killing. Fanya Kaplan was summarily executed. Grigory Petrovsky, kommissar for Internal Affairs, issued a proclamation to all Soviets, stating: “Local Soviets should arrest all Socialist Revolutionaries at once. . . . Chekas and military departments should make special efforts to locate and arrest all those living under assumed names and to shoot without formality everyone mixed up with White Guards and other dirty plotters against the government of the working class and the poorer peasantry. Show no hesitation whatsoever in carrying out mass terror. . . .”
Like a volcanic eruption of boiling lava, mass terrorism poured over the country. The Bolsheviks had always endorsed terrorism as an essential instrument of policy. Feliks Dzerzhinsky had declared in June 1918: “We stand for organized terror. Terror is an absolute necessity in times of revolution.” The Cheka wielded absolute power in carrying out this policy. It had over 30,000 agents; many were criminals and brutalized, sadistic soldiers, corrupted further by license to kill, torture, and plunder. In Moscow and Petrograd, and every town and village, the people lived in the midst of a fearful nightmare.
At this time of bloodshed, the murder of Nicholas II and also of his wife and children at Ekaterinburg on the night of July 16/17 passed unnoticed. They were merely the victims, like thousands of Russians, of the general savagery. The military kommissar of the Ural Soviet, which was responsible for the region, had gone to Moscow early in July to obtain instructions from Sverdlov. Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky were probably consulted, and with the White armies poised to capture Ekaterinburg, they would have considered the death of the tsar and tsarevich unavoidable. But Nicholas II, who had failed to save Russia from revolution, had abandoned his throne by abdicating in March 1917: To the Russian people he was already dead.
The summer of 1918 brought further threats to Lenin and his government. The Allied intervention, instigated primarily by Winston Churchill, but supported by the United States, France, Japan, and Italy, had led to detachments of British, French, and American troops occupying Murmansk, Archangel, Vladivostok, and other Russian towns. But this intervention did not develop in any serious form, or give real support to the White forces, as Lenin and others had feared it would. Meanwhile, Soviet forces had a precarious hold on central Russia, but Siberia, and more important, the Ukraine were in anti-Soviet hands. In August, White armies captured Kazan and threatened Moscow. From the south, General Krasnov’s Cossack army began moving northward to join the White forces in Kazan, and they cut the railway line between Tsaritsyn and Moscow. The northern Caucasus was the sole remaining source of grain. Loss of the region meant starvation for the people in the north.
Toward the end of May 1918, reports reached Moscow about the desperate conditions, both civil and military, in Tsaritsyn. Stalin was sent there to organize grain deliveries. Accompanied by his young wife, Nadya Alliluyeva, whom he had just married, he arrived on June 6, 1918, with two armored cars and an escort of 400 Red Guards. The following day, he reported to Lenin that he had found a “bacchanalia of profiteering and speculation” and had taken prompt action. He sacked corrupt and inefficient officials, dismissed unneeded revolutionary committees, appointing kommissars to bring order into labor and transport organization and to ensure grain deliveries to Moscow.
The Soviet North Caucasus Military District had its headquarters in Tsaritsyn. It was commanded by a former tsarist general, named Andrei Snesarev, and a sailor named Zedin, who was an old Bolshevik. On June 14, 1918, Snesarev divided his district into three groups, each with its own commander. A few days later, probably at the instigation of Stalin, Voroshilov was given command of the Tsaritsyn Group. A Donbas metalworker, employed since 1914 in the ordnance factory in Tsaritsyn, he had not had any military experience. But ten years earlier, h
e had served with Stalin on the Bolshevik committee in Baku, and the two men were close comrades. Semeon Budënny, a dashing bewhiskered former dragoon sergeant, and Stalin’s friend Ordzhonikidze, as political kommissar, were also in Tsaritsyn. Voroshilov wrote later that this “group of old Bolsheviks and revolutionary workers rallied around Comrade Stalin and, in place of the helpless staff, a Red, Bolshevik stronghold grew up in the south.”
On July 7, 1918, Lenin sent a telegraph message to Stalin about the Socialist Revolutionary outbreak in Moscow, warning him that “it is necessary to suppress mercilessly these pitiful and hysterical adventurists, who have become an instrument in the hands of the counter-revolutionaries. So, be ruthless against the left SRs and keep us informed more often.” Stalin replied that “everything will be done to forestall possible surprises. Be assured that our hand will not tremble.”
Tsaritsyn was coming under severe pressure. Food deliveries and the city itself were threatened. Stalin began taking a direct part in military operations. On July 7, he reported urgently to Lenin: “I am rushing to the front. I write on business only. The line south of Tsaritsyn has not yet been restored. I am driving and shouting at everyone who needs it, and hope we will restore it quickly. You may be sure that we will spare no one, neither ourselves nor others, and we will, come what may, produce the grain. If only our military “specialists” (blockheads!) had not been idle and asleep, the line would not have been broken; and if it is restored, this will not be due to them but in spite of them. . . . In view of poor communications with the centre, it is necessary to have a man on the spot with full powers so that urgent measures can be taken promptly.”
Three days later, not having received an immediate reply, Stalin sent an angry message. He objected to Trotsky’s high-handed action in ignoring the Tsaritsyn headquarters and dealing direct with the sectors under its command. In particular, Trotsky was not to make postings without consulting the people on the spot. He went on to demand aircraft, armored cars, and six-inch guns “without which the Tsaritsyn front will not remain in being.” Finally, he asserted his own authority, stating that “to get things done, I must have full military powers. I have already written about this, but have received no reply. Very well. In that event, I myself, without formalities, will remove those army commanders and kommissars who are ruining things. I am obliged to do this in the common interest and, in any case, the lack of a chit from Trotsky will not stop me.” The following day, he sent another telegram, informing Lenin that he had already taken full military responsibility and had removed commanders and military specialists who were dilatory or incompetent.
Stalin’s messages to Lenin were couched in forthright and even rude terms. They were, however, communications to an equal, sent at a time of crisis. Although he had respect and affection for Lenin, he did not treat him with deference. Indeed, far from taking umbrage, Lenin acted promptly. On July 19, 1918, the Supreme War Council created a War Council of the North Caucasus Military District, and Stalin was officially appointed chairman of the council.
Stalin’s strong stand evidently made an impression on Trotsky. On July 24, as kommissar for War, he sent a message, deferential in tone, affirming that the North Caucasus Military District was responsible for all military and partisan activity in the area from Voronezh on the Don River south to Baku.
During July and August 1918, the Bolshevik position on the Volga continued to deteriorate. On August 13, Stalin declared a state of siege in Tsaritsyn. The position became more critical. On August 22, the military council sent orders to Dmitry Zhloba, a former miner and the council’s representative in the south, to advance with his Steel Division to tsaritsyn without delay. The messenger reached Sorokin with these instructions only on September 2, 1918. Meanwhile, the Don Cossacks had called off their offensive.
On August 31, 1918, Stalin wrote a long report to Lenin. He was evidently in good spirits and claimed that the Cossack forces were collapsing, a report that soon proved to be overoptimistic. He asked for torpedo boats and two submarines to be sent down the Volga, maintaining that with this support, Baku, the North Caucasus, and Turkestan could easily be taken. This letter, which was written on the day after Fanya Kaplan’s attempt on Lenin’s life, closed with an expression of tender affection: “I press the hand of my dear and beloved Ilyich.”
On the same day, Stalin and Voroshilov sent a telegram to Sverdlov with a message of congratulation on the escape of “the greatest revolutionary in the world, the tried leader and mentor of the proletariat, Comrade Lenin.” The message called on him to respond to this despicable attempt on his life “by organizing a public, massive, systematic terror against the bourgeoisie and its agents.” The cult of the leader was already coming to birth.
Renewed attacks by the Don Cossacks on the Volga front again caused a crisis, showing the weakness of the Soviet forces. Confusion, inefficiency, and a deep corroding suspicion undermined Red Army operations. Another weakness was the absence of an established, centralized military command. A. I. Egorov, a former tsarist colonel and later a commander of the Red Army on the southern and southwestern fronts, recommended the appointment of a supreme commander. Acting on his advice, Trotsky, with Lenin’s approval, made I. I. Vatsetis, also a former tsarist colonel, commander in chief. It was a strange appointment. Vatsetis had failed to gain promotion on completing the 1909 course at the General Staff Academy. Trotsky himself described him as “stubborn, cranky, and capricious.” Presumably, he was the best man available at the time, and although forthright in his views, he proved an indifferent commander.
On September 2, the Supreme War Council was abolished, and in its place, the Revolutionary War Council of the Republic was set up with Trotsky as its chairman. On September 18, the North Caucasus Military District was reorganized as the South Front, a front being in Russian terminology a formation of several armies or an army group. Stalin was appointed chairman of its military council, supported by Sergei Minin and Voroshilov. At the same time, all three continued to hold their posts on the military council of the Voroshilov Group, later known as the Tenth Army, in Tsaritsyn. This duplication was to lead to confusion and conflict.
Meanwhile, Trotsky decided to move the headquarters of the South Front to Kozlov, a railway town some 400 miles north of Tsaritsyn. He was influenced undoubtedly by the accessibility of Kozlov for his personal train and carried away by the glamor of his mobile headquarters, he did not recognize that it was a highly unsatisfactory method of maintaining overall supervision of the rapidly changing military situation. Trotsky also appointed as the military specialist commander of the South Front a former artillery general named P. P. Sytin, who set up his headquarters in Kozlov. The other members of the military council stayed in Tsaritsyn.
Sytin was soon complaining to Vatsetis about the lack of cooperation from Tsaritsyn. He was angry, too, when he learned that Stalin, Minin, and Voroshilov had without reference to him sent orders to I. L. Sorokin in the south concerning the organization of troops in the North Caucasus. At his request, Vatsetis canceled these orders.
Alarmed at this time by the Don Cossack advance, which was pushing Voroshilov’s forces to the east, Stalin sent urgent demands to Moscow for weapons and ammunition. He complained, too, of Sytin’s lack of concern about the South Front. The Revolutionary War Council sent Sytin with one of its members, Konstantin Mekhonoshin, to Tsaritsyn to clarify his relations with Stalin. At a meeting on September 29, Sytin explained that he wanted the headquarters to be at Kozlov or Balashov; Tsaritsyn was unsuitable because it was too remote from the center of operations on the Volga. Stalin was adamant that the headquarters must remain at Tsaritsyn. Further, he, with Minin and Voroshilov, recorded that they were “unable to recognize Sytin’s full jurisdiction or the legality of his brief.” The military council of the Tenth Army, comprising Stalin, Minin, and Voroshilov, was with the addition of Sytin also the military council of the South Front. Thus, in insisting on Tsaritsyn as their headquarters and in recording a vote of
no-confidence in Sytin, Stalin and his two colleagues were acting within their powers. They were, however, in effect opposing the party policy of building up a centralized command structure, which Stalin knew to be necessary.
The South Front remained unstable. On November 2, 1918, Stalin and Minin sent a telegram to the Revolutionary War Council, asking what its intentions were, since their requests for supplies had not been met. The conflict within the command structure was becoming critical. The party Central Committee met to consider the problem of the insubordination of party members, and on its instructions Sverdlov sent a message to Tsaritsyn, rebuking the local council for disregarding the instructions of the Revolutionary War Council. Vatsetis, who received a copy of the telegram sent by Stalin and Minin, replied bluntly to them that “you have centred your main attention on the Tsaritsyn sector at the expense of others. . . . It has been proposed repeatedly that you should move from Tsaritsyn to Kozlov in order to join its commander, but up to now . . . you have continued to operate independently. Such a disregard of orders . . . I consider to be intolerable.”
Vatsetis reported at the same time to Trotsky that Stalin’s independent action was undermining the plan of campaign. He also demanded cancellation of Stalin’s Order 118, which presumably contained the dismissal of Sytin. For their part, Stalin and Voroshilov informed Lenin that the Central Committee should investigate Trotsky’s activities which, they claimed, were jeopardizing the existence of the South Front. On October 4, 1918, Trotsky gave vent to his anger in a telegram to Sverdlov, which he copied to Lenin: “I insist categorically on Stalin’s recall. Things are going badly at the Tsaritsyn Front in spite of superabundant forces. Voroshilov is capable of commanding a regiment, not an army of fifty thousand. However, I shall leave him in command of the Tenth Army at Tsaritsyn, provided he reports to the commander of the Army of the South, Sytin. Thus far Tsaritsyn has not even sent reports of operations to Kozlov. . . . If that is not done tomorrow, I shall remand Voroshilov and Minin to court martial. . . . Tsaritsyn must either submit or take the consequences. We have a colossal superiority of forces, but there is utter anarchy at the top. I can put a stop to it in twenty-four hours, provided I have your firm and clear-cut support. At all events, this is the only course I can see.”