Stalin

by Ian Grey

  This head-on conflict between two outstanding party leaders, both of whom were indispensable, faced Lenin with a difficult problem. He decided finally that he must support Trotsky and recall Stalin from the South Front. But he took great pains to avoid offending him. Sverdlov, on behalf of the Central Committee, went in a special train to escort Stalin to Moscow. Furthermore, he emphasized that Stalin was not in disgrace and that his military leadership was not in question, by appointing him to the supreme Revolutionary War Council of the Republic. He also, presumably on Stalin’s request, allowed him to return to Tsaritsyn for the time being.

  The position at the South Front was critical. Stalin, Minin, and Voroshilov sent repeated appeals for help to Lenin and also to Vatsetis and Sytin. Vatsetis sent a reproachful reply. “From today’s telegram direct to me, I see that the defence of Tsaritsyn had been brought by you to a catastrophic state. . . . You alone are responsible for the chaotic situation. . . . In view of the serious state of Tsaritsyn, I am now sending reserves there. . . . Under no circumstances is Tsaritsyn to be given up.”

  Tsaritsyn would probably have fallen on October 16 but for the timely arrival of Zhloba’s Steel Division, consisting of eight infantry and two cavalry regiments. Tsaritsyn did not fall at this time, but it is far from clear who among the Red Army leaders, if any, could claim the credit for saving the city. Voroshilov wrote later that it was saved “by Stalin’s indomitable will to victory,” but Trotsky and others rejected this claim.

  On October 23, 1918, Stalin returned to Moscow. He at once displayed a readiness to cooperate with Trotsky and with others on the War Council. He was evidently anxious to expunge any impression that he was a difficult and insubordinate member of the party hierarchy. Moreover, believing firmly in discipline and centralized control, he recognized that he himself must conform and set an example. In a survey of the year’s events, published in Pravda on October 30, he paid tribute to Trotsky for the role he had played in the Revolution as president of the Petersburg Soviet and chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee and also as kommissar for War and chairman of the Revolutionary Military War Council of the Republic. He was holding out an olive branch, but Trotsky did not respond.

  The Allied victory in the west was followed by the collapse of the Hapsburg and Hohenzollern regimes, and the first signs of revolution in their countries. Lenin, Trotsky, and other Bolsheviks who cherished hopes of an international revolutionary movement waited on developments in Germany and Austria. But their first action was to repudiate the hated Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Next, the Ukraine demanded their attention. Civil war had broken out between P. P. Skoropadsky, the Germans’ puppet hetman, the Ukrainian nationalists, the Bolsheviks, and others. The vast steppelands were in a state of anarchy.

  Stalin was appointed to the military council of the Ukrainian Front, which had the task of occupying the Ukraine, Soon afterward, he was elected to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and to its Presidium. On November 30, the Central Executive Committee set up a Council of Workers’ and Peasants’ Defense with Lenin as chairman, to mobilize the country’s resources for war. Stalin was a member of this new council as the representative of the Central Executive Committee, and he served also as Lenin’s deputy.

  In December 1918, the White forces in Siberia under the command of Admiral A. V. Kolchak advanced westward. The important Urals city of Perm fell, surrendered by the Red Third Army. The White advance, if unchecked, would threaten Moscow. Kolchak also planned that detachments of his forces would join up with the White Archangel Army, north of Kotlas.

  Lenin was alarmed. He sent telegrams to Trotsky, instructing him “to put pressure on Vatsetis” to reinforce Red positions in the Urals. He also informed Trotsky, who was apparently ignorant of the position, about “the catastrophic state of the 3rd Army and its drunkenness.” The old Bolshevik, a former sergeant, commanding this army, was “drinking and in no fit state to restore order.” Lenin decided to send Stalin, but diplomatically he first asked Trotsky’s opinion. Trotsky sent a telegram, agreeing that Stalin should be sent “with powers from both the party and the Revolutionary Council of War of the Republic for restoring order, purging the staff of the kommissars, and severely punishing the offenders.”

  On January 1, 1919, Stalin, accompanied by Dzerzhinsky, set out for the Third Army. He found it demoralized and in urgent need of reinforcements. He sent his first report to Lenin four days after arrival, and this and the final report, signed in Moscow, provided an exhaustive review of the state of the army. He was blunt in his criticisms of Vatsetis, and also of Trotsky’s War Kommissariat and of the Revolutionary War Council. His report showed a broad intellectual grasp of the operational and tactical requirements of an army in action. Stalin was still a tyro in military matters, but he was learning fast.

  The Eighth Party Congress, held in Moscow from March 18 to 23, 1919, discussed at length the command structure and organization of the Red Army. Trotsky, who did not attend, was heatedly criticized by many delegates “for his dictatorial manners, for his scornful attitude to the front workers and his unwillingness to listen to them, for his adoration of the specialists, and for his torrent of ill-considered telegrams, sent over the heads of commanders and staffs, changing directives and causing endless confusion.”

  Stalin would have agreed with these and other criticisms of Trotsky’s high-handedness. He was probably tempted to support publicly the strong censure, moved by V. M. Smirnov, chief spokesman of the “military opposition,” as it became known, on the widely detested kommissar for War. He spoke firmly in support of Lenin, however, and in defense of Trotsky. He recognized the basic soundness of Trotsky’s approach to the Red Army. “Facts show,” he said, “that the concept of a Volunteer Army does not stand up to examination, that we shall not be able to defend our Republic if we do not create another regular army imbued with discipline. . . . Smirnov’s proposals are unacceptable.”

  Among members and outside the party, Stalin’s reputation was growing. He was the practical leader with a capacity for work and for taking responsibility. He was not a great orator, but he always spoke with good sense. He was a man, too, who could cut his way through bureaucratic obstacles and make decisions. The regard in which he was held was demonstrated at the Eighth Party Congress. He was high on everyone’s list for election to the Central Committee. Two new subcommittees of the Central Committee were set up by the congress: the Politburo of five members to guide the party in political matters, and the Orgburo to advise in matters of personnel and administration. He was appointed to both subcommittees. In addition, he was made kommissar of State Control with responsibility for the burgeoning bureaucracy. Like the work of the Orgburo, the functions of his new kommissariat appeared to offer drudgery without the possibility of public acclaim. It was, however, essential organizational work, and in Stalin’s hands, both offices were to enhance his authority and magnify his power.

  On May 17, 1919, Stalin arrived in Petrograd with full powers to organize the defenses of the region against attack by General N. N. Yudenich’s army, which was advancing from the northwest. Remaining in Moscow, Lenin maintained control over the Revolutionary War Council and had direct contact with all the fronts. To Stalin in Petrograd, he sent a stream of telegrams, harrying, advising, demanding information. In a telegram on May 20, he expressed the hope “that the general mobilization of Petersburgers will result in offensive operations and not just sitting about in barracks.”

  Lenin was disturbed by the speed of Yudenich’s advance. He mistrusted the commanders and the troops of the Red Army in the region. On May 27, he warned Stalin to assume treachery, and as an explanation of defeat or other failure, treachery was to become a phobia in the party. Stalin responded promptly. The Cheka was unleashed and soon claimed to have uncovered a conspiracy among employees of the Swiss, Italian, and Danish consulates. Stalin reported to Lenin that a counterrevolutionary plot in support of the Whites had been crushed and that the Cheka was investigating
further. In a message to Lenin, dated June 4, 1919, he wrote: “I am sending you a document from the Swiss. It is evident from the document that not only the chief of staff of the Seventh Army works for the Whites . . . but also the entire staff of the Revolutionary Council of War of the Republic. . . . It is now up to the Central Committee to draw the necessary inferences. Will it have the courage to do it?”

  Stalin himself did not escape criticism. An old Bolshevik hostile to the Tsaritsyn group, A. I. Okulov, who was the political member of the West Front Military Council, complained to the Central Committee that due to Stalin’s actions the Seventh Army was being detached from the West Front, which was under the command of D. N. Nadezhny, a former tsarist corps commander, and that it should be restored to his command. Lenin asked Stalin to comment. “My profound conviction,” he replied, “is: 1, Nadezhny is not a commander. He is incapable of commanding. He will end up by losing the Western Front; 2, workers like Okulov who incite the specialists against our kommissars, who are sufficiently discouraged anyway, are harmful, because they debilitate the vital core of our army.” Okulov was removed from his post.

  Following the repulse of the White advance on Petrograd in June, Stalin was appointed to be the political member of the Military Council of the West Front, and a new commander replaced Nadezhny.

  On the East Front, disagreements erupted between Vatsetis, the commander in chief, and S. S. Kamenev, the commander of the front. Trotsky supported Vatsetis, whom he had appointed, and he showed hostility toward Kamenev. On one occasion in Simbirsk, Trotsky, dressed in black leather uniform, like his personal escort, and armed with a pistol, burst into Kamenev’s office and excitedly threatened him. Later, at the instigation of Vatsetis, Trotsky summarily dismissed him.

  Kamenev was liked and respected. The Military Council of the East Front formally protested to Lenin. Kamenev himself went to Moscow to put his case. On May 15, 1919, he was interviewed by Lenin, who was impressed and told him to return to his command. Lenin was usually careful and diplomatic in his dealings with his closest associates, and in overruling Trotsky publicly, he was expressing his strongest disapproval. He had been losing confidence in Trotsky’s judgment and was increasingly impatient of his bombastic behavior. He also had no high opinion of Vatsetis, who, like Trotsky, had antagonized military as well as political workers.

  The climax came in July 1919. Kamenev had worked out a plan for a further advance eastward into Siberia. Vatsetis vetoed the plan. The East Front Military Council again protested to Lenin. Two meetings of the Central Committee considered the evidence and decided against Vatsetis. At a meeting on July 3, the committee reviewed and endorsed its decision. Trotsky in a fury, his pride affronted, declared that he would resign all his offices, but the committee rejected his resignation. It was decided further that Kamenev should be appointed commander in chief. Vatsetis was arrested, investigated for suspected treason, released, and subsequently given an appointment as a military instructor.

  The Central Committee also reorganized the Revolutionary War Council, limiting its membership to six. Trotsky was included, but the other five members were not his supporters. He could no longer dominate the council and get his way. Deeply offended, Trotsky remained at the South Front for the rest of the summer. The Revolutionary War Council functioned directly under Lenin’s control, and more harmoniously.

  Trotsky subsequently held Stalin responsible for this major reverse in his military standing. He maintained that Stalin’s antagonism toward Vatsetis was well known and that he had supported the East Front Military Council as a means of striking at Trotsky himself. It was a reflection of Trotsky’s egocentricity that he had to interpret Stalin’s actions in terms of hostility toward himself. In this conflict, however, Stalin’s views were those of Lenin and the other members of the Central Committee, and his overriding concern was the victory of the Red Army.

  By the end of June 1919, A. Denikin controlled the whole of the Don region and his army continued its rapid advance. His forces had first spread across the Ukraine and south Russia and then they had pressed northward. In Moscow, Lenin became increasingly anxious about the defense of the city. Kamenev, the commander in chief, had prepared a plan, concentrating strong Red forces to make a flank attack from the east. A second plan, prepared earlier by Vatsetis, and which Trotsky subsequently claimed as his own work, proposed that the armies of the South Front strike due south against Denikin’s forces. The Central Committee had approved Kamenev’s plan.

  The Red Army’s flank attack failed completely to halt the White advance. Disturbed by this failure, Kamenev reviewed his strategy and recommended that, while maintaining pressure on the enemy from the east, strong forces of reserves should be concentrated south of Moscow. The response of Lenin and the Central Committee was a striking expression of their confidence in Kamenev. He was told “not to consider himself bound by his former recommendations or by any previous decisions of the Central Committee” and that he had “full powers as a military specialist to take whatever measures he thought fit.”

  On September 27, 1919, the Central Committee approved the plan to post strong reserves south of Moscow. It decided also to send Stalin to take charge of the South Front. This was a severe rebuff to Trotsky, who had been there during the months of disaster. For a short period, Stalin and Trotsky were both at the headquarters of the South Front, but apparently, they did not quarrel openly.

  On October 11, 1919, Yudenich launched a surprise attack on Petrograd, and the Red Army began to fall back in disorder. Lenin considered that the city should be abandoned, for he would allow nothing to weaken the defenses of Moscow. On October 15, however, the Politburo sent Trotsky to take charge of the defenses of Petrograd. He rallied the troops and reorganized the defenses of the city, and Petrograd did not fall. Later he was to complain bitterly that in official records, Stalin had merged the first and second campaigns of Yudenich into one and “the famous defence of Petrograd is represented as Stalin’s handiwork.”

  Soon after arriving at the South Front headquarters, Stalin reported to Lenin and set out the action he proposed. He criticized Kamenev for holding to his original strategy. He argued that they must “change this plan, already discredited in practice, replacing it with a major attack on Rostov from the Voronezh area by way of Kharkov and the Donets Basin.” He set out cogently his reasons and closed his report with the comment that “without this change in strategy, my work . . . will be senseless, criminal, and superfluous, giving me the right, indeed obliging me, to go off anywhere, even to the devil, but not to stay at the South Front.”

  During the six months from October 1919 to March 1920, while Stalin was at the South Front headquarters and, as he boasted later, “without the presence of Comrade Trotsky,” the Red Army succeeded in crushing the White forces. Denikin had advanced headlong, exhausting his men, and leaving himself exposed to attack in the rear. His troops were driven from Orel on October 20, 1919, and from Voronezh four days later; the morale of his force collapsed. He himself lost the confidence of his officers and the support of his Cossack allies. Early in April 1920, after nominating General Peter Wrangel as his successor, he escaped into Turkey.

  In the advance of the South Front’s armies against Denikin’s armies, Budënny played a conspicuous role. He was a swaggering cavalryman, brave and energetic, but limited in ability. He was tireless in pressing for the formation of a cavalry army under his command. Stalin welcomed the idea of massed Red Cavalry, but Trotsky at first opposed it. He mistrusted the Cossacks, who would be the main source of cavalrymen and who were more in sympathy with the White than the Red cause. With Stalin’s support, Budënny’s proposal was adopted, at least nominally. Trotsky changed his mind about massed cavalry and issued his proclamation “Proletarians to Horse!” Budënny and his Red Cavalry became one of the romantic legends of the Civil War.

  By early January 1920, Budënny had led his cavalry to the shores of the Sea of Azov. The South Front was then divided into the Sout
hwest Front, under Egorov’s command operating against the Whites in the Crimea, and the Southeast Front, commanded by V. I. Shorin and including Budënny’s Cavalry Army, which was renamed the Caucasian Front.

  Shorin had been an officer in the tsarist army, but although nearly fifty years old at the time of the Revolution, he had never risen above the rank of captain. High command had come to him as to many others, because no one else was available in the revolutionary camp at the time. He was disliked by Budënny and Voroshilov, who schemed to have him dismissed. Stalin supported them, and was said by Budënny to have told Ordzhonikidze, recently appointed the political member of the Caucasian Front, that Shorin was to be dismissed “for adopting an attitude of mistrust and enmity toward the cavalry army.” M. N. Tukhachevsky, a former second lieutenant of the Semenovsky Guards Regiment, then in his twenties, who was later designated to succeed Shorin, was to find that Budënny and Voroshilov were unruly and undisciplined but to be handled with care because they had influential protection.

  Early in February 1920, Budënny’s Red Cavalry suffered a severe defeat by the Cossacks. This reverse, indicating lack of discipline and poor leadership, disturbed Lenin. He at once sent a telegram to Stalin, signed by Trotsky, too, appointing him to the Caucasian Front to resolve whatever problems had led to the defeat. The telegram also directed him to make a journey to front headquarters to concert further action with Shorin and to transfer troops from the Southwest Front to his command.