Spies and Commissars
Page 35
Zinoviev, Radek and Kun gave rousing speeches at the ceremonial meeting of welcome. The Azerbaijani communist leader Nariman Narimanov, himself an Azeri, opened the first full session.16 Although Narimanov was a communist through and through, he argued that the Congress should unite behind a common struggle: ‘I say that we are now faced with the task of kindling a real holy war against the British and French capitalists.’17 Radek was also fiery, asking: ‘How is it that a little handful of British are able to keep under their heels hundreds of millions of Indians?’18 The speeches were translated instantaneously into Turkish and Persian. Enver Pasha, a prominent figure in the military campaign under Mustafa Kemal to salvage Turkey’s independence after the Ottoman defeat in the Great War, sent passionate greetings to the Congress and wished the Red Army well.19 John Reed, recently returned from the US, denounced American imperialism.20 A Council for Propaganda and Action was elected with its base in Baku and the audience rose to sing the Internationale.21 Zinoviev closed the proceedings with a modification of one of Karl Marx’s most famous slogans. From Baku onwards, he announced, the words of The Communist Manifesto needed to be changed to: ‘Workers of all lands and oppressed peoples of the whole world, unite!’22
If Comintern was to be effective as the means of bringing millions to the revolutionary cause, however, it had to counteract any assumption that peaceful methods of struggle were sufficient for success. When Lenin learned of objections to violent methods among the British Labour delegation to Russia in 1920, he issued an open letter to the workers of the United Kingdom defending the use of terror and the suppression of press freedom under Soviet rule. Such mechanisms, he argued, constituted ‘the defence of the working class against [its] exploiters’. He contended that freedom of the press was merely ‘the freedom of the wealthy to conspire against those who laboured’.23 He also felt it important to note that ‘England’ and its allies had carried out a ‘White terror’ in Finland, Hungary, India and Ireland. Somewhat condescendingly, he said he had explained this so frequently over the years that he found it ‘not very joyful’ to have to repeat himself.24 This was less than graceful; it was also a wild exaggeration because the British had instigated no killing of communists in Finland or Hungary. But Lenin was a practical revolutionary. It would do no harm if a piece of rhetoric swelled the ranks of support for Comintern.
When a particular national situation was not yet ripe for insurrection it was still possible for communists to render assistance to the Soviet cause. In 1920 Comintern issued a May Day appeal suggesting that peace was impossible under capitalism and calling for the obstruction of troops and supplies going to the anti-Bolshevik forces in Russia. Henriette Roland-Holst, the Secretary of Comintern’s Amsterdam Bureau, recommended the resumption of trade with Russia. She admitted that this would involve private business but argued that Russia needed Western manufactures and that the West needed Russian grain. She suggested that European workers would benefit from the stimulus given to post-war economic recovery.25
Lenin, Trotsky and Zinoviev hammered out their message that the Bolsheviks were heroically carrying out the practical objectives of socialism. What Comintern said about capitalist exploitation and imperial oppression was anyway in line with traditional doctrines of socialist, social-democratic and labour parties the world over. There was immense war-weariness after 1918, and most militants thought the biggest danger to peace lay in the temptation for the victor powers to undertake a crusade against the Bolsheviks. Whenever objections were raised against Lenin’s policies on terror and dictatorship it was always tempting for radical socialists to argue that the regime in Moscow had been forced to act harshly by the vicious ring of counter-revolutionary armies, Russian and foreign, that was meant to throttle it in 1918–19. The hope was that Bolshevik doctrines and practices would steadily become more moderate if Russia was left alone by foreign armies and permitted to trade with the rest of the world.
Not every Comintern militant was content with the way things were being propelled by Lenin, Trotsky and Zinoviev. Among the critics was John Reed. When talking to friends, he made no secret of his growing distaste for Bolshevik manipulation of the international labour movement. He mixed readily with communist leaders in Russia and witnessed the condescending attitude they had to foreign communists. This attitude was not confined to Lenin and other Politburo members. Yan Berzin, the Soviet plenipotentiary in Switzerland, told Zinoviev that ‘[Zeth] Höglund and all the other Scandinavian ditherers are people without energy or initiative, but nevertheless it’s necessary to operate precisely through them for the moment.’26
Reed had come late in his young life to the political far left and brought along with him an idealism about acceptable methods. He looked askance at the discrediting of Sovnarkom’s critics. He objected that so many officials were being promoted to high office in Comintern simply because they obeyed Zinoviev. He saw no signs of Bolshevik authoritarianism fading from Russian politics. The Bolshevik leaders knew of Reed’s second thoughts about them and were already wondering what to do about him when, on his way back from Baku, he contracted typhus. He and Zinoviev had never got on either personally or politically. Yet when Reed died in October 1920 he received a magnificent funeral and his remains were interred below the walls of the Kremlin. Although his wife Louise Bryant had been shocked by the poor quality of care he received from Russian doctors and nurses, she bore no grudge. The interment, however, rankled. She told fellow reporter Marguerite Harrison: ‘John was a real American. I know he would have wanted to be buried on American soil.’27 In death he was turned into an unquestioning communist hero who remained of use in propaganda for a Comintern which he had come to despise.
Comintern had yet to grow to its mature size and strength, but its dominant features were already clearly delineated. The Russian Communist Party had called it into existence and was exercising parental control. Moscow had the funds, determination and cunning to maintain its dominance. Bolsheviks had made the October Revolution, whereas all the attempts to set up communist regimes elsewhere as yet had failed. The Kremlin planned to maintain its grip in directing communist strategy and operations.
28. TO POLAND AND BEYOND
The Western Allies might have withdrawn their expeditions from Russia and Ukraine but Russian communist leaders had to maintain their vigilance about potential threats from abroad. Foreign powers had intervened in Soviet Russia since 1918 and every Bolshevik thought that they could return on an anti-communist ‘crusade’. If the Allied powers did not do this by themselves, they might employ the forces of Russia’s bordering states — Finland, Poland or Romania were surely open to being used in this fashion. Travelling around the Baltic in the winter of 1918–19, Adolf Ioffe warned Trotsky that the Poles might soon invade.1
From spring 1919 there had been serious clashes between Red forces and the Polish army across the western borderlands of the former Russian Empire. The Bolsheviks had established a joint Lithuanian–Belorussian Soviet Republic in February with its two capitals in Vilnius and Minsk. By its creation, communist leaders disclaimed any association with Russian ‘chauvinism’ and strove to prove their tolerance of all nations. The Poles saw things differently. Although ostensibly the new republic was independent, it was led by Bolsheviks who remained subject to the discipline of the centralized communist party in Moscow. The ‘Litbel’ republic, moreover, was a clear and present threat to Poland’s security. Józef Pilsudski, the Polish commander-in-chief, ordered military action in April. Vilnius fell immediately, followed by Minsk in August. Since Trotsky’s Red Army was then engaged in finishing off the White armies of Kolchak and Denikin, the Lithuanian–Belorussian Soviet Republic was incapable of defending itself. Polish forces in the same months were also involved in heavy fighting with Soviet Ukraine. Thus the entire area of the old western borderlands was under contestation.2
The Western Allies appreciated the dangers. The Polish Prime Minister Ignacy Paderewski approached them in September 1919 with an off
er to attack Soviet Russia in return for subsidizing his armed forces. Clemenceau had the Allied Supreme Council with him in rejecting any such idea and the British instead proposed the establishment of an eastern Polish frontier short of Grodno, soon to be known as the Curzon Line (even though Lord Curzon, who had recently become Foreign Secretary, played no part in drafting it).3
Pilsudski, however, thought the Allies naive in believing that the Bolsheviks would abide by any such settlement, and he continued to work on his strategy of exploiting Moscow’s moment of weakness by expanding the territory under Warsaw’s control. Aiming to set up a federation with the Ukrainians he agreed a pact with anti-Bolshevik Ukrainian leader Symon Petliura. The coming together of Poland and Ukraine would improve their chances against a resurgent Russia or Germany. Pilsudski rejected any alliance with the Russian Whites because the White commanders believed in ‘Russia one and indivisible’ and refused to commit themselves to Polish independence. General Yudenich, entirely failing to understand Poland’s national sensitivities, expressed annoyance when the Poles refused to cross the River Berezina to render assistance.4 But while Pilsudski had hopes of Kiev, Lenin’s mind was fixed on Berlin. Germany’s current government was always going to suffer criticism for having acceded to the treaty of Versailles. Berlin was pulled in all directions by political tension. The far right acted first. On 17 March 1920 a coalition of Freikorps and other paramilitary groups led by Wolfgang Kapp attempted a putsch. Lenin cabled Stalin to speed up the defeat of the Whites in Crimea because he wanted to have the Red Army available to intervene in a German civil war since revolution in Germany was always the communist objective.5
But Kapp’s putsch quickly fizzled out when the German government mobilized the army and trade unions against him; and the Russian communist leadership shifted its focus back to internal affairs, especially economic recovery. On 23 April Soviet Russia offered a territorial compromise to Poland, proposing a border line which would have handed all Belorussia to the Poles. Pilsudski interpreted this as a sign of weakness and decided that this was the best opportunity to crush Bolshevism in the borderlands and create the federation he desired.6 Information available to Pilsudski from intercepts of Soviet wireless traffic indicated that the Red Army was being prepared for its own campaign in the west. This made Pilsudski think that he needed to strike before he could be struck,7 and on 26 April the Polish Army advanced into Ukraine where peasant rebellions against the communist authorities were intensifying. Conscription had been onerous. Grain had been seized without compensation. Bolshevik zealots in some provinces had even forced villagers into collective farms. Pilsudski aimed to pull Ukraine out of the grasp of its Red conquerors and counteract Russia’s influence over the entire region. Ukrainian popular opinion was not consulted. Pilsudski and Petliura wanted to accomplish their purposes before the Soviet government had a chance to act.
The Polish army made a lightning advance. By 7 May, to its surprise, it had reached and occupied Kiev. The Reds had been concentrating on finishing off the Volunteer Army in Crimea and Trotsky issued a proclamation declaring the determination of both party and army to drive out the Poles.8 He called it a war imposed on the Bolsheviks and demanded a resolute effort to defend Russia and Ukraine against the enemy. He appealed for help from Imperial officers who had avoided siding with the Red or White cause in the Civil War. In this he was successful; Poles were the historic national foe and General Alexei Brusilov led the way in volunteering his services in sending Pilsudski packing.
Pilsudski knew that, for Poland to be truly secure, the communist dictatorship in Moscow had to be dislodged. He permitted Boris Savinkov, who respected Poland’s right to independence, to base his Russian Political Committee in Warsaw.9 He also allowed the White general Stanislav Bulak-Balakhovich, who had fought for the North-Western Army under Yudenich, to operate on Polish soil.10 These manoeuvres were kept secret from all but the most consistent anti-communists abroad. In Britain, Winston Churchill was in the know. But Pilsudski was generally hoping to effect territorial and political change before those who — like Lloyd George — sought a commercial treaty with Soviet Russia could do anything to stop him.11 Soviet leaders as usual assumed that the Allied powers had organized the Polish offensive. They failed to understand the scope for initiative available to Pilsudski as well as his fear that unless he took action the Allies might cage him inside policies that injured Poland’s interests. The Polish commanders and politicians were intent on redrawing the map of Europe without delay and eliminating the menace of Bolshevism. Too much consultation with the Western Allies might undermine this purpose.
This did not mean that the Poles lacked Allied assistance — and the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs monitored the pages of the Western press for evidence of such a connection.12 Newspapers from The Times through to the Labour-owned Daily News were followed with care. Especially alarming was a report in L’Humanité, the French communist publication, about the presence of French military cadres in Poland. Already in February 1920 there were 732 French officers, including nine generals, on active service there. L’Humanité added that British arms exports had reached Poland in the winter, taking this as proof that ‘the West’ was engaged in a criminal war against Soviet Russia.13 Evidence was adduced that an ‘American officer’ had been conducting sabotage behind the Soviet lines.14 The monitoring department in the People’s Commissariat noted that the New Statesman had stated categorically that Lloyd George could have stopped Poland from going to war but instead had chosen to send armaments to Warsaw — his way of getting round the obstacle of ‘English’ popular opinion, which was hostile to an Anglo-Russian war, even a small one. The People’s Commissariat saw Lloyd George as Pilsudski’s partner in international villainy.15 Stalin put it memorably, saying that the invasion of Ukraine was the ‘third campaign of the Entente’.16
The French officers supplied to help with the training of the Polish Army included the young Charles de Gaulle. Released from German captivity at the end of the Great War, he gave lectures in Poland on military doctrine and methods and joined a Polish combat unit in July 1919. Such links left no doubt in Moscow that France was seeking the demise of Soviet Russia.17
Then there was the Kosciuszko Squadron of volunteer US aviators formed by Colonel Cedric Fauntleroy in January 1920 at Prime Minister Paderewski’s request. President Wilson gave his consent without putting anything into writing because he wished to maintain the pretence that America had withdrawn from European conflicts.18 The dozen American airmen were daredevils who swooped over enemy lines on their dangerous missions, developing a new technique of ‘low level bombardment with frontal fire power’.19 The most ebullient of them was Merian Cooper. Shot down in flames and badly wounded in the Great War, he refused to accept his Distinguished Service Cross on the grounds that he did not deserve anything for saving his own life. He then offered himself for work with Hoover’s American Relief Administration in Lwów. As fear of Red offensives grew in 1919, he received permission to join the Polish armed forces and joined in their Ukrainian incursions.20 ‘Coop’ was shot down on 13 July 1920 and captured by the Reds. The Polish press announced his death but in fact he was held in a Soviet prison until he escaped about ten months later. He was not the only daredevil in the Kosciuszko Squadron. In March 1921 the Washington Post was to report the awarding of medals to its members at the Polish legation in Washington.21
The British too were involved. Paul Dukes, now under the cover of an assignment for The Times, shuttled between Kraków and western Europe liaising with Polish military commanders such as Generals Gustaw Zygadlowicz and Lucjan Zeligowski.22 Not bothering to disguise his presence, he was photographed with the Polish Women’s Death Battalion and was with the Polish army when it retook Grodno at the end of the war.23 Sidney Reilly joined Dukes on his mission in October 1920, and the two of them met up with Savinkov.24 Savinkov regarded Reilly as one of the great anti-Bolsheviks and ‘a knight without fear or reproach’, and this wa
s the beginning of a warm friendship.25
But if the Poles failed to hang on to Ukraine, Allied assistance would not be enough in itself. The Politburo now diverted nearly all its forces to fight Pilsudski, and Kiev fell back into Red hands on 13 June 1920. The Polish positions crumbled in central and western Ukraine over the weeks that followed; on 12 July the Red Army reached what Lenin called ‘the ethnographic frontier of Poland’. The Bolsheviks exulted. The Party Central Committee aimed at ‘the Sovietization of Poland’, and on 17 July Trotsky ordered the Red Army Supreme Command to chase the Poles deep behind the Curzon Line.26 Warsaw was the first big target. Leading Bolsheviks in Latvia and Georgia criticized the decision, not out of respect for Polish independence but from a desire for Trotsky to invade their own countries before he moved into Poland.27 This discussion was kept secret from the Second Comintern Congress since Lenin thought that many foreign delegates were ‘nationalists and pacifists’ who could not be trusted with the information. He noted that the ‘English’ comrades had been aghast at his advice to seek the overthrow of the British government: ‘They made the kind of faces that I reckon even the best photograph couldn’t capture.’28 He had no wish to ask what they thought of an offensive using ‘bayonets to probe whether the social revolution of the proletariat had matured in Poland’.29