In Moscow meanwhile a campaign of Red Terror was unleashed in response to the attempt on Lenin’s life. Hundreds of people were shot, some of them publicly. As the former assistant of a revolutionary tribunal, S. Kobyakov, recalled: ‘[There was] a wave of executions. During the day in Petrovsky Park, with the public there, they executed former Minister of Justice Shcheglovitov, former Minister of the Interior Khvostov, former Director of the Police Department Beletsky (he tried to escape but was caught and shot), former Minister Protopopov, Archpriest Vostorgov and dozens more.’41
Not long before the capture of Kazan, Trotsky under the command of F.F. Raskolnikov took part in a raid on the city involving four torpedo-boats that had come via the river system from the Baltic, and a number of armed river steamers. He experienced all the emotions a soldier feels under fire. Elements of 5th Army working together with units of 2nd Army and a river-landing force under the command of N.G. Markin liberated Kazan on 10 September, the Red Army’s first big victory on the eastern front. Trotsky later explained the nature of this victory: ‘Inside the units, the [commissars] acquired the importance of revolutionary leaders, or direct representatives of the dictatorship. The tribunals demonstrated to everyone that revolution, when in mortal danger, demands the highest sacrifice. Propaganda, organization, revolutionary example and repression produced the necessary change in a few weeks. A vacillating, unreliable and crumbling mass was transformed into a real army.’42
As soon as he heard of the capture of Kazan, Trotsky dictated Order No. 33: ‘10 September will enter the history of the socialist revolution as a festival. Units of 5th Army tore Kazan out of the hands of the White Guards and Czechoslovaks. It is a turning-point … Soldiers and sailors of 5th Army, you took Kazan. It is to your credit. Those units and individual fighters who particularly distinguished themselves will be appropriately rewarded by the workers’ and peasants’ government … In the name of the Council of People’s Commissars I say thank you, comrades!’43
After the success on the Volga, with the liberation of Kazan, Simbirsk, Khvalynsk and other cities, Trotsky was given the task of coordinating and directing the actions of countless other fronts. He paid great attention to the deployment of cadres. More than fifteen armies were staffed by the most varied commanders, and if chiefs-of-staff were in the main former tsarist officers, the commissars were mostly Trotsky’s own appointees. Practically every one of them who survived the civil war would perish in the purges of the 1930s. Any reference in a personal file to an association with Trotsky was fatal.
Trotsky soon established businesslike contact with front commanders, commissars and army commanders, but his nature ruled out the likelihood of any special warmth. He was universally appreciated for his mind, his energy and his political vigour, but it was also felt that he liked to exhibit his intellectual superiority. He therefore lacked close personal supporters among the senior military commanders. Perhaps this was also due in part to their awareness of a lack of military professionalism in a chief who rarely gave a strategic or operational order.
He was ubiquitous, his train constantly travelling from one front to another; he worked hard to secure supplies for the troops, and his personal involvement in the use of military commissars at the front brought positive results. The army chiefs, moreover, saw in him the ‘second man’ of the Soviet Republic, a major political and state official, a man with enormous personal authority. His rôle in the sphere of strategy was therefore political, rather than military.
From the start of the civil war Trotsky had bad relations with a number of military and political leaders, one of whom was Stalin. In October 1917 he did not know Stalin, and barely noticed the Caucasian who carried out the orders of Lenin, Sverdlov, Zinoviev and Kamenev so punctiliously. When at the end of May 1918 Stalin and Alexander Shlyapnikov were appointed general controllers of food supply in the south, Trotsky learnt of it only from a Sovnarkom decree. Then Stalin, while remaining People’s Commissar for Nationalities, became a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Southern Front. His behaviour soon began to irritate Trotsky, as Stalin on several occasions went over his head straight to Lenin on military issues, and sometimes simply ignored Trotsky’s direct order.
Lenin soon saw what was going on, as a telegram from him to Trotsky suggests: ‘If you don’t have this and all deciphered … telegrams instantly, then send Stalin the following coded telegram over my signature: Address all military communications to Trotsky as well, otherwise there could be a dangerous delay.’44 To a telegram from Lenin on the need to help the Caucasian front, Stalin replied: ‘I don’t see why concern about the Caucasian front has first of all to be put on me … The question of strengthening the Caucasian front falls squarely on the Revolutionary Military Committee of the Republic, whose members, according to my information, are in perfectly good health, and not on Stalin who is anyway overloaded with work.’45 Lenin’s reply was laconic: ‘The job of speeding up the supply of reinforcements from the South-western Front to the Caucasian Front is yours. Help must be given in every possible way, without squabbling over departmental responsibilities.’46
On more than one occasion relations between Trotsky and Stalin were so strained that they resorted to Lenin as the final arbiter. Trotsky could not forgive Stalin for his cavalier attitude to the Revolutionary Military Committee of the Republic, especially as he received complaints from the front of the crude, arbitrary and harsh nature of Stalin’s orders and judgements. Trotsky tried several times to have him removed from military work. In early October 1918 he wrote to Sverdlov, with a copy to Lenin:
I categorically insist that Stalin be recalled. The Tsaritsyn front is going badly, despite our superior forces. Voroshilov can command a regiment but not an army of 50,000 men. Still, I’m leaving him in command of 10th Tsaritsyn Army on condition he takes orders from the commander of the Southern [Front] Sytin. Up to now the Tsaritsyn people have not sent even their operational reports to [me]. I ordered them to present operational and intelligence reports to me twice a day. If this order is not carried out tomorrow, I’m going to put Voroshilov and Minin on trial and announce it in orders throughout the army … [Army command at] Tsaritsyn must either obey orders or get out. All our armies are successful except the Southern Front, especially the Tsaritsyn front, where we have colossal superiority of force but total anarchy in the leadership. Things could be brought under control in twenty-four hours with your firm and decisive support. At any rate, this is the only way I can see for myself.47
Lenin felt compelled, ‘for the good of the cause’, to try to reconcile the two men. For example, on 23 October he sent Trotsky a telegram giving the contents of a conversation with Stalin, with an account of Stalin’s assessment of the position at Tsaritsyn and his wish to improve relations with the Revolutionary Military Committee. Lenin concluded: ‘In reporting all these statements of Stalin to you, Lev Davydovich, I would ask you to consider them and to reply, first, whether you are willing to have it out with Stalin face to face, and secondly, whether you consider it possible, under certain concrete circumstances, to remove the earlier friction and work together, as Stalin so much wants. As far as I am concerned, I think it is necessary to exert every effort to work together with Stalin.’48
Lenin’s efforts were unsuccessful. Both men were too ambitious, capricious and vain, even though it was Stalin’s insubordination that had triggered their conflict. Throughout the civil war, Stalin repeatedly ignored Trotsky’s authority and went over his head to Lenin, who to some extent sympathized with Trotsky, knowing him to be the more able and creative man, and with a far greater range of influence than Stalin.
In June 1920 Stalin sent a demand to Lenin from the front: ‘[Either] we make a real armistice with [White General Baron] Wrangel and thus gain the possibility of transferring one or two divisions from the Crimean front, or we abandon all negotiations with Wrangel, not wait for him to recover his strength but strike at him now and, having smashed him, release forces for t
he Polish front. The present position, which offers no clear solution to the Crimean question, is becoming intolerable.’49 Lenin sent this on to Trotsky with a note: ‘This is obviously Utopian. Wouldn’t it cost too many lives? We would be losing a multitude of our soldiers. This has to be gone over ten times and tested. I suggest replying to Stalin: “Your proposal about an offensive into the Crimea is so serious that we have to inform ourselves and think about it arch-cautiously. Wait for our reply. Lenin and Trotsky.’”50
Once again Stalin was breaking the rules on subordination. Trotsky’s view was that Stalin’s suggestions be submitted to the commander-in-chief of the south-western front, A.I. Yegorov. Lenin agreed, and added in his note of reply, ‘There’s more than a hint of whim here. But it must be discussed quickly.’51 Stalin approached Trotsky only in extreme circumstances, always officially and impersonally. For his part, Trotsky, as his senior in rank, never let slip an opportunity to point out to Stalin the failure of units in which he, Stalin, was a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee. For instance, in one of his coded telegrams he wrote:
Bring Serebryakov or Stalin to the apparatus and ask for immediate decoding and reply. Information about Budenny’s corps is giving concern. According to a detailed account from Pyatakov, Budenn’s army is looting the population, there is drunkenness at headquarters which threatens disintegration of Mamontov’s corps. Also in the political sense serious difficulties may result if the corps breaks up. It is apparently absolutely essential that the most serious measures be taken: tighten up the commanders, drawing Voroshilov’s and Shchadenko’s special attention to this, check the Communist cells, bring to book some of the commanders and commissars who are guilty of looting and drunkenness, in general establish a proper regime in the corps and save it from disintegration. Perhaps the shakiest units of the Cavalry Army should be removed to the reserves soon and restored to order, otherwise they could fall apart altogether, if they have to face Makhno. Please let me know what you have done or propose to do about this.52
No reply from Serebryakov or Stalin has been found, but it seems plain that, in sending such telegrams, Trotsky was as concerned to make Stalin submit to his authority as he was about the state of the forces. The chief difference between them, however, was over the issue of the military specialists. Trotsky shared Lenin’s position, but Stalin was generally distrustful, suspecting treason and plots at every turn. On two occasions, once from Tsaritsyn with the support of Voroshilov and Minin, and again from Petrograd with Zinoviev, Stalin demanded that the Central Committee alter its policy on military specialists, accusing Trotsky of ‘indulging’ treachery. He achieved the final solution of this matter in the mid-1930s when he liquidated almost every former tsarist officer who had served in the Red Army as a commander or commissar.
The Revolutionary Military Committee operated as a military-political organ, directing the strategy of the commanders-in-chief and field headquarters. Trotsky rarely interfered in operational or strategic issues, relying instead on I.I. Vatsetis, S.S. Kamenev and other specialists. But he ensured that the Party’s instructions and Lenin’s orders were carried out at the front. Since the autumn of 1918 he had wanted to introduce an element of planning into military actions, especially on the operational and strategic levels. On his orders, for example, Vatsetis drew up a plan of action for the winter campaign of 1918-19. Trotsky approved it and sent it to Lenin. The aim of the plan was to strengthen the Republic’s defence capabilities, build up strategic reserves and systematically destroy the internal and external enemy in Ukraine, the Donbass, the Caucasus, the Urals and Siberia. Events would cause changes in this and similar plans, but the documents show that Trotsky and his Revolutionary War Council were not acting impulsively. The leaders of the revolution were learning not only the art of governing the social and political processes evoked by the October coup, but also how to organize the defence of the Bolshevik state.
The White Movement
The founders of Trotsky’s adversaries, the Whites, were Generals M.V. Alexeev, L.G. Kornilov and A.M. Kaledin. The White movement began in November 1917 when Alexeev sent an address to all officers who wanted to reject the ‘yoke of Bolshevism’. The address included a call to convene in Novocherkassk in southern Russia, where it was intended to form volunteer units. Only some 200 officers from Petrograd, Moscow and Kiev answered the call at first, but they were quickly followed by a group of officers from the Romanian front under Colonel Drozdovsky, then by Kornilov’s assault regiment and a host of smaller groupings of generals and colonels. The Volunteer Army barely numbered 4000 men at first, and Denikin was given command of the Volunteer Division. When under Bolshevik pressure the Whites had to withdraw to the Kuban—the first ‘ice campaign’—Kaledin shot himself in a fit of depression, and Kornilov was blown up by a shell. From 13 April 1918 the Volunteer Army came under the command of Denikin, who soon became the dominant figure of the White movement in the south of Russia.
The Whites’ political programme was succinctly expressed by Denikin at the opening of the Kuban parliament on 1 November 1918: ‘Bolshevism must be crushed. Russia must be liberated … There shouldn’t be a Volunteer Army, a Don, Kuban or Siberian Army. There should be a single Russian Army, with a single GHQ, single command, endowed with full power and responsible only to the Russian people as its future legal supreme authority.’53 Denikin’s main idea, which was shared by the White officer corps, was ‘the most rapid restoration of Great, Unified, Indivisible Russia’. While the Germans were still occupying Ukraine and other provinces, Denikin’s policy was ‘neither peace nor war with the Germans’. He would consider the question of chasing out the Germans only after the White movement was established.
With the death of Alexeev in October 1918 Denikin became commander-in-chief of the Volunteer Army. He established unstable communication with Admiral A.V. Kolchak, who had some 400,000 men under his command in eastern Russia, with General N.N. Yudenich in the north-west and General Ye.K. Miller in the north. No unification of these commands, however, was ever achieved. Against his own better judgement, in May 1919 Denikin recognized Kolchak’s supremacy as ‘Supreme Ruler of the Russian State and Supreme Commander of the Russian Armies’. As a token of his gratitude, Kolchak appointed Denikin his deputy in the south. Although shortly before his death, in one of his last orders as ‘Supreme Ruler’, Kolchak reported that it had been decided that supreme all-Russian power should be handed over to Denikin,54 the latter did not long remain commander-in-chief.
In the words of former professor of the Imperial Military Academy N.N. Golovin, those who ‘saw the [Volunteer Army] as a feat overshadowed by suffering and martyrdom are right. And those who saw the dirt that stained the clean banner are also right.’ An epic accompanied by filth, in Denikin’s words, heroism flanked by savagery, compassion by hatred. Denikin called the civil war a ‘Russian graveyard’, where both Reds and Whites shed rivers of blood: ‘The methods used to torment and destroy Russians were varied, but the system of terror that was applied openly and with rampant brazenness was invariable. In the Caucasus the Chekists cut people down with blunt sabres over graves dug by the victims themselves; in Tsaritsyn they suffocated people in the dark, stinking holds of barges … We shall never know the number of those killed by Bolshevik terror’ (the figure given by Golovin for 1918-19 alone is 1.7 million). Denikin also recognized that ‘the mounting wave of Cossack and Volunteer forces left a filthy stain in the form of rape, pillage and pogroms against the Jews’.55 According to various estimates, the total number of victims of the White and Red terror, famine and disease, including those who fled the country altogether, amounted to 13 million. Morality in Russia fell to a low level, as Trotsky realized, although his explanation was rather limited: ‘The demoralization brought about by starvation and profiteering was greatly exacerbated by the end of the civil war. The phenomenon of the so-called “bagmen” [who collected grain in the villages for black-market deals in the cities] became so prevalent that it th
reatened to stifle the revolution.’56
Boris Savinkov, an SR who fought on the White side but eventually became reconciled to the Soviet regime, called the civil war a struggle by the Whites for the old, worn-out past, which had no chance: ‘The Reds mobilize and requisition, and the Whites do, too. As hated as the names Lenin and Trotsky are those of Krivoshein and Glinka. Until the White cause becomes the peasants’ cause, they will not succeed. Whoever can turn the struggle against the Bolsheviks into a struggle for a new peasant Russia will beat the Bolsheviks.’57
The White forces began as a motley assortment which included the Kornilov Regiment, the St George Regiment, three battalions of officers, a cadets’ battalion, a regiment of students from Rostov and a couple of batteries. As they regrouped in the Cossack territories of the Don and Kuban, however, and gathered a continuous flow of people and supplies, some of it from Russia’s former allies, Denikin was able to raise the stakes. Soon his army numbered tens of thousands.
With the revolution of November 1918 in Germany and the end of the war, Lenin was able to annul the ‘indecent’ peace of Brest-Litovsk, and the Germans left the south of Russia. It was not, however, only the Bolsheviks’ hands which were now freed by the so-called breathing-space, but also those of the Entente powers which had decided to help the White movement end the ‘Russian troubles’. During this time the territory of the former vast empire was like a disturbed ant-hill in which parties and governments surfaced and vanished, where the people had no idea what to expect tomorrow, where life was going on outside the law, the old laws having been abolished, the new ones as yet unknown, where millions of worried, disoriented and often outraged people were ready to support the Reds one day and the Whites the next, or were desperately seeking a way out of their homeland altogether to escape further disasters.
Trotsky Page 21