Red Dusk and the Morrow · Chapter 11 (2/4)

Such duress against officers showed an astute understanding of the psychology of the White armies. A single conspicuous deed for the Bolsheviks by an officer of the old army was sufficient to damn that officer forever in the eyes of the Whites, who appeared to have no consideration for the painful and often hopeless position in which those officers were placed. It was this that troubled my commander after his accidental destruction of the right bridge. I am told that General Brusilov’s son was shot by Denikin’s army solely because he was found in the service of the Reds. The stupidity of such conduct on the part of the Whites would be inconceivable were it not a fact.

The complete absence of an acceptable programme alternative to Bolshevism, the audibly whispered threats of landlords that in the event of a White victory the land seized by the peasants would be restored to its former owners, and the lamentable failure to understand that in the anti-Bolshevist war politics and not military strategy must play the dominant role, were the chief causes of the White defeats. This theory is borne out by all the various White adventures, whether of Kolchak, Denikin, or Wrangel, the course of each being, broadly speaking, the same. First the Whites advanced triumphantly, and until the character of their regime was realized they were hailed as deliverers from the Red yoke. The Red soldiers deserted to them in hordes and the Red command was thrown into consternation. There was very little fighting considering the vast extent of front. Then came a halt, due to incipient disaffection amongst the civil population in the rear. Requisitioning, mobilization, internecine strife, and corruption amongst officials, differing but little from the regime of the Reds, rapidly alienated the sympathies of the peasantry, who revolted against the Whites as they had against the Reds, and the position of the White armies was made untenable. The first sign of yielding at the front was the signal for a complete reversal of fortune. In some cases this process was repeated more than once, the final result being a determination on the part of the peasantry to hold their own against Red and White alike.

Most Russian émigrés now admit not only that warring against the so-called Soviet Republic has served above all else to consolidate the position of the Bolshevist leaders, but also that the failure of the anti-Bolsheviks was due largely to their own deficient administration. But there are many who continue to lay the blame on anyone’s shoulders rather than their own, and primarily upon England⁠—a reproach which is not entirely unjustified, though not for quite the reasons that these critics suppose. For while the Allies and America all participated in military intervention, it was England who for the longest time, and at greatest cost to herself, furnished the counterrevolution with funds and material. Her error and that of her associates lay in making no effort to control the political, i.e. the most important, aspect of the counterrevolution. England appeared to assume that the moral integrity of Kolchak, Denikin, and Wrangel, which has never been called in question by any serious people, was the gauge of the political maturity of these leaders and of the Governments they brought into being. Herein lay the fundamental misjudgment of the situation. The gulf that yawns between the White leaders and the peasantry is as wide as that between the Communist Party and the Russian people. Not in Moscow, but in the camps of the White leaders themselves were sown the seeds of the disasters that befell them, and this was apparent neither to England nor to any other foreign Power.

By the end of 1919 the higher military posts in the Red army, such as those of divisional-, artillery-, and brigade-commanders, were occupied almost exclusively by former Tsarist generals and colonels. The Bolsheviks are extremely proud of this fact, and frequently boast of it to their visitors. These officers are treated with deference, though as known anti-Bolsheviks they are closely watched, and their families are granted considerable privileges.

In lower ranks there is a predominance of “Red” officers, turned out from the Red cadet schools where they are instructed by Tsarist officers. Few of the Red cadets are men of education. They are, however, on the whole, strong supporters of the soviet regime. But civilians and even private soldiers also find their way by good service to positions of high responsibility, for the Red army offers a field for advancement not, as in the White armies, according to rank, “blood,” or social standing, but primarily for talent and service. Merit is the only accepted standard for promotion. Common soldiers have become expert regimental commanders, artillery officers, and cavalry leaders. In many cases opportunities which were formerly unknown, but are now offered, make of such people, of whose courage and determination there can be no doubt, convinced supporters of the present regime. Provided he signs on as a member of the Communist Party any clever adventurer who devotes his talent to the Red army can rise to great heights and make for himself a brilliant career. Had the Russian people really been fired by revolutionary enthusiasm or devotion to their present rulers, the Red army would, under the system introduced by Trotsky, have rapidly become not merely a formidable but an absolutely irresistible military force.

But the Russian people are not and never will be fired by enthusiasm for the Communist revolution. As long as the White armies were permeated by the landlord spirit there was indeed an incentive to defend the land, an incentive exploited to the full by the Bolsheviks in their own favour. I witnessed a striking instance of this on the northwest front. One of the generals of the White army operating against Petrograd issued an order to the peasant population to the effect that “this year the produce of the land might be reaped and sold by those who had sown and tilled it [that is, by the peasants who had seized it], but next year the land must be restored to its rightful owners [that is, the former landlords].” Needless to say, the effect was fatal, although this same general had been welcomed upon his advance three weeks before with unprecedented rejoicings. Moreover, this particular order was republished by the Bolsheviks in every paper in Soviet Russia and served as powerful propaganda amongst the peasant soldiers on every front.

In November, 1920, I talked to soldiers fresh from the Red ranks in the northern Ukraine. I found that peasants, who were willing enough to join insurgents, feared to desert to Wrangel’s army. Asked why they had not deserted on the southern front, they replied with decision and in surprising unison: “Rangelya baimsya”; which was their way of saying: “We are afraid of Wrangel.” And this in spite of Wrangel’s much-vaunted land law, which promised the land to the peasants. But behind Wrangel they knew there stood the landlords.

But the first campaign of the Red army against a non-Russian foe, Poland, which did not threaten the peasants’ possession of the land, resulted in complete collapse at the very height of Red power. And this is the more significant in that quite an appreciable degree of anti-Polish national feeling was aroused in Russia, especially amongst educated people, and was exploited by the Bolsheviks to strengthen their own position. But there was one striking difference between the Red and the Polish armies, which largely accounted for the outcome of the war. Badly officered as the Poles were by incompetent, selfish, or corrupt officers, the rank and file of the Polish army was fired even in adversity by a spirit of national patriotism unseen in Europe since the first days of the Great War. It only required the drafting in of a few French officers, and the merciless weeding out of traitors from the Polish staff, to make of the Polish army the formidable weapon that swept the Red hordes like chaff before it. In the Red army, on the other hand, the situation was precisely the reverse. The Reds were officered by commanders who were either inspired by anti-Polish sentiment, or believed, as the Communist leaders assured them, that the revolutionary armies were to sweep right across Europe. But the rank and file were devoid of all interest in the war. Thus they only advanced as long as the wretchedly led Poles retreated too rapidly to be caught up, and the moment they met organized resistance the Russian peasants either fled, deserted, or mutinied in their own ranks.

The Polish victory effectually dispelled the myths of peasant support of the revolution and the invincibility of the Red army, but beyond that it has served no useful purpose as far as Russia is concerned. Rather the contrary, for by temporarily aligning Russian intellectuals on the side of the Communists it served even more than the civil wars to consolidate the position of the Soviet Government.

The terror that prevails in the Red army, and is, when all is said and done, the measure most relied upon by the Soviet Government to ensure discipline, leads at times to extraordinary and apparently inexplicable episodes. In September, 1920, I witnessed the retaking of the fortress of Grodno by the Poles. As I watched the shells falling over the trenches on the outskirts of the town I thought of the wretches lying in them, hating the war, hating their leaders, and merely waiting till nightfall to creep out of the city. Though it was said that Grodno was defended by some of the best Red regiments, the retreat was precipitate. But a day or two later near Lida they unexpectedly turned and gave battle. Trotsky was, or had recently been in that sector, and had ordered that ruthless measures should be taken to stay the flight. One Polish division was suddenly attacked by five Red divisions. Four of the latter were beaten, but the last, the 21st, continued to fight with savage fury. Three times they bore down in massed formation. It came to a hand-to-hand fight in which the Poles were hard pressed. But after the third attack, which fortunately for the Poles was weaker, an entirely unforeseen and incomprehensible event occurred. The soldiers of the 21st Soviet division killed every one of their commissars and Communists and came over to the Poles in a body with their guns!

It would seem that conscious human intelligence was completely benumbed at such times. Impelled by despair, people act like automatons, regardless of danger, knowing that worse things await them (and especially their kith and kin) if they are detected in attempted disloyalty. People may, by terror, be made to fight desperately for a thing they do not believe in, but there comes after all a breaking-point.

The means of producing terror in the army are Special Departments of the Extraordinary Commission, and Revolutionary Tribunals. The methods of the Extraordinary Commission have been described. In the army to which my regiment belonged the order for the formation of Revolutionary Tribunals stated that they “are to be established in each brigade area, to consist of three members, and to carry out on the spot investigations of insubordination, refusal to fight, flight or desertion by complete units, such as sections, platoons, companies, etc.” Sentences (including that of death) were to be executed immediately. Sentences might also be conditional, that is, guilty units might be granted an opportunity to restore confidence by heroic conduct and thus secure a reversal of the verdict. At the same time, “separate specially reliable units are to be formed of individuals selected from steady units, whose duty will be to suppress all insubordination. These selected units will also execute the sentences of death.”

Desertion from the Red army is not difficult, but if one lives in or near a town one’s relatives pay. Desertion, being what the Bolsheviks call a “mass-phenomenon,” is combated by special Commissions for Combating Desertion, established in every town and large village and at frontier points. The number of these commissions is indicative of the prevalence of desertion. Their agents hang about the outskirts of towns, at crossroads, frontier stations, etc., prodding truckloads of hay or looking under railroad cars. If a man is known to be a deserter but cannot be ferreted out, the property of his relatives is confiscated and they are liable to be arrested unless they inform against him or he returns voluntarily.

The peasantry sometimes try to organize desertion. Pickets are posted to give warning of the approach of punitive detachments. In Ukrainia, where the peasants show more vigour and capacity for self-defence against the Communists than in the north, villagers organize themselves into armed bands led by noncommissioned officers of the old army and effectively hold the punitive detachments at bay for considerable periods.

The calling up of peasants is at times so difficult a business that when a regiment has been mobilized it is often sent down to the front in sealed cars. Arms are rarely distributed until the moment of entering the fray, when a machine-gun is placed behind the raw troops, and they are warned that they have the option either of advancing or being fired on from the rear. Provincial districts are cautioned that every village in which a single deserter is discovered will be burned to the ground. But though several such orders have been published, I do not know of a case in which the threat has been put into execution.

Mobilization of town-workers is naturally easier, but here also subterfuge has sometimes to be resorted to. In Petrograd I witnessed what was announced to be a “trial” mobilization; that is, the workers were assured that they were not going to the front and that the trial was only to practise for an emergency. The result was that the prospective recruits, glad of an extra holiday plus the additional bread ration issued on such occasions, turned up in force (all, of course, in civilian clothes) and the trial mobilization was a great success. A portion of the recruits were taken to the Nicholas Station and told they were going out of town to manoeuvre. Imagine their feelings when they discovered that they were locked into the cars, promptly despatched to the front, and (still in civilian clothes) thrust straight into the firing line!

Every man of the Red army is supposed to have taken the following oath:

I, a member of a labouring people and citizen of the Soviet Republic, assume the name of warrior of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Army. Before the labouring classes of Russia and of the whole world I pledge myself to bear this title with honour, conscientiously to study the science of war, and as the apple of my eye to defend civil and military property from spoliation and pillage. I pledge myself strictly and unswervingly to observe revolutionary discipline and perform unhesitatingly all orders of the commanders appointed by the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government. I pledge myself to refrain and to restrain my comrades from any action that may stain and lower the dignity of a citizen of the Soviet Republic, and to direct my best efforts to its sole object, the emancipation of all workers. I pledge myself at the first call of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government to defend the Soviet Republic from all dangers and assault on the part of her foes, and to spare neither my energies nor life in the struggle for the Russian Soviet Republic, for the cause of Socialism and the fraternity of peoples. If with evil intent I infringe this my solemn oath may my lot be universal contempt and may I fall a victim to the ruthless arm of revolutionary law.