The Commissar

by Tony Roberts

  The captain shook his head sadly. “You’ve gotten yourself trapped there, soldier. Now you’ll have to swallow the Bolshevik bible and spout all kinds of revolutionary quotations. So what are you going to do?”

  “Advance. No point in staying at the scene of the crime. Oh, and confirm that he was killed by Austrians. And in there,” Casca pointed to the dugout, “is a radio and communications center. Two men in there swearing at the enemy over the wire. You might like to report to your superiors. In the meantime, comrade captain,” Casca grinned, “we’re off to enjoy a nice stroll in the sunshine.”

  “Where are you off to, soldier?” the captain could not bring himself to speak the word ‘comrade’. It was all very comical.

  “As far as we can go until nightfall, or we come up against resistance. I don’t think we’ll be attacking against any dug-in positions any time soon.” With that he waved the unit onwards, bayonets fixed, in some semblance of uniformity, although they were shoddy to say the least, and they all scrambled over the top and began walking across the churned-up soil.

  Now he was a commissar!

  CHAPTER THREE

  The advance didn’t last too long. Although the Austrians were disorganized and their 15th division had almost been destroyed, elsewhere the going had been tougher. Bringing up supplies and the supporting artillery was slow going and the soldiers flatly refused to attack unless the artillery had softened up enemy positions beforehand.

  Casca found the group of men with him looked to him for advice. They no longer trusted or believed in the officers, for they saw them as the class of people who wanted to prolong the war and therefore the slaughter. Casca was ambivalent towards both sides, but he knew to carry on fighting with the army in such a state was stupid and suicidal. With German reinforcements arriving – someone said there were now Bavarians before them – it would be almost impossible to push on, and would only end up with more pointless deaths.

  The eternal mercenary didn’t usually advocate peace but in this case he was siding with the ordinary soldiery. After all, it wasn’t those who gave the orders who were going to put their lives on the line. His insistence on looking after the men with him, who numbered some thirty-five, made them feel as though someone at last was speaking up for them. They also had seen how good he was at fighting, so ‘Comrade Kaskarov’ was voted definitively as their spokesman.

  This brought Casca into contact with the revolutionary committee who sent a representative down to speak to him. He was a studious type, with those popular round-rimmed glasses that were all the rage at that moment. “So, Comrade Kaskarov,” he said, sitting himself down comfortably at the rough table in a dugout along the third line of trench that had been converted from the Austrians. “Tell me, are you committed to the cause of world revolution?”

  “World revolution?” Casca echoed, frowning. What was this man on about?

  “Comrade Lenin has called for a world revolution to overthrow the bourgeoisie and the ruling classes. Surely you can see that without these warmongering people who run our societies, peace will come and we can then all live together as one, without class?”

  Casca didn’t know whether to laugh or not. The terrible thing was that this guy, Artomov, really believed it. This was the problem with fanatics, they only listened to what they wanted to and no other point of view was tolerated. It was like the birth of some new religion. The communists stated they were atheist and no religions would be tolerated – save the religion of world socialism.

  “A change from what is happening now would be welcome,” Casca said in a neutral tone. How to make Artomov believe him without lying? There was no way any world revolution would come about; anyone with a glimmer of intelligence could see that, but these Bolsheviks had swallowed Marx’s words in entirety and thought that they would sweep aside everything. They didn’t even have an army that was capable of beating an egg at the moment, so how could they possibly enforce it on the military might of Germany, let alone France and Britain and all the others?

  The other problem with people like Lenin and Artomov was that they came from a society that had been oppressed for centuries and denied any rights whatsoever, and when they suddenly got freedom from that, then they went completely crazy. They didn’t understand the rest of the world hadn’t been like that and had much more contributive societies. Alright, it wasn’t perfect, but hell, where was it one hundred percent?

  Artomov nodded in agreement. “So you see, Comrade, we have the conviction to carry out this revolution. But we need to convince all those around us of our sacred mission. I have been told that you stand up for the workers’ rights against those of the officers, and that is approved by the revolutionary committee in Petrograd. Comrade Kalinin himself has sent me to vet you myself!”

  Who the fuck is Kalinin? Casca wondered. “I’m pleased,” Casca said non-committedly. “Anything I can do to bring myself to the attention of the Petrograd – Soviet,” he recalled what the new revolutionary committee groups were called at the last moment, “is welcome. I tire of the pointless slaughter and wish it to stop.” This was honest, and Artomov nodded sagely. No doubt he had been some student somewhere and been indoctrinated into Marxism or Leninism or whatever -ism it was.

  The other danger was that if Artomov decided Casca was not one to allow to continue, then with his new power the communist committee member may well order his arrest. Soldiers would obey a member of the Petrograd Soviet now far more readily than General Brusilov or even Alexander Kerensky. It was a crazy situation. The provisional government thought that by ordering an attack they were cementing their hold on Russian society. In fact, they were weakening it further by playing into the hands of the peace-calling Bolsheviks.

  “Once this war is finished, and our enemies have realized the futility of allowing themselves to be slaughtered for the pleasure of the bourgeoisie, then we can carry out the wishes of Comrade Lenin when he calls for peace, land and bread.”

  “A laudable sentiment. The majority of the soldiers here wish for the same, Comrade.” Casca found calling everyone ‘comrade’ ridiculous. But best to play the game for the moment.

  “Absolutely! I’m glad you see that! Tell me; you’re an educated man, Comrade, I can see that. Did you study in a university somewhere?”

  “The university of life, Comrade.”

  Artomov actually smiled at that. “Ah, perhaps the best teacher of all. How better to learn than by seeing for yourself the injustices of the world?” He stood up. “Your appointment to the division as commissar is approved. Welcome to the revolution, comrade!”

  They shook hands and Artomov handed Casca a small woolen patch, a red star. “To sew onto your lapel. It gives you the rank of commissar, and no order from any officer will be followed unless it had your approval. Always remember, Comrade, to follow the wisdom of the Soviet’s wishes and keep the peasants and workers from being exploited by the bourgeoisie.” With that he left, leaving Casca staring at the red star with perplexity. Had he been smoking some of that hemp the hashashin used? Or maybe taking that new stuff people were using now for pleasure, cocaine?

  “Fuck me, that guy was off his head.” He shook his head and left the dugout, to go and get a sewing kit and put his star on.

  He had little time to get used to his new status, however, for the counter-offensive struck on the 15th July. The Russian army had spent what force it had in gaining these modest achievements, and Casca had noted that the desire to push forward had gone once the front-line troops realized no reserves were coming up. They had attacked with the units that had some organization and will to fight, but there were none in reserve, so when losses had come, there was nothing to come up to replace them.

  Now the army visibly fell apart. Casca tried to keep his unit together, insisting they stay together and retreat together, comrades in all things. He told them that to run was to betray their own comrades and demonstrate that they were no believers in the fellowship of the brave new world the revolution r
epresented. He used every hackneyed phrase the communists spouted from their safe offices in Petrograd, hoping the men took heart from them. After all, it was just about all they had; they had no tsar, they had no belief in what had been before the war, they had no plan, they had no backup. All they could do was conduct a fighting withdrawal.

  They had to retreat from the town of Kalusz which had been taken only a week before. Casca had heard a few rumors of undisciplined behavior from some of the more questionable Russians in the town, and he looked grim as he waved his men away from the high ground that they could have so easily held onto if the army had been anything like it should have been. When discipline breaks down, the army is not only a danger to itself, but also to the civilian population.

  Maybe it was time to end the war and be done with this madness. Time for self-preservation and to hell with Kerensky and his grand vision of keeping Russia in the war for the benefit of France and Britain.

  The retreat became a nightmare with soldiers throwing away their weapons and literally walking away or inflicting injuries upon themselves. Everything had gone to the dogs, and only a few officers and dedicated troops manned the lines.

  Into August they kept on retreating, heads down. Casca insisted on keeping on to the men around him, to keep them involved. Even if he didn’t agree with the politics, he encouraged nightly discussions around the fires, allowing all to speak, even if they were not the most articulate or educated. Some of what was said was ridiculous, but Casca cut short any mocking or name-calling and listened to them, giving them the impression that even a peasant from the Volga had a voice in the new Russia, which was surely what the Soviets were saying?

  The men all collected to Casca. Here was someone who heard their fears, their opinions. No officer had ever done that, and they felt that here, finally, was somebody who was prepared to treat them as human beings.

  Casca felt that the Russian peasantry had been treated too long like medieval serfs. When the rest of the world had done the same, then it mattered little, but with the other nations changing and bringing in more participation from the ordinary people, including voting for a government, then those that adhered to the old ways were in danger of having a revolt from discontented people who saw the other nations and wanted the same for themselves. Britain was even thinking of bringing in voting for women, which Casca thought was sensible; women were around half the population, after all, so why deny them a say in their own lives?

  They had retreated seventy miles in two weeks, a catastrophic defeat, and what was left was little more than a shambles. Nobody was prepared to fight. The Austrians and Germans stopped, partly through supply problems, partly through realizing they had won and there was nothing to fight any more. They could transfer troops to the Western Front and fight against the growing power there, now with the United States in the war. Once they brought their manpower and ordnance to the front, the Central Powers would be hard-pressed to hold on.

  General Kornilov, the new army commander, brought back the death penalty for desertion, and Casca and his colleagues began to see hanged men on the roadside, but it was too late. The army had ceased to exist except on paper. The high command had met with Kerensky and were trying to get many of the declarations made by the revolutionary provisional government rescinded.

  Casca sat in his small dugout one evening to the east of Tarnopol, trying to work out who was what. The Communists/Marxists/Bolsheviks were agitating for peace, undermining the provisional ‘socialist’ government who were still insisting Russia stayed in the war. Technically both were part of the revolutionary government but Lenin was becoming louder and louder in his calls for a takeover of the government. The Bolsheviks had tried in July but had failed, but the rumblings continued.

  The generals were insisting on a restoration of discipline to save the army, and the commissar in charge of affairs for the South-West Front, Savinkov, had put pressure on Kerensky to have Brusilov replaced with Kornilov who was a disciplinarian. Even the chief commissar was calling for a restoration of discipline! Casca agreed but wondered how long the Soviet in Petrograd would tolerate this. He knew from his contacts down the line that Lenin had fled to Finland to escape arrest and that the Soviet apparatus had been attacked by a combination of the provisional government and the officer corps as being responsible for the collapse of the army’s morale and discipline. Casca had to agree with that sentiment.

  Most of the men around him drifted away to their homes. He was left with just a handful of soldiers. Kornilov was promoted to army commander-in-chief and they got a new Front commander, General Deniken, but it made little difference to the state of the forces around. There was nothing to stop the enemy from advancing, and there was nothing to launch an attack from the Russians’ point of view.

  It was really all surreal; he’d never been in a war like this, where one side just packed up and went home and the other just sat there watching. Casca got bored. He was fed up with hearing the same old crap, either one side or the other blaming the other for the situation. The truth was nobody was taking responsibility.

  That was until early November when Lenin and his Bolsheviks finally lost patience and grabbed power in Petrograd, toppling the provisional government of Kerensky, and, backed by what they were calling the ‘Red Guards’, began to asset control over the various Soviets.

  Casca wondered what that would now mean. Here in charge was the group who had done more than any other to undermine the morale and discipline of the army, and now they were running things. Or, at least, running things until someone objected and resisted, which was what happened. Then everyone acted. Casca was caught up in events, like everyone else. The Ukraine, the area he was in, decided to declare independence.

  This would put it in direct conflict with the Bolsheviks who were assuming the mantle of a legitimate government from the capital, but Casca couldn’t see how they could possibly call themselves that, after they had toppled the existing government at the point of a gun. Still, he had to decide which way to jump.

  He got a telephone call from Savinkov, the overall commissar, who was trying to see which of his network was for him or against. “Comrade Kaskarov, if you wish to continue in your current capacity, I urge you to get the first train to Kharkov. The Soviet there are concentrating our forces to contend with this illegal declaration of independence.”

  Casca acknowledged and the line went dead. Whether it was down to Savinkov terminating the call or the line being cut, he didn’t know, but the eternal mercenary decided to get out of there fast. The Ukraine would no doubt turn to Austria and Germany for help, having little in the way of an army at that moment, and Casca couldn’t see how they could win the war. In any event, he’d been fighting the Central Powers all along and wasn’t going to switch sides any time soon.

  He desperately wanted to help get the Russians back on their feet; they’d been badly served by their rulers and their commanders, and now here was a chance to make things better for them. Whether the laudable statements by Lenin and his cronies would actually be stuck to was another matter, but there was no harm in trying to see.

  He used his commissar status to get a place on the next train out of Tarnopol, along with a small group of soldiers who were sticking with him and who wanted to crush the Ukrainian movement. Others shook their heads; they were going home or they were Ukrainian and were siding with their homeland.

  Kharkov was a confused cauldron. Soldiers were everywhere, in their greatcoats, fur hats and gloves. Winter was fast approaching and Casca knew all too well how terrible that could be. Now they had a food shortage to contend with and since the Ukraine was the bread basket of the Russias, he could see why both sides wanted to have it.

  He was soon ordered out, as the Ukrainians were now running the city. They were driven by truck off to the north-east, in a snowstorm, sat in the back huddled under sheets, smoking, drinking and swapping ribald stories. Casca found it an experience, and actually preferred it to standing for hours i
n a trench freezing his balls off.

  Eventually they came to their destination and were ordered out. It was dark. It was still snowing. Casca got his fifteen men to line up, rifles and bayonets presented. “Now, Comrades, let’s show these Kulaks who are the smartest, best-looking bastards in the revolutionary army!”

  The men grinned, ice coating their beards and hats, and stood there for a moment, posing. There was no other words for it.

  “Well, this is a sight for my eyes,” a man said from behind Casca.

  The eternal mercenary turned. There was a tall man with a thick mustache standing there, wearing a smart set of clothing and an air of command about him. Casca quickly assessed his markings. Now, did he salute or not? Best not to, as it would smack of tsarist habits. “Commissar Kaskarov reporting, Comrade General,” he said, “with volunteers from the South-West Front.”

  “Which no longer exists,” the general observed. “I am General Muravyov. We are the First Revolutionary Army, gathering here to assist our comrades in the struggle against the UPR and the counter-revolutionary forces gathering under Kaledin at Rostov. Your arrival is welcome.”

  Casca knew of the gathering forces of the UPR, the Ukrainians, but the bit about the counter-revolutionaries at Rostov was a piece of news. Casca and his men were shown a spare hovel to rest up in. Many of the men here were those who had been rushed down from Petrograd and others were now being gathered to the red banner of Lenin’s Bolshevik party. They were, appropriately enough, being called the ‘Reds’ while the ones opposing the Reds were being given the nickname the ‘Whites’.

  “So who are these Whites?” Casca asked a fellow commissar the first evening he was there, as they sat around a blazing fire. There were plenty of fires in the clearing they were in, and the Red forces were beginning to number many thousands. It would take some organizing to get them to act as a proper army. A lot of them were deserters from the original army and were still affected by the indiscipline that saw its disintegration.