Trotsky

by Dmitri Volkogonov

  No other Bolshevik leader thought of bringing along with him two secretaries, a photographer and a film cameraman, whose efforts were intended to immortalize his image for future generations. There were some attempts to depict Trotsky as a great military leader, but it was well known that he was not this, nor even a military specialist of average ability. He was a dilettante in this field. When a labour activist from Chicago called Arthur Allen referred to Trotsky as a ‘one of a dozen of the greatest military leaders’, a Miss J. Allen responded: ‘The civil war in Russia was fought mostly by officers of the old army, on both sides. Trotsky is an agitator, not a military leader.’71 And, indeed, his orders bear the stamp of a politician committed to carrying out the Bolshevik line. He kept this unflattering exchange among his papers.

  Trotsky was especially sensitive to any conflict with an ethnic dimension. When on 3 July 1919 he received reports that Red Army units were running riot among the population of Bashkiria, he at once sent a threatening order over the direct line: ‘Apparently indisputable facts testify to the criminal, bestial attitude of some units on the Eastern Front towards the Bashkir population and Bashkir troops who have come over to the Soviet side. Moreover, although until now only verbal reprimands have been issued, I regard severe and exemplary punishment of anyone found guilty of shameful acts of violence against the Bashkir people as necessary. Report actions taken and punishments carried out.’72

  Threat of severe repression was Trotsky’s style of operation. In November 1918 he sent a telegram to the war council of 9th Army, with a copy to Sverdlov: ‘We must use an iron fist to force divisional and regimental commanders to go onto the offensive at any cost. If the position doesn’t change by next week, I will have to use severe repression against the commanders of 9th Army … I require an exact list on 1 December of all units that have not fulfilled their battle instructions.’73

  One of the most significant sources of armed support for the White cause came from the Cossack population, encouraged no doubt by the policy of terror pursued against them by the Bolshevik regime as ‘the social base of the counter-revolution’. Moscow sent plain instructions ‘for the complete, rapid and decisive annihilation of the Cossacks as a distinct economic group, the destruction of their economic foundations, the physical destruction of Cossack administrators and officers, in general of the entire Cossack leadership’.74

  It was in this spirit that the ‘decossackization’ began. The predictable response was a rising of people who knew how to fight, for it had been their traditional rôle to defend the Russian Empire. Lenin demanded that the speediest and most merciless means be used to crush the rebellion, and Trotsky issued a special order ‘to destroy the nest of dishonourable traitors. These Cains must be annihilated, no mercy must be shown to any settlement that gives resistance. Mercy only for those who hand over their weapons voluntarily and come over to our side … You must cleanse the Don of the black stain of treason within a few days.’75

  One of Trotsky’s chief concerns, as the chief organizer of the military effort, centred on the social questions that reflected the difficulties being experienced by the new regime. In a letter to the Revolutionary Military Committees of the fronts and the armies headed ‘More Equality’, he developed his ideas on social justice in the army:

  We are living in a period of transition. We have to use shock methods in the distribution of both means and manpower, that is, we must first of all guarantee that the most important branches of state work are supplied with people and goods … in giving everything to the front, we are depriving working men and women of education, food, and the supply of essentials. This is all understandable. But there are people who use these priorities for their own ends. We should not only realize that everything we get in the army is at the cost of the people, but also that there should be more equality in the army itself. Any soldier will understand that the first pair of boots and the first cape should be given to the commander. When a car is used for jolly jaunts in front of exhausted Red Army men, or when commanders dress up to the nines in front of their ragged fighters, it can only cause irritation and disgruntlement. In itself privilege, we repeat, is occasionally an inevitable and for the moment insurmountable evil. Blatant over-indulgence in privilege is not just an evil, it is a crime … Especially demoralizing and destructive is the abuse of goods when rules and regulations are also being broken. This applies above all to parties with drink, women and so on.

  Trotsky remarks that the ‘obedient and uncomplaining soldier’ is not the best sort; on the contrary it is the quick, observant and critical soldier, who sees that leadership based on the illegal abuse of privilege undermines the fighting capacity of the Red Army.76 Trotsky’s orders to the front commanders to ensure social justice were not only aimed at securing the army’s fighting abilities, but also the viability of the young state.

  As early as September 1918 Trotsky had secured the appointment as Deputy War Commissar and Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of Efraim Markovich Sklyansky, a former member of the first War Commissariat created in 1917. A young army doctor who had become a Bolshevik in 1913, Sklyansky, an amateur in strategic and operational matters, was favoured by Trotsky for his energy, assiduity, organizing skills and efficiency. Sklyansky was a model executive. All of Trotsky’s communications from his train went through him, as he was the link between Trotsky and the political and economic organs of the republic. During halts at Kharkov and Liski in May 1919, for example, Trotsky cabled Sklyansky: ‘If Okulov isn’t needed in Ukraine, I suggest he be sent immediately to the Western Front as a member of the Revolutionary Military Council and that he tour the front with his commission and sort the units out’; ‘Troops mobilized in Novgorod and Pskov provinces can be sent to the Western Front, but not Zinoviev’; ‘I would have spoken against the appointment of Unshlikht in case he took it as a demotion. If he agrees, I don’t object to his appointment’; ‘My first train was in a crash on 16 May … There were no losses. A radical inspection of the track is needed’; ‘It is necessary to find a possible way of using asphyxiating gases. We must find a responsible person to head this responsible work’; ‘Isn’t my carriage ready yet? It’s impossible to go on living in it any longer, as apart from everything else it leaks.’77 Dozens of such messages were sent by Trotsky to Sklyansky every day.

  Among Sklyansky’s equally numerous replies was the following, dated 19 May 1919:

  Stalin has reported that the front is being brought to order, three punitive companies have been sent to Luga, Gatchina and Krasnoe Selo; all forward forces have been mobilized and despatched to the front line. Zinoviev is going to Luga, Stalin to Staraya Rusa, the disorderly sixth division has been taken in hand and is coming to order, the divisional commanders of the sixth showed cowardice and confusion and have been set aside. They need cavalry. Stalin gave a positive report of the navy. Semashko has been set aside. Shatov has been appointed to the Revolutionary Military Council of the Western Front. Reinforcements are being hurried by every available means. Stalin thinks a new Communist front is needed.78

  From the mass of documentation generated by Trotsky during the civil war it is plain that, for what he perceived as the good of the revolution, he was prepared to apply any and all means, including the manufacture and use of poisonous gas. Deceit and manipulation were standard practice for the Bolsheviks, and Trotsky proved himself to be a master exponent. In January 1920 he received a telegram from the Ukrainian Anarchist military leader Nestor Makhno, explaining why he, Makhno, was not willing to go to the Polish front. While continuing ‘peace talks’ with Makhno, Trotsky maintained contact with the Revolutionary Military Committee through Stalin, to whom he cabled: ‘Do you think it would be possible to encircle Makhno right away and carry out a complete liquidation? It would probably be possible to destroy his artillery base if we sent some entirely reliable people there posing as anarchists. Makhno uses hardly any security measures, so we could most probably destroy his ammunition stores.�
�79 Stalin replied: ‘The encirclement of Makhno was started a few days ago and will be accomplished by the ninth. The order [for him] to move against the Poles was issued with the intention of collecting extra material against Makhno.’80 Thus, even while Makhno was still an ally, his termination was being planned and executed.

  It seems that the main explanation for Trotsky’s immense popularity was the impression he gave that he was capable of sacrificing himself in the name of the idea. The people, above all, saw his dynamism, his decisiveness, his constant movement, they heard his passionate speeches and sensed his implacability, and many were taken with his originality. For instance, when the noose was tightening around the throat of the republic, there were growing demands from ‘bourgeois specialists and instructors’ who had been mobilized to be sent back to their former places of work, to the institutes, factories and offices that were ‘in a state of collapse’. Trotsky was tired of refusing these constant requests and at the end of June 1919 signed Order No. 118 which said, inter alia: ‘I forbid anyone to approach me with such requests in future, otherwise I shall publish the names of the petitioners for general circulation as the names of citizens who are trying to use legal means to become deserters.’81 No further requests were made.

  Trotsky was everywhere an object of discussion and argument. In its regular ‘Leaders of the Revolution’ column the newspaper of 7th Army, Krasnyi Shtyk (Red Bayonet), wrote:

  In a short space of time he has performed a near miracle: he has created a wonderful army and led it to victories. Trotsky himself is always at the front, the real front where the fighting is eye to eye, where stray bullets do not distinguish between ordinary Red Army men, commanders or commissars. The train and the boat he lives on have frequently come under artillery- and machine-gun-fire. But Trotsky somehow doesn’t notice these inconveniences. Under enemy fire, as during the revolution itself, he goes on working and working and working … No one knows where Trotsky takes a rest.’82

  It is true that Trotsky worked prodigiously, but it is also true that he did not make an effort to curtail such panegyrics in the press which was under his own control. Dedication to the revolutionary idea did not prevent him from being vain, from posturing before the mirror of history.

  It often seemed to him that one decisive blow was needed to scatter the counter-revolution. At the beginning of April 1919 he wrote another of his countless articles on his train. This one was entitled ‘What Does Russia Need?’ : ‘The attack on Kolchak will be of decisive importance. The destruction of his army will not only secure the Urals and Siberia for Soviet Russia, but will make itself felt at once on all other fronts. The annihilation of the Kolchakites will lead immediately and inevitably to the total annihilation of Denikin’s Volunteers (“volunteers” under the lash) and the ultimate disintegration of the White Guards, the Estonian, Latvian, Polish and Anglo-American forces in the west and east.’83 The breakthrough in the east was indeed accomplished, but it did not lead to the alleviation of the other fronts.

  Speaking on 26 August 1919 to a joint meeting of the Moscow Soviet and trade union delegates, Trotsky was forced to admit: ‘It is true, comrades, that we are facing an unpleasantness, not a military failure, but an unpleasantness in the full sense. That is the breakthrough by Mamontov’s cavalry. If this breakthrough is viewed as a cavalry raid, then it was carried out successfully.’ Trotsky did not spell out the fact that in the space of one month Mamontov’s 9000 men had gone through five provinces, pausing in dozens of towns in an attempt to raise an anti-Soviet rebellion, and finally in September 1919 managing to join up with Denikin’s army. The Red infantry without cavalry had proved powerless to stop Mamontov’s advance. During the attack Trotsky had issued Order No. 146, entitled ‘Into Battle with the Bandits of Mamontov’s Gang’. In it he wrote: ‘I give warning: Mamontov’s cavalry will pass and the Soviet Republic will remain. Fallen men and women workers and peasant men and women will be avenged. The counter-revolutionary vipers will be crushed. Their property will be confiscated and handed over to the poor … Any help given to Mamontov’s bandits, direct or indirect, is treason to the people and will be punished by shooting.’84 Mamontov, however, was elusive.

  After the Mamontov raid, Trotsky issued a new slogan: ‘Proletarian, to horse!’ He also issued a new order, offering a reward for every Cossack from Mamontov’s forces captured dead or alive. ‘Prizes will include leather tunic, boots, watches, [several dozen pounds] of food-stuffs and so on. Also, everything found with the captured Cossack, his horse and saddle, will go to the captor.’85

  The end of Denikin, Trotsky told his audience at the Moscow Soviet, would be the beginning of the world revolution: ‘We shall crush and smash Denikin, for he has no reserves. Like the Transcaucasus, Georgia and Azerbaijan, so Afghanistan, Baluchistan, India and China won’t wait for us. Soviet Hungary, with a radius of seventy-eighty kilometres, has fallen temporarily. But what is an area of seventy-eighty kilometres around Budapest compared to the thousands of kilometres that we have taken over for Soviet Russia? … To our Hungarian comrades we say: “Wait, brothers, wait! You have less time to wait than we expected!” And, turning to the east, we must say to the people of Asia: “Wait, oppressed brothers, you have less time to wait than we thought!”’86

  But the much desired world revolution refused to ignite, and relief on one front did not eliminate mortal danger elsewhere. Trotsky was, however, right to say that Soviet Russia had no frontiers, only fronts. A week after his promise to the Moscow Soviet to finish off Denikin, he declared at a special meeting of the Petrograd Soviet: ‘There is an outpost in the west from which we cannot withdraw as much as a kilometre, where we cannot yield to the enemy so much as one square kilometre of territory. That outpost is the Petrograd front. [Petrograd] still remains our eye on the Baltic turned on Western Europe.’ He assured his audience that the world struggle would be decided ‘not in the Finland sector, nor the Estland sector, but would be resolved on the entire surface of the earth’. The ‘question of Finland’s future and Estland’s future will be settled on the way’. Pointing out that Russia was being torn apart, Trotsky declared that ‘there are moments when revenge becomes a matter of revolutionary expediency … And we shall show an example of this in Finland. Finland will be the first to fall into the hands of the Red Army which will take revenge for the policy of encirclement … We shall attack the Finnish bourgeoisie in a crusade of devastation, we shall destroy them without mercy.’87 He asserted that the destruction of Yudenich and his accomplices would be the final breakthrough in the struggle against counter-revolution and the intervention.

  It was not so much that Trotsky was naive. He was not, but was an adventurist who depicted reality as he wished it to be, rather than as it was. This often led him to promise an early victory, future happiness, universal brotherhood and a worldwide Soviet republic. Perhaps it was this aspect of Trotsky…the prophet of a happy future…that drew the crowds. Perhaps it was that he realized that one must promise something to people who were up to their knees in blood, that one must inspire them with something and point to great goals that were close at hand and attainable. He could, as we have seen, be extremely harsh with his subordinates, but he was equally able to vent his frustration on Lenin, as a barbed telegram of 1919 shows:

  I reported that the [Revolutionary Military Committee of 12th Army] is utterly powerless. Zatonsky has been despatched to the south, but he is quite unsuitable for this mission. Semenov and Aralov are depressed. They need at least one fresh man. I’ve been told that Lashevich is going to Kozlov where he is completely unnecessary. No one is going to [12th Army] which is virtually non-existent. After twenty-four hours and waiting in feverish expectation, I get either bureaucratic questions about which commanders to send or instructive explanations that 12th and 14th Army commanders are subordinate to the commander-in-chief, a fact of which we here were, of course, in utter ignorance. I earnestly ask Moscow to desist from the policy of fantastic apprehensions and panic decisio
ns.88

  When confronting concrete strategic issues, Trotsky took the advice of his assistants and military specialists, and when he departed from this rule he tended to produce plans that verged on the delirious. En route in his train from Bologoe to Petrograd, he summed up his thoughts on ways to save the northern capital in an article entitled ‘Petrograd Defends itself from Within’, published in V puti on 18 October 1919. Writing that Yudenich must be destroyed, he declared:

  The best thing for us, from the purely military point of view, would be to allow Yudenich’s gang to penetrate the very walls of the city, as it would not be difficult to turn Petrograd into a huge trap for the White Guard forces … Having broken into the gigantic city, the White Guards would find themselves in a stone labyrinth, where every house would represent a quandary as to whether it was a threat or a mortal danger to them. Where would the blow come from? From the window? From the attic? From the cellar? Round the corner? From everywhere! … An artillery bombardment of Petrograd might of course cause damage to individual buildings, it might destroy a certain number of inhabitants, women and children. But several thousand Red fighters, deployed behind barbed-wire fortifications, barricades, in cellars or in attics, would be at negligible risk … Two or three days of such street-fighting would be enough to turn the gangs that had broken through into a frightened, hunted herd of cowards who either in groups or individually would give themselves up to unarmed passers-by or women.