Foreign military representatives at the Stavka.Standing on the pathway, from left to right: Lieut.-Col. Marsengo (Italy); 2. General Janin (France); 3. General Alexeiev; 4. General Barter (Great Britain); 5. General Romei Longhena (Italy).
Foreign military representatives at the Stavka.Standing on the pathway, from left to right: Lieut.-Col. Marsengo (Italy); 2. General Janin (France); 3. General Alexeiev; 4. General Barter (Great Britain); 5. General Romei Longhena (Italy).
Military Reforms—The Generals—The Dismissal from the High Command.
Preparations for the advance continued alongside of the so-called “Democratisation.” These phenomena must be here recorded, as they had a decisive effect upon the issue of the summer offensive and upon the final destinies of the Army. Military reforms began by the dismissal of vast numbers of Commanding Generals. In military circles this was described, in tragic jest, as “The slaughter of the innocents.” It opened with the conversation between the War Minister, Gutchkov, and the General on duty at the Stavka, Komzerovski. At the Minister’s request the General drew up a list of the Senior Commanding Officers, with short notes (records of service). This list, afterwards completed by various people who enjoyed Gutchkov’s confidence, served as a basis for the “slaughter.” In the course of a few weeks 150 Senior Officers, including seventy Commanders of Infantry and Cavalry Divisions, were placed on the Retired List. In his speech to the Delegates of the Front on April 29th, 1917, Gutchkov gave the following reasons for this measure: “It has been our first task, after the beginning of the Revolution, to make room for talent. Among our Commanding Officers there were many honest men; but some of them were unable to grasp the new principles of intercourse, and in a short time more changes have been made in our commanding personnel than have ever been made before in any army.... I realised that there could be no mercy in this case, and I was merciless to those whom I considered incapable. Of course, I may have been wrong. There may have been dozens of mistakes, but I consulted knowledgeable people and took decisions only when I felt that they were in keeping with the general opinion. At any rate, we have promoted all those who have proved their capacity among the Commanding Officers. I disregarded hierarchicalconsiderations. There are men who commanded regiments in the beginning of the War and are now commanding armies.... We have thus attained not only an improvement, but something different and equally important. By proclaiming the watchword ‘Room for talent’ we have instilled joy into the hearts, and have induced the officers to work with impetus and inspiration....”
What did the Army gain by such drastic changes? Did thecadresof the Commanding Officers really improve? In my opinion that object was not attained. New men appeared on the scene, owing to the newly-introduced right of selecting assistants, not without the interference of our old friends—family ties, friendship and wire-pulling. Could the Revolution give new birth to men or make them perfect? Was a mechanical change of personnel capable of killing a system which for many years had weakened the impulse for work and for self-improvement? It may be that some talented individuals did come to the fore, but there were also dozens, nay, hundreds, of men whose promotion was due to accident and not to knowledge or energy. This accidental character of appointments was further intensified when later Kerensky abolished for the duration of the War all the existing qualifications, as well as the correlation of rank and office. The qualification of knowledge and experience was also thereby set aside. I have before me a list of the Senior Commanding Officers of the Russian Army in the middle of May, 1917, when Gutchkov’s “slaughter” had been accomplished. The list includes the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the Commanders-in-Chief of Fronts, Armies and Fleets, and their Chiefs of Staff—altogether forty-five men:
I have excluded five names, as I have no data about them.
These men were the brain, the soul and the will-power of the Army. It is difficult to estimate their military capacity according to their last tenures of office, because strategy and military science in 1917 had almost entirely ceased to be applied and became slavishly subservient to the soldiery, but I know the activities of these men in regard to the struggle against democratisation—i.e., the disruption of the Army, and the above table indicates the three groups into which they were divided. Subsequently, after 1918, some of these men took part in the struggle or kept aloof from it.
Such are the results of the changes in the High Command, where men were in the public eye and where their activities attracted the critical attention not only of the Government, but of military and social circles. I think that in the lower grades things were no better. The question of the justice of this measure may be open to discussion, but, personally, I have no doubt whatsoever about its extreme impracticability. The dismissalen masseof Army Chiefs definitely undermined the faith in the Commanding Staffs, and afforded an excuse for the arbitrariness and violence of the Committees and of the men towards individual representatives of the Commanding Staff. Constant changes and transfers removed most officers from their units, where they may have enjoyed respect and authority acquired by military prowess. These men were thrown into new circles strange to them, and time was needed, as well as difficult work, in the new and fundamentally changed atmosphere in order to regain that respect and authority. The formation of Third Infantry Divisions was still proceeding, and was also occasioning constant changes in the Commanding Personnel. That chaos was bound to ensue as a result of all these circumstances is fairly obvious. So delicate a machine as the Army was in the days of War and Revolutioncould only be kept going by the force of inertia, and could not withstand new commotions. Pernicious elements, of course, should have been removed and the system of appointments altered, and the path opened for those who were worthy; beyond that the matter ought to have been allowed to follow its natural course without laying too much stress upon it and without devising a new system. Apart from the Commanding Officers who were thus removed, several Generals resigned of their own accord—such as Letchitzki and Mistchenko—who could not be reconciled to the new régime, and many Commanders who were evicted in a Revolutionary fashion by the direct or indirect pressure of the Committee or of the soldiery. Admiral Koltchak was one of them. Further changes were made, prompted by varying and sometimes self-contradictory views upon the Army Administration. These changes were, therefore, very fitful, and prevented a definite type of Commanding Officer from being introduced.
Alexeiev dismissed the Commander-in-Chief, Ruzsky, and the Army Commander, Radko-Dmitriev, for their weakness and opportunism. He visited the Northern Front, and, having gained an unfavourable impression of the activities of these Generals, he discreetly raised the question of their being “overworked.” That is the interpretation given by the Army and Society to these dismissals.
Brussilov dismissed Yudenitch for the same reasons. I dismissed an Army Commander (Kvietsinski) because his will and authority were subservient to the disorganising activities of the Committees who were democratising the Army.
Kerensky dismissed the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the Commanders-in-Chief, Gourko and Dragomirov, because they were strenuously opposed to the democratisation of the Army. He also dismissed Brussilov for the opposite motives, because Brussilov was an Opportunist, pure and simple.
Brussilov dismissed the Commander of the Eighth Army, General Kaledin—who later became the Ataman of the Don and was universally respected—on the plea that he had “lost heart” and did not approve of democratisation. This dismissal of a General with a magnificent War record was effected in a rude and offensive manner. He was at first offered the command of another Army, and then offered to retire. Kaledin then wrote to me: “My record entitles me to be treated otherwise than as a stop-gap, without taking my own views into consideration.”
General Vannovski, who was relieved of the command of an Army Corps by the Army Commander because he refused to acknowledge the priority of the Army Committee, wasimmediately appointed by the Stavka to a Higher Command and given an Army on the South-Western Front.
General Kornilov, who had refused the Chief Command of the troops of the Petrograd District, “because he considered it impossible to be a witness of and a contributor to the disruption of the Army by the Soviet,” was afterwards appointed to the Supreme Command at the Front. Kerensky removed me from the office of Chief-of-Staff of the Supreme C.-in-C. because I did not share the views of the Government and openly disapproved of its activities, but, at the same time, he allowed me to assume the high office of Commander-in-Chief of our Western Front.
Things also happened of an entirely different nature. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General Alexeiev, made several unavailing efforts to dismiss Admiral Maximov, who had been elected to the command of the Baltic Fleet and was entirely in the hands of the mutinous Executive Committee of the Baltic Fleet. It was necessary to remove that officer, who had brought about so much evil, influenced, no doubt, by his surroundings, because the Committee refused to release him, and Maximov refused all summonses to come to the Stavka on the plea that the condition of the Fleet was critical. In the beginning of June Brussilov managed to remove him from the Fleet ... at the price of appointing him Chief of the Naval Staff of the Supreme C.-in-C. Many other examples might be quoted of incredible contrasts in principles of Army Administration occasioned by the collision of two opposing forces and two schools of thought.
I have already said that the entire Commanding Staff of Generals was strictly loyal to the Provisional Government. General Kornilov, the would-be “rebel,” addressed the following speech to a Meeting of Officers: “The old régime has collapsed. The people are building a new structure of liberty, and it is the duty of the people’s Army wholeheartedly to support the new Government in its difficult, creative work.” The Commanding Staff may have taken some interest in questions of general policy and in the Socialistic experiments of the Coalition Governments, but no more than was taken by all cultured Russians, and they did not consider themselves entitled or obliged to induce the troops to participate in the solution of social problems. Their only concern was to preserve the Army and the Foreign policy which contributed to the victory. Such a connection between the Commanding Staff and the Government, at first “a love match” andlater one of convenience, prevailed until the General Offensive in June, while there still remained a flicker of hope that the mood of the Army would change. That hope was destroyed by events, and, after the advance, the attitude of the Commanding Staff was somewhat shaken. I may add that theentireSenior Commanding Staff considered as inadmissible the democratisation of the Army which the Government was enforcing. From the table which I have quoted it can be seen that 65 per cent. of the Commanding Officers did not raise a sufficiently strong protest against the disruption of the Army. The reasons were manifold and entirely different. Some did it for tactical considerations, as they thought that the Army was poisoned and that it should be healed by such dangerous antidotes. Others were prompted by purely selfish motives. I do not speak from hearsay, but because I know themilieuand the individuals, many of whom have discussed the matter with me with perfect frankness. Cultured and experienced Generals could not frankly and scientifically advocate such “military” views as, for example, Klembovski’s suggestion that a triumvirate should be placed at the head of the Army, consisting of the Commander-in-Chief, a Commissar, and an elected soldier; Kvietzinski’s suggestion that the Army Committee should be invested with special plenary power by the War Minister and the Central Committee of the Soviet, which would entitle them to act in the name of that Committee; or Viranovski’s suggestion that the entire Commanding Staff should be converted into “technical advisers” and their power transferred entirely to the Commissars and the Committee.
The loyalty of the High Commanding Staff can be gauged from the following fact: At the end of April General Alexeiev, despairing of the possibility of personally preventing the Government from adopting measures which tended to disrupt the Army, and before issuing the famous Proclamation of the Rights of the Soldier, wired in cipher to all the Commanders-in-Chief a draft of a strong and resolute collective appeal from the Army to the Government. This appeal pointed to the abyss into which the Army was being hurled. In the event of the draft being approved, it was to have been signed by all Senior ranks, including Divisional Commanders. The Fronts, however, for various reasons, disapproved of such means of influencing the Government. General Ragosa, the temporary C.-in-C. of the Roumanian Front, who was afterwards Ukrainian War Minister under the Hetman, replied that the Russian people seemed to be ordained by the Almighty to perish, and it was therefore useless to struggle against Fate. With a sign of the Cross, one should patientlyawait the dictates of Fate!... This was literally the sense of his telegram.
Such was the attitude and the confusion in the higher ranks of the Army. As regards the Commanders, who fought unremittingly against the disruption of the Army, many of them struggled against the tide of democratisation, as they considered it their duty to the people. They did this in disregard of the success or failure of their efforts, of the blows of Fate, or of the dark future, of which some already had a premonition, and which was already approaching with disaster in its train. On they went, with heads erect, misunderstood, slandered and savagely hated, as long as life and courage permitted.
“Democratisation of the Army”—Administration, Service and Routine.
In order to carry out the democratisation of the Army and the reform of the War Ministry in accordance with the new régime, Gutchkov established a Commission under the Chairmanship of the late War Minister, Polivanov, who died at Riga in 1920, where he was the expert of the Soviet Government in the Delegation for making peace with Poland. The Commission was composed of representatives of the Military Commission of the Duma and of representatives of the Soviet. There was a similar Commission in the Ministry of the Navy under the Chairmanship of Savitch, a prominent member of the Duma. I know more about the work of the First Commission, and will therefore dwell upon it. The regulations drafted by the Commission were not confirmed until they had been approved by the Military Section of the Executive Committee of the Soviet, which enjoyed great authority and often indulged in independent military law-making. No future historian of the Russian Army will be able to avoid mention of the Polivanov Commission—this fatal Institution whose stamp is affixed to every one of the measures which destroyed the Army. With incredible cynicism, not far removed from treachery, this Institution, comprising many Generals and officers appointed by the War Minister, systematically and daily introduced pernicious ideas and destroyed the rational foundations of military administration. Very often drafts of regulations, which appeared to the Government as excessively demagogic and were not sanctioned, appeared in the Press and came to the knowledge of the masses of the soldiery. They were instilled into the Army, and subsequently caused pressure to be brought to bear upon the Government by the soldiery. The military members of the Commission seemed to be competing with one another in slavish subservience to the new masters, and endorsed by their authority the destructive ideas. Men who reported to theCommittee have told me that civilians occasionally protested during the debates and warned the Committee against going too far, but no such protests ever came from the military members. I fail to understand the psychology of the men, who came so rapidly and unreservedly under the heel of the mob. The list of military members of the Commission of the month of May indicates that most of them were Staff Officers and representatives of other Departments, mostly of Petrograd (twenty-five); only nine were from the Army, and these do not seem to have been drawn from the line. Petrograd has its own psychology different from that of the Army. The most important and detrimental Democratic regulations were passed concerning the organisation of Committees, disciplinary action, the reform of the Military Courts, and, finally, the famous “Declaration of the Rights of the Soldier.”
Military Chiefs were deprived of disciplinary power.It was transferred to Regimental and Company Disciplinary Courts, which also had to settle “misunderstandings” between officers and men. There is no need to comment upon the importance of this curtailment of the disciplinary power of the officers; it introduced complete anarchy in the internal life of regimental units, and the officer was discreditedby the law. The latter circumstance is of paramount importance, and the Revolutionary Democracy took full advantage of this procedure in all its attempts at law-making. The reform of the Courts aimed at weakening the influence of military judges by appointment upon the course of the trial, the introduction of juries and the general weakening of military justice. Field Courts-Martial were abolished, which meted out quick punishment on the spot for obvious and heavy crimes, such as treason, desertion, etc.
The democratisation of the Military Courts might be excused to a certain extent by the fact that confidence in the officers, having been undermined, it was necessary to create judicial Courts of a mixed composition on an elective basis, which in theory were supposed to enjoy to a greater extent the confidence of the Revolutionary Democracy. But that object was not attained, because the Military Courts—one of the foundations of order in the Army—fell entirely into the hands of the mob. The investigating organs were completely destroyed by the Revolutionary Democracy, and investigation was strongly resisted by the armed men and sometimes by the Regimental Revolutionary Institutions. The armed mob, which included many criminal elements, exercised unrestrained and ignorant pressure upon the conscience of the judges, and passed sentencesin advance of the verdicts of the judges. Army Corps Tribunals were destroyed, and members of the jury who had dared to pass a sentence distasteful to the mob were put to flight. These were common occurrences. The case was heard in Kiev of the well-known Bolshevik, Dzevaltovski, a captain of the Grenadier Regiment of the Guards, who was accused, with seventy-eight other men, of having refused to join in the advance and of having dragged his regiment and other units to the rear. The circumstances of the trial were these: In Court there was a mob of armed soldiers, who shouted approval of the accused on his way from the prison to the Court. Dzevaltovski called, together with his escort, at the Local Soviet, where he received an ovation. Finally, while the jury were deliberating, the Armed Reserve Battalions paraded before the Court with the band and sang the “International.” Dzevaltovski and all his companions were, of course, found “Not guilty.” Military Courts were thus gradually abolished.
It would be a mistake, however, to ascribe this new tendency solely to the influence of the Soviets. It may also be explained by Kerensky’s point of view. He said: “I think that no results can be achieved by violence and by mechanical compulsion in the present conditions of warfare, where huge masses are concerned. The Provisional Government in the three months of its existence has come to the conclusion that it is necessary to appeal to the common-sense, the conscience and the sense of duty of the citizens, and that it is the only means of achieving the desired results.”
In the first days of the Revolution the Provisional Government abolished Capital Punishment by the Ukase of March 12th. The Liberal Press greeted this measure with great pathos. Articles were written expressing strongly humanitarian views, but scant understanding of realities, of the life of the Army, and also scant foresight. V. Nabokoff, the Russian Abolitionist, who was General Secretary to the Provisional Government, wrote: “This happy event is a sign of true magnanimity and of wise foresight.... Capital Punishment is abolished unconditionally and for ever.... It is certain that in no other country has the moral condemnation of this, the worst kind of murder, reached such enormous proportions as in Russia.... Russia has joined the States that no longer know the shame and degradation of judicial murder.” It is interesting to note that the Ministry of Justice drafted two laws, in one of which Capital Punishment was maintained for the most serious military offences—espionage and treason. But the Department of Military Justice, headed byGeneral Anushkin, emphatically declared in favour of complete abolition of Capital Punishment.
July came. Russia had already become used to Anarchist outbreaks, but was nevertheless horror-stricken at the events that took place on the battlefields of Galicia, near Kalush and Tarnopol. The telegrams of the Government Commissars, Savinkov and Filonenko, and of General Kornilov, who demanded the immediate reintroduction of Capital Punishment, were as a stroke of a whip to the “Revolutionary Conscience.” On July 11th, Kornilov wrote: “The Army of maddened, ignorant men, who are not protected by the Government from systematic demoralisation and disruption, and who have lost all sense of human dignity, is in full flight. On the fields, which can no longer be called battlefields, shame and horror such as the Russian Army has never known reign supreme.... The mild Government measures have destroyed discipline, and are provoking the fitful cruelty of the unrestrained masses. These elemental feelings find expression in violence, plunder and murders.... Capital Punishment would save many innocent lives at the price of a few traitors and cowards being eliminated.”
On July 12th the Government restored Capital Punishment and Revolutionary Military Tribunals, which replaced the former Field Courts-Martial. The difference was that the judges were elected (three officers and three men) from the list of the juries or from Regimental Committees. This measure, the restoration of Capital Punishment, due to pressure having been brought to bear upon the Government by the Military Command, the Commissars, and the Committees, was, however, foredoomed to failure. Kerensky subsequently tried to apologise to the Democracy at the “Democratic Conference”: “Wait till I have signed a single death sentence, and I will then allow you to curse me....” On the other hand, the very personnel of the Courts and their surroundings, described above, made the very creation of these Courts impossible: there were hardly any judges capable of passing a death sentence or any Commissars willing to endorse such a sentence. On the Fronts which I commanded there were, at any rate, no such cases. After the new Revolutionary Military Tribunals had been functioning for two months, the Department of Military Justice was flooded with reports from Military Chiefs and Commissars on the “blatant infringements of judicial procedure, upon the ignorance and lack of experience of the judges.”
The disbandment of mutinous regiments was one of the punitive measures carried out by the Supreme Administration or Command. This measure had not been carefully thought out,and led to thoroughly unexpected consequences—it provoked mutinies, prompted by a desire to be disbanded. Regimental honour and other moral impulses had long since been characterised as ridiculous prejudices. The actual advantages of disbanding, on the other hand, were obvious to the men: regiments were removed from the firing line for a long time, disbanding continued for months, and the men were sent to new units, which were thus filled with vagabond and criminal elements. Responsibility for this measure can be equally divided between the War Ministry, the Commissars, and the Stavka. The whole burden of it finally fell once more upon the guiltless officers, who lost their regiments—which were their families—and their appointments, and were compelled to wander about in new places or find themselves in the desolate condition of the Reserve.
Apart from this undesirable element, units were filled with the late inmates of convict prisons, owing to the broad amnesty granted by the Government to criminals, who were to expiate their crimes by military service. My efforts to combat this measure were unavailing, and resulted in the formation of a special regiment of convicts—a present from Moscow—and in the formation of solid anarchist cadres in the Reserve Battalions. Thenaïfand insincere argument of the Legislator that crimes were committed because of the Czarist Régime, and that a free country would convert the criminal into a self-sacrificing hero, did not come true. In the garrisons, where amnestied criminals were for some reason or other more numerous, they became a menace to the population before they ever saw the Front. Thus, in June, in the units quartered at Tomsk, there was an intense propaganda of wholesale plunder and of the suppression of all authority. Soldiers formed large robber bands and terrorized the population. The Commissar, the Chief of the garrison, and all the local Revolutionary Organisations started a campaign against the plunderers; after much fighting, no less than 2,300 amnestied criminals were turned out of the garrison.
Reforms were intended to affect the entire administration of the Army and of the Fleet, but the above-mentioned Committees of Polivanov and Savitch failed to carry them out, as they were abolished by Kerensky, who recognised at last all the evil they had wrought. The Committees merely prepared the Democratisation of the War and Naval Councils by introducing elected soldiers into them. This circumstance is the more curious because, according to the Legislator’s intention, these Councils were to consist of men of experience and knowledge, capable of solving questions of organisation, service, and routine, of militaryand naval legislation, and of making financial estimates of the cost of the armed forces of Russia. This yearning of the uncultured portion of Democracy for spheres of activity foreign to it was subsequently developed on an extensive scale. Thus, for example, many military colleges were, to a certain extent, managed by Committees of servants, most of whom were illiterate. Under the Bolshevik Régime, University Councils numbered not only Professors and students, but also hall-porters.
I will not dwell upon the minor activities of the Committees, the reorganisation of the Army, and the new regulations, but will describe the most important measure—the Committees and the “Declaration of the Rights of the Soldier.”
Elective bodies from the Military Section of the Soviet to Committees and Soviets of various denominations in regimental units and in the Departments of the Army, the Fleet and the rear, were the most prominent factor of “Democratisation.” These institutions were partly of a mixed type, and included both officers and men and partly soldiers and workers’ institutions pure and simple. Committees and Soviets were formed everywhere as the common feature of Revolutionary Organisations, planned before the Revolution and sanctioned by the Order No. 1. Elections from the troops to the Soviet in Petrograd were fixed for February 27th, and the first Army Committees came into being on March 1st, in consequence of the above-mentioned Order No. 1. Towards the month of April self-appointed Soviets and Committees, varying in denomination, personnel and ability, existed in the Army and in the rear, and introduced incredible confusion into the system of military hierarchy and administration. In the first month of the Revolution the Government and the military authorities did not endeavour to put an end to or to restrict this dangerous phenomenon. They did not at first realise its possible consequences, and counted upon the moderating influence of the Officer element. They occasionally took advantage of the Committees for counteracting acute manifestations of discontent among the soldiers, as a doctor applies small doses of poison to a diseased organism. The attitude of the Government and of the military authorities towards these organisations was irresolute, but was one of semi-recognition. On April 9th, addressing the Army Delegates, Gutchkov said at Yassy: “A Congress will soon be held of the Delegates of all Army Organisations, and general regulations will then be drawn up. Meanwhile, you shouldorganise as best you can, taking advantage of the existing organisations and working for general unity.”
In April the position became so complicated that the authorities could no longer shirk the solution of the question of Committees. At the end of March there was a Conference at the Stavka, attended by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the War Minister, Gutchkov, his Assistants, and officers of the General Staff. I was also present in my capacity as future Chief-of-Staff to the Supreme C.-in-C. A draft was presented to the Conference, brought from Sevastopol by the Staff-Colonel Verkhovski (afterwards War Minister). The draft was modelled upon the regulations already in force in the Black Sea Fleet. The discussion amounted to the expression of two extreme views—mine and those of Colonel Verkhovski. The latter had already commenced those slightly demagogic activities by which he had at first gained the sympathies of the soldiers and of the sailors. He had had a short experience in organising these masses. He was persuasive because he used many illustrations—I do not know whether the facts he mentioned were real or imaginary—his views were pliable, and his eloquence was imposing. He idealised the Committees, and argued that they were very useful, even necessary and statesmanlike, inasmuch as they were capable of bringing order into the chaotic movements of the soldiery. He emphatically insisted upon the competence and the rights of these Committees being broadened.
I argued that the introduction of Committees was a measure which the Army organisation would be unable to understand, and that it amounted to disruption of the Army. If the Government was unable to cope with the movement, it should endeavour to paralyse its dangerous consequences. With that end in view, I advocated that the activities of the Committees should be limited to matters of internal organisation (food supplies, distribution of equipment, etc.), that the officer element should be strengthened, and that the Committees should remain within the sphere of the lower grades of the Army, in order to prevent them from spreading and acquiring a preponderating influence upon larger formations such as Divisions, Armies, and Fronts. Unfortunately, I only succeeded in compelling the Conference to accept my views to an insignificant degree, and on March 30th the Supreme C.-in-C. issued an Order of the Day on the “transition to the new forms of life,” and appealing to the officers, men, and sailors wholeheartedly to unite in the work of introducing strict order and solid discipline within the units of the Army and Navy.
The main principles of the regulations were the following:
(1) Thefundamental objectsof the organisation were (a) to increase the fighting power of the Army and of the Navy in order to win the War; (b) to devise new rules for the life of the soldier-citizen of Free Russia; and (c) to contribute to the education of the Army and of the Fleet.(2) Thestructureof the organisation: Permanent sections—Company, Regimental, Divisional, and Army Committees. Temporary sections—Conferences, attached to the Stavka, of Army Corps, of the Fronts, and of the Centre. The latter to form permanent Soviet.(3) The Conferences to be called by the respective Commanding Officers or on the initiative of the Army Committees. All the resolutions of the Conferences and Committees to be confirmed by the respective military authorities prior to publication.(4) Thecompetenceof the Committees was limited to enforcing order and fighting power (discipline, resistance to desertion, etc.), routine (leave, barrack life, etc.), internal organisation (control of food supplies and equipment), and education.(5)Questions of trainingwere unreservedly excluded from discussion.(6) Thepersonnel of the Committeeswas determined in proportion to elected representatives—one officer to two men.
(1) Thefundamental objectsof the organisation were (a) to increase the fighting power of the Army and of the Navy in order to win the War; (b) to devise new rules for the life of the soldier-citizen of Free Russia; and (c) to contribute to the education of the Army and of the Fleet.
(2) Thestructureof the organisation: Permanent sections—Company, Regimental, Divisional, and Army Committees. Temporary sections—Conferences, attached to the Stavka, of Army Corps, of the Fronts, and of the Centre. The latter to form permanent Soviet.
(3) The Conferences to be called by the respective Commanding Officers or on the initiative of the Army Committees. All the resolutions of the Conferences and Committees to be confirmed by the respective military authorities prior to publication.
(4) Thecompetenceof the Committees was limited to enforcing order and fighting power (discipline, resistance to desertion, etc.), routine (leave, barrack life, etc.), internal organisation (control of food supplies and equipment), and education.
(5)Questions of trainingwere unreservedly excluded from discussion.
(6) Thepersonnel of the Committeeswas determined in proportion to elected representatives—one officer to two men.
In order to give an idea of the slackening of discipline in the higher ranks I may mention that, immediately after receiving these regulations, and obviously under the influence of Army organisations, General Brussilov issued the following order: “Officers to be excluded from Company Committees, and in higher Committees the proportion lowered from one-third to one-sixth....”
In less than a fortnight, however, the War Ministry, in disregard of the Stavka, published its own regulations, drafted by the famous Polivanov Committee, with the assistance of Soviet representatives. In these new regulations substantial alterations were made: the percentage of officers in Committees was reduced; Divisional Committees abolished; “the taking of rightful measures against abuses by Commanding Officers in the respective units” were added to the powers of the Committees; the Company Committees were not permitted to discuss the matter of military preparedness and other purely military matters affecting the unit, but no such reservation was made with regard to Regimental Committees; the Regimental Commanding Officer was entitled to appeal against but not to suspend the decisions of the Committee; finally, the Committees were given the task of negotiating with political parties of every description in the matter of sending delegates, speakers, and pamphlets explaining the political programme before the elections to the Constituent Assembly.
These regulations, which were tantamount to converting the Army in war-time into an arena of political strife and depriving the Commanding Officer of all control over his unit, constituted, in fact, one of the main turning points on the path of destruction of the Army.
The following appreciation of these regulations by the Anarchist, Makhno (the Order of the Day of one of his subordinate Commanders of November 10th, 1919), is worthy of note: “As any party propaganda at the present moment strongly handicaps the purely military activities of the rebel armies, I emphatically declare to the population that all party propaganda is strictly prohibited pending the complete victory over the White Armies....”
Several days later, in view of a protest from the Stavka, the War Ministry issued orders for the immediate suspension of the regulations concerning the Committees. Where the Committees had already been formed, they were allowed to carry on in order to avoid misunderstandings. The Ministry decided to alter the section of the regulations concerning the Committees, in accordance with the orders of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, in which fuller consideration was given to the interests of the troops. Thus, in the middle of April there was an infinite variety in the organisation of the Army. Some institutions were illegal, others were sanctioned by the Stavka, and others still by the War Ministry. All these contradictions, changes, and re-elections might have led to ridiculous confusion had not the Committees simplified matters: they simply cast off all restrictions and acted arbitrarily. Wherever troops or Army departments were quartered among the population local Soldiers’ Soviets or Soviets of Soldiers and Workmen were formed, which recognised no regulations, and were particularly intent upon covering deserters and mercilessly exploiting municipalities, Zemstvos, and the population. The authorities never opposed them, and it was only at the end of August that the War Ministry lost patience with the abuses of these “Institutions of the Rear,” and informed the Press that itintendedto undertake the drafting of special regulations concerning these Institutions.
Who were the members of the Committees? The combatant element, living for and understanding the interests of the Army and imbued with its traditions, was scantily represented. Valour, courage and a sense of duty were rated very low on the market of Soldiers’ Meetings. The masses of the soldiery, who were, alas! ignorant, illiterate, and already demoralised and distrusted their Chiefs, elected mostly men who imposed on them by smoothtalking, purely external political knowledge derived from the revelation of Party propaganda; chiefly, however, by shamelessly bowing to the instincts of the men. How could a real soldier, appealing to the sense of duty, to obedience and to a struggle for the Mother Country, compete with such demagogues? The officers did not enjoy the confidence, they did not wish to work in the Committees, and their political education was probably inadequate. In the Higher Committees one met honest and sensible soldiers more often than officers, because a man wearing a soldier’s tunic was in a position to address the mob in a manner in which the officer could never dare to indulge. The Russian Army was henceforward administered by Committees formed of elements foreign to the Army and representing rather Socialist Party organs. It was strange and insulting to the Army that Congresses of the Front, representing several million combatants and many magnificent units with a long and glorious record, and comprising officers and men of whom any Army might be proud, were held under the Chairmanship of such men as civilian Jews and Georgians, who were Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, or Social Revolutionaries—Posner on the Western Front, Gegetchkory on the Caucasian, and Doctor Lordkipanitze on the Roumanian.
What, then, were these Army Organisations doing that were supposed to reconstruct “the freest Army in the world”? I will quote a list of questions discussed at Conferences of the Front and which influenced the Front and Army Committees:
(1) The attitude towards the Government, the Soviet and the Constituent Assembly.(2) The attitude towards War and Peace.(3) The question of a Democratic Republic as a desirable form of Government.(4) The question of the land.(5) The Labour question.
(1) The attitude towards the Government, the Soviet and the Constituent Assembly.
(2) The attitude towards War and Peace.
(3) The question of a Democratic Republic as a desirable form of Government.
(4) The question of the land.
(5) The Labour question.
These intricate and burning political and social questions, to which a radical solution was being given and which created partisanship and class strife, were thus introduced into the Army that was facing a strong and cruel enemy. The effect was self-evident. But even in strictly military matters certain utterances were made at the Conference at Minsk, which attracted the particular attention of the military and civil authorities, and caused us gravely to ponder. It was suggested that the rank of officer,individual disciplinary power, etc., should be abolished, and that the Committees should be entitled to remove Commanding Officers of whom they disapproved. From the very first days of their existence the Committees fought stubbornly to obtain full power not only with regard to the administration of the Army, but even for the formula: “All Power to the Soviets.” At first, however, the attitude of the Army Committees towards the Provisional Government was perfectly loyal, and the lower the Committee the more loyal it was. The Petrograd papers of March 17th were full of resolutions proclaiming unrestricted obedience to the Provisional Government, of telegrams greeting and of records of delegations sent by the troops, who were perturbed by rumours of the opposition of the Soviet. This attitude later underwent several changes, due to the propaganda of the Soviet. A powerful influence was exercised by the resolution of the Congress of Soviets, which I have already quoted, and which appealed to the Russian Revolutionary Democracy to organise under the guidance of the Soviets and to be prepared to resist all the attempts of the Government to avoid the control of the Democracy or the fulfilment of their pledges.
The Higher Committees indulged chiefly in political activities and in the strengthening of Revolutionary tendencies in the Army, while the Lower Committees gradually became absorbed in matters of service and routine, and were weakening and discrediting the authority of the Commanding Officers. The right to remove these officers was practically established, because the position of those who had received a vote of censure became intolerable. Thus, for instance, on the Western Front, which I commanded, about sixty Senior Officers resigned—from Army Corps to Regimental Commanders. What was, however, infinitely more tragic was the endeavour of the Committees, on their own initiative and under pressure from the troops, to interfere with purely military and technical Orders, thus rendering military operations difficult or even impossible. The Commanding Officer who was discredited, fettered and deprived of power, and, therefore, of responsibility, could no longer confidently lead the troops into the field of victory and death.... As there was no authority the Commanding Officers were compelled to have recourse to the Committees, which sometimes did exercise a restraining influence over the licentious soldiery, resisted desertion, smoothed friction between officers and men, appealed to the latter’s sense of duty—in a word, tried to arrest the collapse of the crumbling structure. These activities of some ofthe Committees still misled their apologists, including Kerensky. It is no use to argue with men who think that a structure may be erected by one laying bricks one day and pulling them to pieces on the next.
The work, overt and unseen, of Army Committees, alternating between patriotic appeals and internationalist watchwords, between giving assistance to Commanding Officers and dismissing them, between expressions of confidence in, or of distrust of, the Provisional Government, and ultimatums for new boots or travelling allowances for members of Committees.... The historian of the Russian Army, in studying these phenomena, will be amazed at the ignorance of the elementary rules governing the very existence of an armed force, which was displayed by the Committees in their decisions and in their writings.
The Committees of the Rear and of the Fleet were imbued with a particularly demagogic spirit. The Baltic Fleet was in a state approaching anarchy all the time; the Black Sea Fleet was in a better condition, and held out until June. It is difficult to estimate the mischief made by these Committees and Soviets in the Rear, scattered all over the country. Their overbearing manner was only comparable with their ignorance. I will mention a few examples illustrating these activities.
The Regional Committee of the Army, the Fleet and the Workmen of Finland issued a declaration in May, in which, not content with the autonomy granted to Finland by the Provisional Government, they demanded her complete independence, and declared that “they would give every support to all the Revolutionary Organisations working for a speedy solution of that question.”
The Central Committee of the Baltic Fleet, in conjunction with the above-mentioned Committee, made a declaration, which coincided with the Bolshevik outbreak in Petrograd in the beginning of June. They demanded “all power to the Soviets. We shall unite in the Revolutionary struggle of our working Democracy for power, and will not allow the ships to be called out by the Provisional Government for the suppression of the mutiny to leave Petrograd.”
The Committee of the Minsk Military District, shortly before the advance, gave leave to all the Reservists to proceed to their farms. I gave orders for the trial of the Committee, but the order was of no avail, because, in spite of all my representations, the War Ministry had not established any legal responsibility for the Committees, whose decisions were recorded by vote and occasionally by secret ballot. I will mention yet another curiousepisode. The Committee of one of the Cavalry Depôts on my Front decided that horses should be watered only once a day, so most of the horses were lost.
It would be unjust to deny that the organisations of the Rear occasionally did adopt reasonable measures, but these instances are few indeed, and they were drowned in the general wave of anarchy which these organisations had raised. The attitude of the Committees towards the War, and in particular towards the proposed advance, was, of course, a momentous matter. In Chapter X. I have already described the self-contradictions of the Soviets and Congresses, as well as the ambiguous and insincere directions which they gave to the Army Organisations, and which amounted to the acceptance of War and of the advance, but without victory. The same ambiguity prevailed in the High Committees, with the exception, however, of the Committee of our Western Front, which passed in June a truly Bolshevik Resolution to the effect that War has been engendered by the plundering policy of the Government; that the only means of ending the War was for the united Democracies of all countries to resist their Governments; and that a decisive victory of one or the other of the contending groups of Powers would only tend to increase militarism at the expense of Democracy.
As long as the Front was quiet the troops accepted all these discourses and Resolutions in a spirit of comparative indifference. But when the time came for the advance, many people thought of saving their skins, and the ready formulas of Defeatism proved opportune. Besides the Committees, who were continuing to pass patriotic Resolutions, certain organisations reflecting the views of the units of the Army, or their own, violently opposed the idea of an advance. Entire regiments, divisions, and even Army Corps, especially on the Northern and Western Russian Fronts, refused to conduct preparatory work or to advance to the firing line. On the eve of the advance we had to send large forces for the suppression of units that had treacherously forgotten their duty.
I have already mentioned the attitude of many Senior Commanders towards the Committees. The best summary of these views can be found in the appeal of General Fedotov, in temporary command of an Army, to the Army Committee: “Our Army is at present organised as no other Army in the world.... Elected bodies play an important part. We—the former leaders—can only give the Army our military knowledge of strategy and tactics. You—the Committees—are called upon to organise the Army and to create its internal strength. Great indeed is the part which you—the Committees—are called upon to play in thecreation of a new and strong Army. History will recognise this....”
Before the Army Organisations were sanctioned the Commander of the Caucasian Front issued an Order for the decisions of the self-appointed Tiflis Soldiers’ Soviet to be published in the Orders of the Day, and for all regulations appertaining to the Organisation and routine of the Army to be sanctioned by that Soviet. Is one to wonder that such an attitude of a certain portion of the Commanding Staffs gave an excuse and a foundation for the growing demands of the Committees?
As regards the Western and South-Western Fronts, which I commanded, I definitely refused to have anything to do with the Committees, and suppressed, whenever possible, such of their activities as were contrary to the interests of the Army. One of the prominent Commissars, a late member of the Executive Committee of the Soviet, Stankevitch, wrote: “Theoretically, it became increasingly apparent that either the Army must be abolished or else the Committees. In practice, one could do neither one nor the other. The Committees were a vivid expression of the incurable sociological disease of the Army, and a sign of its certain collapse and paralysis. Was it not for the War Ministry to hasten the death by a resolute and hopeless surgical operation?”
The once great Russian Army of the first period of the Revolution dwindled inevitably to nothing under such conditions as these:
There was no Mother Country. The leader had been crucified. In his stead a group appeared at the Front of five Defensists and three Bolsheviks, and made an appeal to the Army:
“Forward, to battle for liberty and for the Revolution, but ... without inflicting a decisive defeat upon the enemy,” cried the former.
“Down with the War and all power to the Proletariat!” shouted the others.
The Army listened and listened, but would not move. And then ... it dispersed!