The Russian Turmoil; Memoirs: Military, Social, and Political

by Anton Ivanovich Denikin

“Take care of the officer! For from the beginning and till now he has stood, faithfully and without relief, on guard over the order of the Russian State. He can be relieved by death alone.”

Printed by the Committee, the text of my speech was circulated at the Front, and I was happy to learn, from many letters and telegrams, that the words spoken in defence of the officer had touched his aching heart.

The Congress left a permanent institution at the Stavka—the “Chief Committee of the Officers’ Union.”[29] During the first three months of its existence the Committee did not succeed in rooting itself deeply in the Army. Its activities were confined to organising branches of the Union in the Armies and in military circles, to the examination of the complaints that reached it. In exceptional cases incompetent officers were recommended for dismissal (the “black-board”); to a certain very limited degree officers expelled by the soldiers were granted assistance, and declarations were addressed to the Government and to the Press in connection with the more important events in public and military life. After the June advance the tone of these declarations became acrimonious, critical, and defiant, which seriously disturbed the Prime Minister, who persistently sought to have the Chief Committee transferred from Moghilev to Moscow, as he considered that its attitude was a danger to the Stavka.

The Committee, which was somewhat passive during the command of General Brussilov, did, indeed, take part afterwards in General Kornilov’s venture. But it was not this circumstance that caused the change in its attitude. The Committee undoubtedly reflected the general spirit with which the Command and the Russian officers were then imbued, a spirit which had become hostile to the Provisional Government. Also, no clear idea had been formed among the officers of the political groups within the Government of the covert struggle proceeding between them, or of the protective part played by many representatives of the Liberal Democracy among them. A hostile attitude was thus created towards the Government as a whole.

Having remained hitherto perfectly loyal and in the majority of cases well-disposed, having patiently borne, much against the grain, the experiments which the Provisional Government made, deliberately or involuntarily, on the country and on the Army, these elements lived only in the hope of the regeneration of the Army, of an advance and of victory. When all these hopes crashed to the ground, then, not being united in their ideals with the second Coalitional Government, but, on the contrary, deeply distrusting it, the masses of the officers abandoned the Provisional Government, which thus lost its last reliable support.

This moment is of great historical importance, giving the key to the understanding of many later events. As a whole, deeply democratic in their personnel, views and conditions of life, rejected by the Revolutionary Democracy with incredible harshness and cynicism, and finding no real support in the liberal circles in close touch with the Government, the Russian officers found themselves in a state of tragic isolation. This isolation and bewilderment served more than once afterwards as a fertile soil for outside influences, foreign to the traditions of the officer caste and to its former political character—influences which led to dissension, and in the end to fratricide. For there can be no doubt that all the power, all the organisation, both of the Red and of the White Armies, rested exclusively on the personality of the former Russian officer.

And if afterwards, in the course of three years of conflict, we have witnessed the rise of two conflicting forces in the Russian public life of the anti-Bolshevist camp, we must seek for their original source not in political differences only, but also in that work of Cain towards the officers’ caste, which was wrought by the Revolutionary Democracy from the first days of the Revolution.

As everyone realised that the “new order” and the Front itself are on the verge of collapse, it was obvious that officers should have attempted some organisation to meet such a contingency. But the advocates of action were lying in prison; the Chief Council of the Officers’ Union, which was best suited for this task, had been broken up by Kerensky in the latter days of August. The majority of the responsible leaders of the Army were perturbed by a terrible and not unfounded fear for the fate of the Russian officers. In this respect the correspondence between General Kornilov and General Doukhonin is very characteristic. After the Bolshevist coup d’état on November 1 (14), 1917, General Kornilov wrote to Doukhonin from his prison in Bykhov:

“Foreseeing the further course of events, I think that it is necessary for you to take such measures as would create a favourable atmosphere, while thoroughly safeguarding Headquarters, for a struggle against the coming Anarchy.”

Among these measures General Kornilov suggested “the concentration in Moghilev, or in a point near to it, under a reliable guard, of a store of rifles, cartridges, machine-guns, automatic guns and hand-grenades for distribution among the officer-volunteers, who will undoubtedly gather together in this region.”