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

by Anton Ivanovich Denikin

I sent for General Skoropadsky and invited him to moderate the violent course of the process of Ukrainisation and, in particular, either to restore the rights of the Commanders or to release them from service in the corps. The future Hetman declared that a mistaken idea had been formed of his activity, probably because of the historical past of the Skoropadsky family,[46] that he was a true Russian, an officer of the Guards and was altogether free of all seeking for self-determination, that he was only obeying orders, for which he himself had no sympathy. But immediately afterwards Skoropadsky went to the Stavka, whence my Staff received directions to aid the speedy Ukrainisation of the 34th Army Corps.

The question of the Polish formations was in a somewhat different position. The Provisional Government had declared the independence of Poland, and the Poles now counted themselves “foreigners”; Polish formations had long ago existed on the South-Western front, though they were breaking up (with the exception of the Polish Lancers); having given permission to the Ukrainians, the Government could not refuse it to the Poles. Finally, the Central Powers, by creating the appearance of Polish independence, also had in view the formation of a Polish Army, which, however, ended in failure. America also formed a Polish Army on French territory.

In July, 1917, the formation of a Polish corps was assigned to the Western front, of which I was then Commander-in-Chief. At the head of the corps I put General Dovbor-Mousnitsky,[47] who is now in command of the Polish Army at Poznan. A strong, energetic, resolute man, who fearlessly waged war on the disintegration of the Russian troops and on the Bolshevism among them, he succeeded in a short time in creating units which, if not altogether firm, were, in any case, strikingly different from the Russian troops in their discipline and order. It was the old discipline, rejected by the Revolution—without meetings, commissaries or committees. Such units roused another attitude towards them in the Army, notwithstanding the rejection of nationalisation in principle. Being supplied with the property of the disbanded mutinous divisions and treated with complaisance by the Chief of Supplies, the corps was soon able to organise its own commissariat. By order, the ranks of the officers in the Polish corps were filled by the transfer of those who desired it, and the ranks of the soldiers—exclusively by volunteers or from reserve battalions; practically, however, the inevitable current from the front set in, caused by the same motives which influenced the Russian soldiers, devastating the thinned ranks of the Army.

In the end the Polish formations turned out to be altogether useless to us. Even at the June military congress of the Poles, fairly unanimous and unambiguous speeches were heard which defined the aims of these formations. Their synthesis was thus expressed by one of the delegates: “It is a secret for no one that the War is coming to an end, and we need the Polish Army, not for the War, not for fighting; we need it so that at the coming international conference we may be reckoned with, that there should be power at our backs.”

And indeed the corps did not make its appearance at the front—it is true that it was not yet finally formed; it did not wish to interfere in the “home affairs” of the Russians (October and later—the struggle against Bolshevism) and soon assumed completely the position of “a foreign army,” being taken over and supported by the French command.

But neither were the hopes of the Polish nationalists fulfilled. In the midst of the general break-down and fall of the front in the beginning of 1918 and after the irruption of the Germans into Russia, part of the corps was captured and disarmed, part of it dispersed and the remnants of the Polish troops afterwards found a hospitable asylum in the ranks of the Volunteer Army.

Personally, I cannot but say a good word for the 1st Polish Corps, to the units of which, quartered in Bykhov, we owe much in the protection of the lives of General Kornilov and the other Bykhov prisoners, in the memorable days of September to November.

Centrifugal forces were scattering the country and the Army. To class and party intolerance was added the embitterment of national dissensions, partly based on the historically-created relations between the races inhabiting Russia and the Imperial Government, and partly altogether baseless, absurd, fed by causes which had nothing in common with healthy national feeling. Latent or crushed at an earlier date, these dissensions broke out rudely at just that moment, unfortunately, when the general Russian authority was voluntarily and conscientiously taking the path of recognition of the historical rights and the national cultural self-determination of the component elements of the Russian State.