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

by Anton Ivanovich Denikin

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) The fundamental objects of 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) The structure of 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) The competence of 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 training were unreservedly excluded from discussion.

(6) The personnel of the Committees was 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 it intended to 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 smooth talking, 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.