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

by Anton Ivanovich Denikin

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 the creation 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!