Protracted negotiations on this matter ensued between the Soviet and the Government, and at the end of April it was agreed that Commissars would be appointed to the Army—one from the Provisional Government and one from the Soviet. This decision, however, was subsequently altered, probably as the result of the formation of a Coalition Ministry (May 5th). One Commissar was appointed by agreement between the Government and the Soviet. He represented both these bodies, and was responsible to them. At the end of June the Provisional Government introduced the office of Commissar of the Fronts, and thus defined their function: according to the instructions of the War Ministry, they were to see that all political questions arising within the Armies of the Front should be given a uniform solution, and that the work of the Army Commissars should be co-ordinated. At the end of July a final touch was given by the appointment of a High Commissar attached to the Stavka, and the entire official correspondence was concentrated in the political section of the War Ministry. No law, however, was passed defining the rights and the duties of the Commissars. The Commanding Staffs, at any rate, were unaware of such laws, and this alone gave rise to all the misunderstandings and conflicts that followed. The Commissars had secret instructions to watch the Commanding Staffs and Headquarters in respect of their political reliability. From that point of view the democratic régime went further, perhaps, than the autocratic. Of this I became convinced during my command of the Western and South-Western Fronts, in reading the telegrams exchanged between the Commissariats and Petrograd. These telegrams—may the Commissars forgive me!—were handed to me, de-coded, by my Staff, immediately after their despatch. This part of the Commissars’ duty required a certain training in political intelligence, but their overt duties were infinitely more complex: they demanded statesmanship, a clear knowledge of the aims to be pursued, an understanding of the psychology, not merely of the officers and men, but of the Senior Commanding Staff, acquaintance with the fundamental principles of service and routine in the Army, great tact, and, finally, the personal qualities of courage, strong will, and energy. Only such qualifications were capable of mitigating to a certain degree the disastrous consequences of a measure which deprived (to be more accurate, sanctioned the deprivation of) the Commanding Officers of the possibility of influencing the troops—that influence being the only means of strengthening the hope and faith in victory.
Such elements were not to be found, unfortunately, in the circles connected with the Government and the Soviet and enjoying their confidence. The personnel of the Commissars whom I met may be described thus: War-time officers, doctors, solicitors, newspaper men, exiles and emigrés completely out of touch with Russian life, members of militant Revolutionary organisations, etc. These men had, obviously, inadequate knowledge of the Army. All these men belonged to Socialist parties, from Social-Democrat Mensheviks to the group “Edinstvo” (unity), War party blinkers, and very often did not follow the political lines of the Government because they considered themselves tied by Soviet and party discipline. Owing to political differences of opinion, the attitude of the Commissars towards the War also varied. Stankevitch, one of the Commissars, who carried out his duties in his own way most conscientiously, when proceeding to visit an advancing Division was beset with doubts: “The soldiers believe that we do not wish to deceive them; they force themselves, therefore, to forget their doubts, and they go forward to death and murder. But we, are we entitled not only to encourage them, but to take upon ourselves the decision?” According to Savinkov (who was Commissar of the Seventh Army of the South-Western Front, and later War Minister), not all the Commissars agreed upon the question of Bolshevism, and not all of them considered a resolute struggle against the Bolsheviks possible or desirable. Savinkov was an exception. Although not a soldier by profession, he was steeled in struggle and wanderings, in constant danger, and his hands were stained with the blood of political victims. This man, however, understood the laws of the struggle, threw off the yoke of the party, and fought more resolutely than others against the disorganisation of the Army. But the personal touch in his attitude towards the events was somewhat too marked. None of the Commissars, with the exception of very few men of the Savinkov type, displayed personal strength or energy. They were men of words, not of deeds. Their lack of training would not have had such negative results had it not been for the fact that, their functions not being clearly defined, they gradually began to interfere with every feature of the life and service of the troops, partly on their own initiative, partly at the instigation of the men and of the Army Committees, and partly even of Commanding Officers, who were trying to escape responsibility. Questions of appointments, dismissals, and even operative plans attracted the attention of the Commissars, not only from the point of view of “covert counter-Revolution,” but from the point of view of practicability. The confusion in their minds was so great that the weaker elements among the Commanding Staffs were sometimes completely disheartened. I remember one case during the July retreat on the South-Western Front. One of the Army Corps Commanders rashly destroyed a well-equipped military railway, thereby placing the Army in an exceedingly difficult position. He was dismissed by the Army Commander, and afterwards expressed to me his sincere astonishment: “Why had he been dismissed? He had acted—upon the instructions of the Commissar.”
The Commissars carried out the ideas of the Soviet and whole-heartedly defended the sacred newly-acquired rights of the soldier, but failed to fulfil their primary duty—direct the political life of the Army. Very often the most destructive propaganda was permitted. Soldiers’ meetings and Committees were allowed to pass all kinds of anti-National and anti-Government resolutions, and the Commissars only interfered when the tension of the atmosphere resulted in an armed mutiny. Such a policy puzzled the troops, the Committees, and the Commanding Officers.
The institution of Commissars did not attain its purpose. Among the soldiers the Commissars could not be popular because they were to a certain extent an instrument of compulsion, and occasionally of suppression. At the same time, the extent of their power was not well defined, and they could not gain proper authority over the most undisciplined units. This was confirmed later after the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, when the Commissars were the first to flee from their posts in a great hurry and in secret.
There thus appeared in the Russian Army, instead of one authority, three different authorities, which excluded one another—the Commanding Officer, the Committee, and the Commissar. They were shadowy authorities. Another authority was overhanging, and was oppressing them morally with all its insensate weight—the power of the mob.
In examining the question of the new Institutions—Commissars and Committees—and of their bearing upon the destinies of the Russian Army, I have done so solely from the point of view of the preservation of our Armed Forces as an important factor in the future of our country. It would, however, be a mistake to overlook the connection between these measures and the entirety of laws which govern the life of the people and the course of the Revolution. These measures, moreover, bear the stamp of logic and of inevitability owing to the part which the Revolutionary Democracy had chosen to play. Therein lies the tragedy of the situation. The Socialist Democracy did not possess any elements sufficiently trained to become the instruments of Army Administration. At the same time, it did not have the courage or the possibility to quell the resistance of the Bourgeois Democracy and of the Commanding Staffs, and to compel them to work for the glorification of Socialism, as the Bolsheviks afterwards did, who forced the remnants of the Russian intelligencia and of the officers to serve Communism by applying methods of sanguinary and ruthless extermination. When the Revolutionary Democracy actually assumed power and set up to fulfil certain aims it was well aware of the fact that those elements in the administration and the Command who were called upon to carry out these aims did not share the views of the Revolutionary Democracy. Hence the inevitable distrust of these elements and the desire to weaken their influence and their authority. What methods did the Democracy have recourse to? As the Central Revolutionary organ was utterly devoid of statesmanship and of patriotism, it applied in its struggle against political opponents destructive methods, completely disregarding the fact that by these methods they were destroying the country and the Army. Another circumstance must be borne in mind—the Revolution that had shaken the State to its very foundations and upset the established class relations occurred at the moment when the flower of the Nation—over 10,000,000 men—were under arms. Elections to the Constituent Assembly were impending. In these circumstances it was impossible to avoid politics being introduced into the Army, as it is impossible to arrest the course of a river. But it would have been possible to divert it to proper channels. In this matter, however, the two contending forces (that which wished to preserve the State and the Demagogic Force) also collided, as both endeavoured to influence the attitude of the Army, which was a decisive factor in the Revolution.
These were the propositions which pre-ordained and explained the subsequent course of the Democratisation of the Army. The Socialist Democracy, which governed at first behind the scenes and then overtly, was endeavouring to strengthen its position and to bow to the instincts of the crowd, destroyed the military power and connived at the Institution of Elective Military Organisations, which were less dangerous and more open to its influence than the Commanding Staffs, although they did not answer the requirements of the Soviet. The necessity of military authority of some sort was clearly realised. The Commanding Staffs were distrusted, and there was a desire to create a buffer between the two artificially separated elements of the Army. These considerations inspired the creation of the office of Commissars, who bore the dual responsibility before the Soviet and the Government. Neither the men nor the officers were satisfied with these institutions, which fell together with the Provisional Government, were revived with certain modifications in the Red Army, and once again swept away by the tide of events.
“Peoples cannot choose their Institutions, as man cannot choose his age. Peoples obey the Institutions to which they are tied by their past, their creed, by the economic laws and surroundings in which they live. There are many examples in history when the people have destroyed by violent Revolution the Institutions which it has taken a dislike for. But there is not a case in history of these new institutions forcibly imposed upon the people becoming permanent and solid. After a while the past comes again into force, because we are created entirely by that past and it is our supreme ruler.”[19]