Return to Soviet Megathread Civil War
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Contents
DEPRESSING MILITARY STATUS OF WWI
WILSON BORROWED FROM BOLSHEVIKS
STALIN AND TROTSKY CLASH EARLY ON OVER USING CZARIST GENERALS
STALIN TAKES OVER MILITARY LEADERSHIP
STALIN ALSO SETS UP CHEKA CONTROL
KILLING BOLSHEVIKS ACTIVATED THE CHEKA AND TERROR
STALIN AND TROTSKY CLASH OVER MILITARY TACTICS
LENIN MISTAKENLY ADVOCATES ATTACK TOWARD WARSAW
WHAT THE RED ARMY FACED DURING THE INTERVENTION
DESCRIPTION OF HOW BAD WHITE CONTROLLED AREAS WERE
SU INVADED BY 14 COUNTRIES, INCLUDING FINLAND
TROTSKY AND TUKHACHEVSKY CAUSE POLISH DEBACLE
WHITE ARMIES WERE LED BY PRE-FASCISTS
TROTSKY ALLIED HIMSELF WITH EX CZARIST OFFICERS, SUBVERSIVES, AND SR’S
CHEKA KILLED FAR LESS THAN PEOPLE TURNING IN OPPONENTS
VILLAGES DETERMINE IF LOCAL ARMIES ARE RED OR WHITE
REDS HAD NO 5TH COLUMN AMONG WHITES DURING CIVIL WAR
STALIN SAVES PERM AS HE SAVED TSARITSYN
STALIN WORKED WITH TROTSKY DEFENDING PETROGRAD
IN THE SOUTH STALIN DEMANDS COMPLETE CONTROL AND TROTSKY’S EXPULSION
STALIN’S SOUTHERN STRATEGY
STALIN WAS A VERY GOOD MILITARY LEADER
STALIN’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CIVIL WAR VICTORY ARE UNDENIABLE
DESPITE SUCCESSES PARTY WILL NOT GIVE STALIN A MILITARY OR STATE ROLE
STALIN’S GOOD WAR RECORD HELPED GET GEN. SEC. POSITION
TROTSKY WAS RUTHLESS DURING THE CIVIL WAR AND INTERVENTION
UNLIKE KERENSKY THE BOLSHEVIKS ALLOWED FINLAND TO BE INDEPENDENT
BOLSHEVIKS WERE AS MORAL AS WAS REALISTIC TO BE
TROTSKY ERRS AS COMMISSAR OF WAR
DURING THE CIVIL WAR BOSHEVIK TERRITORY REDUCED TO VERY SMALL SIZE
PEASANTS SUPPORT BOLSHEVIKS OVER THE WHITES
LOCAL SOVIET OFFICIALS DECIDED TO KILL THE ROMANOVS
STALIN STRONGLY OPPOSED USING EX-CZARIST OFFICERS
LENIN GOT STALIN RED BANNER AWARD FOR WAR PERFORMANCE
ROMANIA CAUSED A LOT OF TROUBLE FOR THE SU
WAR COMMUNISM WAS NECESSARY
TERRORISM STARTED EARLY-ON BY COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARIES
STALIN SAVES THE DAY ON MILITARY FRONTS SUCH AS TSARITSYN
KILLING OTHERS FOR HUMANITY IS JUSTIFIED
COMPARED TO THE BLOOD SHED UNDER OPPRESSION THE BLOOD OF REVOLUTION IS MINIMAL
BULLITT SAYS PEOPLE WILLBE JUDGED BY THE EXTENT TO WHICH THEY DEFENDED THE SU
DESTRUCTION BY THE INTERVENTION WAS TERRIBLE
LENIN ADVOCATED THE USE OF TERROR
LENIN SAYS BOURGEOIS INTELLECTUALS ARE NOT THE BRAINS OF THE NATION BUT ITS SHIT
LENIN TELLS STALIN WHO HE FEELS SHOULD BE DEPORTED
LENIN ORDERS THE MOST REACTIONARY CLERGY TO BE SHOT AND THEIR PROPERTY TAKEN
GPU REPORTS ON THE CLERGY’S SUBVERSION OF THE PEASANTRY
THE EXTERNAL ENEMIES CAUSE NEED FOR THE CHEKA NOT THE INTERNAL ENEMIES
TROTSKY WAS A MILITARY BUNGLER AND INCOMPETENT
WHITES WERE TREATED WELL WHEN TAKEN PRISONER
THE MASSES WERE MORE RESOLUTE AND IRON-WILLED THAN THEIR LEADERS
LEFT SR’S ADMIT ASSASSINATING LEADERS
CZAR KILLED BY LENIN AND SVERDLOV
FOREIGN AID SAVED THE WHITES DURING THE INTERVENTION
ARMENIANS WELCOMED THE RED ARMY TO PROTECT THEM FROM THE TURKS
WHITE TERROR IS ALWAYS MUCH WORSE THAN RED TERROR
STALIN WAS ONE OF 7 REFUSING TO ACCEPT TROTSKY’S RESIGNATION AS MILITARY LEADER
TROTSKY SAYS HE DOES NOT TAKE ORDERS FROM LENIN AND ADMITS THEY CLASH OFTEN
STALIN DEBUNKS TROTSKY’S ALLEGED GREAT MILITARY LEADERSHIP
TROTSKY FOUGHT LENIN ON CONCLUDING PEACE
KRONSTADT AND RETREAT TO NEP
LENIN CONSULTED WITH STALIN BEFORE SENDING TROTSKY BREST-LITOVSK ORDERS
DEMANDS OF THE KRONSTADTERS AMOUNT TO SURRENDER TO THE CAPITALISTS
FAMINE WAS CAUSED BY THE INTERVENTION NOT WAR COMMUNISM
1921 FAMINE CAUSED BY DROUGHT NOT SOCIALISM
1921 FAMINE WAS BEATEN
LENIN SAYS THE CHURCHES SHOULD GIVE UP MONEY TO HELP BEAT THE FAMINE
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DEPRESSING MILITARY STATUS OF WWI
It was attacked by the armies of all the capitalist world. Moscow and Leningrad and the central part of Russia were separated by attacking armies from their chief food and fuel bases for two and a half years. The granary of the Ukraine, the coal of the Donetz, the oil of Baku, the mines of the Urals, the cotton of Turkestan were in enemy hands. At the height of the foreign intervention Soviet Russia was invaded by armies of 14 countries.
Strong, Anna L. The Soviets Expected It. New York, New York: The Dial press, 1941, p. 65
The factories were empty, the land unplowed, transport at a standstill. It seemed impossible that such a country could survive the fierce onslaught of an enemy with large, well-equipped armies, vast financial reserves, ample food, and other supplies.
Besieged on all sides by foreign invaders, imperiled by endless conspiracies at home, the Red Army retreated slowly across the countryside, fighting grimly as it went. The territory controlled by Moscow dwindled to 1/16 of Russia’s total area. It was a Soviet Island in an anti-Soviet sea.
Sayers and Kahn. The Great Conspiracy. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946, p. 81
By the end of May 1918 only 1/6 of Russian territory was still under Bolshevik rule.
Cole, David M. Josef Stalin; Man of Steel. London, New York: Rich & Cowan, 1942, p. 46
WILSON BORROWED FROM BOLSHEVIKS
Such a peace they described as a “peace without annexations and without indemnities,” a phrase later made famous by President Woodrow Wilson, who borrowed it from the Bolsheviks.
Strong, Anna L. The Soviets Expected It. New York, New York: The Dial press, 1941, p. 142
STALIN AND TROTSKY CLASH EARLY ON OVER USING CZARIST GENERALS
But to staff a proletarian class war army with officers drawn from its class enemies without first ensuring their political reliability, was to ask for trouble of a most fatal kind. This Trotsky did not see.
The results were to lead, among other things, to Trotsky’s first big conflict with Stalin. It arose from Stalin’s appointment as Commissar in charge of securing food supplies from the south of Russia.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 125
Cautious as ever, Stalin had refrained from commenting on the recruitment of Czarist specialists until he had had time to test the scheme in operation. Two factors convinced him that the small gains in loyal servants did not compensate for the risk of treachery….
Due to the influence of Trotsky and his associates in the War Commissariat, Stalin’s attack upon the military specialists had been ignored. At Trotsky’s recommendation the supreme command of the Red Army was given to the 28 year old ex-lieutenant of the Guards, Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
Cole, David M. Josef Stalin; Man of Steel. London, New York: Rich & Cowan, 1942, p. 104
Nosovich’s treachery, and that of a number of other former tsarist officers, reinforced Stalin’s suspicions of the military experts which he had made no effort to hide.
Volkogonov, Dmitri. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991, p. 40
“Now I understand,” General Chtchadenko said, “how Comrade Stalin succeeded in solving our troubles at Tsaritsyn.
The telephone rang again.
“Who’s bothering us now?” Stalin asked. “Some idiot from the Commissariat, I suppose! Nadia, run upstairs and find out what it’s about.”
As she started up the stairs, Mdvani asked, “Are you going to stay in Moscow for a while, Koba, or are you going to keep on being Lenin’s traveling salesman?”
“I don’t know yet,” said my Uncle Joe. “I don’t ask anything better than to stay in Moscow, but the Old Man [Lenin] doesn’t seem to want me here. That’s Trotsky’s influence. He [Trotsky] hopes that I’ll break my neck in Tsaritsyn some day or that the Whites will capture me and hang me in the public square.”
Nadejda came hurrying down the stairs.
“They need you right away at Lenin’s, Sosso! Trotsky wants Voroshilov and Minin court-marshaled for insubordination to his orders; and he has named Sytin commander-in-chief on the southern front, and you are to take orders from him.”
Stalin’s face flushed scarlet.
“The S.O.B.!” he exploded. “Sytin! One of the Czar’s generals–and one of the shiftiest of them, too! I’m not taking any orders from him! I’m going to tell the Old Man [Lenin] what I think about that!”
How right my uncle’s instinct was history was to demonstrate later, when Sytin was discovered to be linked with the White Russian General Denikin.
Svanidze, Budu. My Uncle, Joseph Stalin. New York: Putnam, c1953, p. 45
To appease Trotsky Lenin had decided that Stalin be sent to the Eastern front to inquire into the question of drunkenness in the army. Kolchak’s army had invaded European Russia and taken Perm. The Third Army had fled in confusion, losing 18,000 men and a vast number of guns, especially machine guns, abandoning stores, ammunition, and transport. Trotsky’s pet ex-officers had deserted en mass to the side where their true sympathies lay.
And so, although going ostensibly to close up vodka shops and patch up discipline, Stalin was in reality setting off to perform the same service to the Soviet as when he went to Tsaritsyn the year before.
Graham, Stephen. Stalin. Port Washington, New York: Kennikat Press, 1970, p. 55
Stalin: Trotsky held to old officers, specialists, who often turned traitor.
We, on the contrary, selected people= loyal to the Revolution, people connected with the masses, by and large, noncommissioned officers from the lower ranks, although we were clearly aware of the enormous value of honest specialists.
Lenin had the impression at first that I did not give a damn for specialists. He called me in to see him in Moscow. Trotsky and Pyatakov tried to prove that and interceded for two specialists who had been fired by me. At that very moment, a report came in from the front that one of them had turned traitor and the other had deserted. Lenin, after reading the telegram, exposed Trotsky and Pyatakov and acknowledged the correctness of our actions.
Dimitrov, Georgi, The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 1933-1949. Ed. Ivo Banac. New Haven: Yale University Press, c2003, p. 132
STALIN TAKES OVER MILITARY LEADERSHIP
By May 1918 the Soviet government was surrounded within a sixth of the territory of the country. But eight armies were defending the encircled Republic. They were not well equipped armies….
When Stalin was appointed to his new post he had no intention, nor had the government, that he should interfere with military affairs.
He had none of Trotsky’s inhibitions concerning the workers, and rejected outright Trotsky’s ideas about the Army.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 126
But, using a plan of attack drawn up by Stalin as a member of the Revolutionary Military Committee, the Red Army initiated a sudden counter-offensive [against Denikin’s sweep toward Moscow].
Sayers and Kahn. The Great Conspiracy. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946, p. 91
Voroshilov states, “The position became more and more strained. Comrade Stalin exercised enormous energy, and in the shortest possible time developed out of extraordinary plenipotentiary for food supplies, into the actual leader of all the Red forces in the Tsaritsyn front.
Life of Stalin, A Symposium. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1930, p. 53
Voroshilov states, “And only Stalin, with his magnificent organizational capacities was able, having had no previous military training (Comrade Stalin had never served in any army!) so well to understand special military questions in the then extremely difficult circumstances.
Life of Stalin, A Symposium. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1930, p. 59
STALIN TOOK OVER GENERALSHIP WITH GOOD REASON
To suggest that he now began to interfere with military affairs because he disliked Trotsky is absurd.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 127
On arrival at Tsaritsyn Stalin found a very perilous military situation. The armies of the counter-revolution were investing [infesting] Tsaritsyn; and at the same time the city had become a place of refuge for counter-revolutionary elements. Large numbers of enemies of the Bolshevik Revolution had fled thither–officers of the Imperial army, high officials, and wealthy merchants. The enemy was not only beleaguering the city but within it as well, preparing to strike. Stalin, special plenipotentiary of the party, saw that his real task, the safeguarding of food supplies, could not be achieved unless the military problem was first solved. He assumed full powers for this purpose on his own responsibility. Strictly, in doing this he was incurring the guilt of what amounted to a punishable unauthorized initiative. He appropriated the supreme military authority, without any express instructions to do so from the center.
Within the city he set up a terrorist police organization which ruthlessly pursued the enemies of Bolshevism. Anyone who might be dangerous, anyone who might be open to suspicion, was eliminated. Stalin reported over the head of the local authorities, and over the head of the appointed Peoples Commissar, Trotsky, direct to the party executive and to Lenin. Formally he was infringing the laws of subordination in force even in the Red Army. He intervened also with iron resolution in matters of army personnel, with an energetic purge at the local headquarters. The enemies within the city were destroyed, the staffs of the Red troops subjected to a new and sharp discipline. The military plans came under his influence. And Tsaritsyn was saved. The first round of the civil war was won.
This brought Stalin’s first conflict with Trotsky.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 69
When he was sent to Tsaritsyn to carry out a commission quite un-connected with the military command, he seized the opportunity for a relentless initiative.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 85
Trotsky whole behavior showed that he regarded himself as above Stalin. And he made no secret of his displeasure…. Stalin made no attempt at self-defense, bowing before the storm of indignation of the supreme commander of the red army. Stalin maintained throughout a conciliatory attitude. The cause, he considered, mattered more than any personal issue.
Trotsky demanded Stalin’s recall, and protested against Stalin’s interference in military matters. Lenin, as usual, tried to smooth away the trouble. He acknowledged the reports and proposals of both parties, and then did nothing. He simply kept silent. It is stated that Stalin was nevertheless recalled at Trotsky’s instance; but not until he had done his job. In any case, Stalin had shown his military capacity. From then on he held a new post until the end of the Civil War: he was the party’s special plenipotentiary at the fronts.
One thing was clear: Stalin’s activity at Tsaritsyn had brought military success.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 70
In the summer of 1918 Stalin saved Russia and the Revolution.
British and French troops, united with White Russians, had made common cause with Muscovite counterrevolutionaries in order to destroy the Bolsheviks for all time. The stricken land lay in ruins: no railways, no weapons, and above all not enough bread–for the wheat belts of the Ukraine and Siberia had been cut off by the enemy. The only available wheat came from the Volga and Northern Caucasus, but had to be shipped on this river by way of the town of Tsaritsyn. In that district the small peasants were oppressed by the Kulaks and wheat speculators. Everything depended on the possibility of having Red troops–consisting mostly of badly armed workers with a cap on their head and a gun–transport the wheat into the country’s interior. The fate of the Revolution literally hung for several weeks on the defense of this town.
Stalin, arriving there with a few thousand workers, mistrusted the old Czarist officers who were playing a double game or at least under suspicion. But Trotsky, as Minister of War, opposed Stalin’s strategy and cabled other orders. Stalin threw them into the wastepaper basket or wrote on the top: “To be laid aside.” He saved the town, reconstructed this part of the disrupted army, and hindered the enemy from joining his allies in the Urals and on the Volga….
Ludwig, Emil, Stalin. New York, New York: G. P. Putnam’s sons, 1942, p. 63
Voroshilov states, “The chief work given to Stalin was the organization of food supplies to the northern provinces, and he was possessed of unlimited powers for the carrying out of his task….
Life of Stalin, A Symposium. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1930, p. 55
On May 29, 1918, in connection with the increasingly grave food situation in Moscow and the central provinces of Russia, the Sovnarkom appointed Stalin general director for food supplies in the south of Russia and granted him extraordinary powers. In this capacity, on June 4 Stalin left for Tsaritsyn. There he found confusion and chaos not only in food and military matters but in transport, finance, and so on. Utilizing the authority granted him, Stalin took full power in the entire Tsaritsyn Region.
There is no doubt that he did significant work in restoring order and supplying food to the industrial centers of Russia….
Gradually Stalin assumed all the main military functions in the Northern Caucasus. He wrote to Lenin:
There’s a lot of grain in the south. In order to get it, we must have a smoothly functioning apparatus that will not encounter any obstacles from trains, army commanders, etc.. Also the military men have to help the food-supply people. The food question naturally gets intertwined with the military question. For the good of the cause I need military powers. I already wrote about this but received no answer. Very well, in that case I myself, without formalities, will remove those commanders and commissars who are ruining the cause. The interests of the cause prompt me to do this and the absence of any papers from Trotsky will not stop me.
Medvedev, Roy. Let History Judge. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989, p. 56
In 1919 Stalin was sent as a special plenipotentiary to the key Volga city of Tsaritsyn. His mission was simply to assure the delivery of food supplies from this entire region. What he found was a disastrous military situation, with the city not only surrounded by the White Army but heavily infiltrated by counter-revolutionary forces. He saw that the food supply could not be safeguarded unless the military and political situations were dealt with. He instituted an uncompromising purge of counter-revolutionary elements within both the officer corps and the political infrastructure, took personal command of the military forces over the heads of both the local authorities and Trotsky, and then proceeded to save the city, the region, and the food supply. Trotsky, furious, demanded his recall. As for the citizens of Tsaritsyn, their opinion became known six years later, when they renamed their city Stalingrad.
After this episode, rather than being recalled, Stalin was dispatched far and wide to every major front in the Civil War. In each and every place, he was able to win the immediate respect of the revolutionary people and to lead the way to military victory, even in the most desperate circumstances. Certain qualities emerged more and more clearly, acknowledged by both friends and enemies. These were his enormous practicality and efficiency, his worker-peasant outlook, and the unswerving way he proceeded to the heart of every problem. By the end of the war, Stalin was widely recognized as a man who knew how to run things, equality sorely lacking among most of the aristocratic intellectuals who then saw themselves as great proletarian leaders.
Franklin, Bruce, Ed. The Essential Stalin; Major Theoretical Writings. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1972, p. 12
It was apart from Lenin, at the front in the Civil War, that Stalin first distinguished himself in a remarkable way.
Stalin saved Tsaritsyn and the wheat. The defense of Tsaritsyn against the Whites has been called in an exaggerated way the “Red Verdun.” It was Stalin who organized it, and for that reason the city bears today the name of Stalingrad.
Graham, Stephen. Stalin. Port Washington, New York: Kennikat Press, 1970, p. 43
STALIN ALSO SETS UP CHEKA CONTROL
With him, Kaganovich, and others whom he knew to be reliable Bolsheviks, Stalin established a cheka or committee to deal with counter-Revolution in the rear…. Nosovitch, the chief of military direction appointed by Trotsky, went over to the enemy.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 128
KILLING BOLSHEVIKS ACTIVATED THE CHEKA AND TERROR
The social Revolutionaries turned again to terrorism. Two Bolshevik leaders, Uritsky and Volodarsky, were assassinated, and Dora Kaplan attempted the assassination of Lenin. He was severely wounded, and undoubtedly the event shortened his life by years.
In the days immediately following the attempt on Lenin thousands were shot for merely looking bourgeois.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 129
The masses, enraged that the dark forces of reaction had struck down the man who stood as the symbol of all their liberties and aspirations, struck back at the bourgeoisie and at the monarchists with the Red Terror.
Many of the bourgeoisie had to pay with their lives for the assassinations of the commissars and the attempt upon Lenin. So fierce was the wrath of the people that hundreds more would have perished had not Lenin pleaded with the people to restrain their fury. Through all the furor it is safe to say that he was the calmest man in Russia.
Williams, Albert R. Through the Russian Revolution. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1967, p. 37
[In 1918] the demise of the Soviet regime seemed imminent, especially as it appeared that open season had been declared on its commissars. In Petrograd, the SR, Kanegisser shot and killed Uritsky; in July, commissar of the Latvian Riflemen, Nakhimson, was killed; food commissar of the Turkestan Republic, Pershin, died at the hands of insurgents in Tashkent; in May 1918, Podtelkov and Krivoshlykov, well known Bolsheviks of the Don Region, were hanged on a Cossack gallows; Lieutenant-General Alexander Taube, who had gone over to the Bolsheviks from the tsarist army to become commander of the Siberian headquarters, fell into White hands and was tortured. But the worst blow fell in Moscow, when, after speaking in front of the Mikhelson factory workers, Lenin were shot by the SR Fannie Kaplan.
Volkogonov, Dmitri. Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991, p. 38
But already in July the left Social Revolutionaries provoked the first real outburst of Bolshevik terror. In an attempt to disrupt the peace and to force the Bolsheviks back into war against Germany, the left Social Revolutionary Jacob Blumkin assassinated the German Ambassador Count von Mirbach. A series of insurrections staged by the same party broke out in various places including Moscow, to which the Government transferred its seat after the conclusion of peace. On August 30 Lenin was wounded and two other Bolshevik leaders, Uritsky and Volodarsky, were assassinated by Social Revolutionaries. Trotsky narrowly escaped an attempt on his life. The Bolsheviks officially retorted with mass reprisals; and their self defense was at least as savage as the onslaught to which they had been subjected.
Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin; A Political Biography. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967, p. 191
When Bolshevik leader Uritsky was assassinated in St. Petersburg, and Fanny Kaplan wounded Lenin, in an effort to assassinate him, a system of hostages was introduced, mass executions of innocent “class enemies” took place as reprisals and a “red terror” regime began.
Fishman and Hutton. The Private Life of Josif Stalin. London: W. H. Allen, 1962, p. 49
Yet we did not interfere with public expression of dissident views, although the Mensheviks deliberately sabotaged vital defense activity through their hold on the railway unions, and others elsewhere–until the assassination of Volodarsky and Uritsky and the murderous attempt on the life of Lenin, August 30, 1918. It was in those tragic days that something snapped in the heart of the revolution. It began to lose its “kindness” and forbearance. The sword of the Party received its final tempering. Resolution increased and, where necessary, ruthlessness, too.
Trotsky, Leon, Stalin. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1941, p. 338
Having deprived the parties and the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries of the Right and Center of Soviet legality in June, 1918, after their direct participation in the Civil War against the Soviet government had been established not only through acts of individual terror, but sabotage, diversion, conspiracy and other overt acts of war, the Bolsheviks were compelled to add the Left Social Revolutionaries to the proscription list after the latter attempted their treacherous coup d’etat in July.
Trotsky, Leon, Stalin. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1941, p. 338
STALIN AND TROTSKY CLASH OVER MILITARY TACTICS
Should Kolchak be pursued and his forces completely smashed, or should all attention be diverted to defeat Denikin? Trotsky, who in his memoirs fully admits his blunder, decided on leaving Kolchak to concentrate on Denikin. Stalin was emphatically opposed to this plan, and the central committee supported him in his contention that such a decision would leave Kolchak time to recuperate…. The Red Army, he urged, must advance and “liquidate” him and his Army. It did advance, and Kolchak and his Army were liquidated.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 131
Stalin now urged Lenin to remove Trotsky from his position as War Commissar. [Stalin wanted Trotsky out. Trotsky resigned. Lenin and the Central Committee refused his resignation. Stalin agreed and backed down]. But one thing is certain — by this time Stalin had become convinced that Trotsky was a danger to the Revolution.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 132
Trotsky was given a new post which suited to his organizational and oratorical talents. He was made War Commissar…. Trotsky repeatedly opposed the military decisions of the Bolshevik Central Committee and flagrantly exceeded his authority. In several cases, only the direct intervention of the Central Committee prevented Trotsky from executing leading Bolshevik military representatives at the front who objected to his autocratic conduct.
In the summer of 1919 Trotsky, stating that Kolchak was no longer in menace in the East, proposed shifting the forces of the Red Army into the campaign against Denikin in the South. This, Stalin pointed out, would have given Kolchak a much needed breathing spell and the opportunity to reorganize and re-equip his Army and launch a fresh offensive. “The Urals with their works,” declared Stalin as military representative of the Central Committee, “with their network of railways, should not be left in Kolchak hands, because he could there easily collect the big farmers around him and advance to the Volga.” Trotsky’s plan was rejected by the Central Committee, and he took no further part in the campaign in the East, which led to the final defeat of Kolchak’s forces.
Sayers and Kahn. The Great Conspiracy. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946, p. 191
In the fall of 1919 Trotsky drew up a plan for a campaign against Denikin. This plan called for a march through the Don Steppes, an almost roadless region filled with bands of counter revolutionary Cossacks. Stalin, who had been sent to the Southern Front by the Central Committee, rejected Trotsky’s plan and proposed instead that the Red Army advance across the Donetz Basin with its dense railroad network, coal supplies, and sympathetic working-class population. Stalin’s plan was accepted by the Central Committee. Trotsky was removed from the Southern Front, ordered not to interfere in with operations in the South, and “advised” not to cross the line of demarcation of the Southern Front. Denikin was defeated according to Stalin’s plan.
Sayers and Kahn. The Great Conspiracy. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946, p. 191
Trotsky was trying to form a regular army. That required men of experience; so he enrolled officers of the old Imperial army. But they were unreliable. So were the army commanders who had risen from obscurity. Some of these proved traitors, some changed sides, among these latter the commander in the Caucasus…. The military specialists were also unreliable. At that time the whole Soviet State was decentralized. “All power to the local soviets”, ran the slogan.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 68
Quoting Nosovich Voroshilov states, “When Trotsky, worried because of the destruction of the command administrations formed by him, with such difficulty, sent a telegram concerning the necessity of leaving the staff, and the war commissariat on the previous footing and giving them a chance to work, Stalin wrote a categorical, most significant inscription on the telegram: ‘To be ignored’!”
Life of Stalin, A Symposium. New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1930, p. 58
The same message in which he [Stalin] asked for military powers gave the first hint of his conflict with Trotsky. It contained the following remark: ‘If only our war “specialists” (the shoemakers!) had not slept and been idle, the [military] line would not have been cut; and if the line is restored this will be so not because of the military but in spite of them.’ This was the point over which the famous Tsaritsyn dispute started.
Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin; A Political Biography. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967, p. 197
The food transports from the northern Caucasus arrived in Moscow as Stalin had promised. Thus the Council of People’s Commissars had reason to be grateful to its envoy at Tsaritsyn. Stalin, having failed to receive an answer to his first and somewhat timid request for special military powers, insistently repeated his demand in a cable to Lenin dated July 10, 1918. The message, which was first published only in 1947, contained a violent attack on Trotsky, an attack which by implication was also a remonstrance with Lenin. If Trotsky continued to send his men to the northern Caucasus and the Don without the knowledge of the people on the spot, Stalin stated, then ‘within a month everything will go to pieces in the northern Caucasus and we shall irretrievably lose that land…. Rub this in to Trotsky…. For the good of the cause military plenary powers are indispensable to me here. I have written about this but received no reply. All right, then. In that case I alone shall, without any formalities, dismiss those commanders and commissars who ruin the job…. The lack of a paper mandate from Trotsky will, of course, not stop me.’
Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin; A Political Biography. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967, p. 202
By the end of the summer of 1918 the danger that threatened Moscow from the east had been removed. As long as it existed the General Staff attached only secondary importance to the southern front. But in October the Czechs had been thrown back to the Urals, and Trotsky could turn his whole attention to the south, brooking no interference with his battle orders. The southern front was now too small for both antagonists. One of them had to go, and it was Stalin. Lenin did his best to sweeten the pill. He sent the President of the Republic Sverdlov to bring Stalin back to Moscow in a special train with all the necessary honors. The episode was characteristic of Lenin’s handling of the man: he had a shrewd eye for his weaknesses and was very careful not to offend needlessly his touchiness and amour propre. Trotsky’s manner was the exact opposite. The underrated his opponent, made no allowance for his ambition, and offended him at almost every step. This flowed from his natural manner rather than from deliberate intention. On its way to Moscow the train that carried Sverdlov and Stalin met Trotsky’s train which was bound for Tsaritsyn. Prepared by Sverdlov’s diplomatic labors, the meeting between the antagonists took place in Trotsky’s carriage. According to Trotsky’s version, Stalin somewhat meekly asked him not to treat the ‘Tsaritsyn boys’ too severely. Trotsky’s answer was sharp and haughty: ‘The fine boys will ruin the revolution which cannot wait for them to grow up.’ Subsequently Voroshilov was transferred from Tsaritsyn to the Ukraine.
Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin; A Political Biography. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967, p. 205
Then Trotsky, in his capacity as War Minister, launched his first serious attack against his enemy Stalin, by ordering the Tsaritsyn commanders to obey only the orders of their Superior Sytin, but Stalin refused to accept Trotsky’s order. He left for Moscow to talk over matters with Lenin and six days later returned to Tsaritsyn and, backed by Voroshilov, took over again. The Whites once more managed to encircle the town but the so-called “Steel Division” succeeded in saving Tsaritsyn. Trotsky again, stung by his enemy’s tremendous success, induced Lenin to recall his “Miraculous Georgian” to Moscow, but Stalin stalled, and eventually established his claim to the victory.
Fishman and Hutton. The Private Life of Josif Stalin. London: W. H. Allen, 1962, p. 49
The rising importance and prestige of Stalin may be understood by the fact that before accepting the invitation of the revolutionary council to go to the Southern Front he stipulated that Trotsky should not be allowed to interfere in any way with the campaign there. He also obtained permission to retire the officers of Trotsky’s choice and replace them with men of his own choosing. This was the first great rebuff to Trotsky in the revolution and he received it at the hands of Stalin.
Graham, Stephen. Stalin. Port Washington, New York: Kennikat Press, 1970, p. 63
The Soviet gave Stalin carte blanche. Trotsky’s plan of campaign was shelved. Stalin took matters into his own hands, being nevertheless careful to keep in personal touch with Lenin by telegraph, informing him of his proposed changes and his plan of action. He poured scorn on Trotsky’s pet idea of an attack over the Steppes, calling it stupidity and obstinacy… “what does this cockerel know of strategy?” An advance through Cossack country could have but one effect, that of rousing the whole Cossack population to fury.
The new plan of campaign was for an advance through the center toward Little Russia with Kharkov as an objective, thence to threaten Rostov on the Don. “Here,” he wrote Lenin, “we would find ourselves among a friendly and not a hostile population which must facilitate our advance. We should find ourselves in possession of an important railway artery and cut the line Voronezh– Rostov which has been vital for Denikin’s supplies. We outflank the Cossacks and threaten them from the rear. If we are successful in our advance Denikin will most probably wish to reinforce his center with Cossacks which they will not want to do, and we could count on that breeding trouble among the Whites. Then we should get supplies of coal (from the Donetz Basin) and Denikin would be deprived of coal.”
Stalin urged Lenin to approve this plan of attack as the only one promising success, declaring that his presence on the Southern front would be a waste of time, “futile, criminal, useless” if the plan were over-ridden, and that he would in that case rather go to the devil than remain there.
Graham, Stephen. Stalin. Port Washington, New York: Kennikat Press, 1970, p. 64
On this Voroshilov comments: “The road from Tsaritsyn to Novorossisk might have turned out to be much longer because it went through an environment of class enemies. On the other hand the way from Tula to Novorossisk might prove much shorter because it went through working-class Kharkov and the mining region of the Donetz Basin. In Stalin’s estimation of the correct line of attack can be seen his chief quality as a proletarian revolutionary, the real strategist of the Civil War.”
Lenin signed the order for the cancellation of Trotsky’s instructions and the Central Soviet advised Stalin to go ahead. His judgment was at once confirmed by success.
Graham, Stephen. Stalin. Port Washington, New York: Kennikat Press, 1970, p. 65
LENIN MISTAKENLY ADVOCATES ATTACK TOWARD WARSAW
Indeed, the whole conception of advancing on Warsaw was an error. For this Lenin was primarily responsible, and time and again he referred to it publicly as his mistake.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 135
Lenin had demanded the disastrous Warsaw campaign. Stalin has been blamed for not abandoning Lemberg, but the real mistake was Lenin’s insistence on pushing the Polish invaders back as far as Warsaw.
Davis, Jerome. Behind Soviet Power. New York, N. Y.: The Readers’ Press, Inc., c1946, p. 23
Lenin was carried away by the vision of the Red Army in Warsaw and of a communist Poland giving its full support to the revolutionary movement. He felt acutely the isolation of Russia, which with all its internal problems was bearing the socialist banner alone. This vision was shared by many within the party and gave rise to a wave of enthusiasm, as members rallied to the cry “Onwards to Warsaw!” But there were realists, Stalin foremost among them, who saw the dangers of this policy. In June 1920 he wrote that “the rear of the Polish forces is homogeneous and nationally united. Its dominant mood is ‘the feeling for their native land.’… The class conflicts have not reached the strength needed to break through the sense of national unity.” It was a clear warning against accepting Lenin’s facile belief that the Polish proletariat was ready for revolution.
Grey, Ian. Stalin, Man of History. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979, p. 136
The issues at stake were momentous. Lenin hoped that the entry of the Red Army into Poland would spur on the Polish working-class to Communist revolution. His main interest, however, was not in Poland but in Germany, which at the time was in a state of revolutionary ferment. His objective was to affect a junction between the Russian and the German revolutions….
Lenin was supported by Zinoviev and Kamenev, who, now as in 1917, saw little hope for communism in Russia without a revolution in the west. Underlying their policy was a gross under-estimation of the resistance which the Polish people, including the Polish working classes, enjoying the honeymoon of their national independence, were to put up to Soviet invasion.
A clearer view of the mood in Poland prompted both Trotsky and Stalin to oppose talk about a march on Warsaw. Even before the recapture of Kiev by the Reds, Stalin warned the party in Pravda that ‘the hinterland of the Polish forces is…to Poland’s advantage, very different from that of Kolchak and Denikin… It is nationally uniform and coherent…. Its predominant attitude is… patriotic…. If the Polish forces were to operate in Poland it would undoubtedly be difficult to fight against them.’ He repeated the warning in much blunter terms after the beginning of the Russian offensive: ‘I think that the bragging and the harmful complacency of some comrades are out of place: some of them are not content with the successes on the front but shout about a “march on Warsaw”; others, not satisfied with defending our republic against hostile aggression, boastfully declare that they could make peace only with “Red Soviet Warsaw”. I need not point out that this bragging and complacency conform neither with the policy of the Soviet Government, nor with the balance of forces on the front.’ After all the sober warnings, he cast his vote with the ‘bragging and complacent’ adherents of the offensive. The opponents of the march on Warsaw, Trotsky and the two Poles Dzerzhinsky and Radek (the famous Polish-German revolutionary pamphleteer who had joined the Bolsheviks) were defeated. As sometimes in the past, so now, Stalin was swayed by his master’s view, this time against his own better judgment.
Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin; a Political Biography. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967, p. 215
The mutual criticisms were well justified, though the chief cause of the defeat lay not so much in the mistakes committed during the offensive as in the very decision to carry it deep into Poland.
Deutscher, Isaac. Stalin; a Political Biography. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967, p. 217
The battle turned into a complete Soviet rout, with the Red Armies fleeing in disorder. In October an armistice was signed, in 1921 confirmed as the Peace of Riga. Far from becoming a Soviet republic, Poland now secured frontiers far to the east of the Curzon Line and including substantial Ukrainian and Byelorussian populations-a fact that would be of enormous importance in European politics between 1921 and the end of World War II.
…Who was responsible for this disastrous debacle for the Soviet Army? The primary political responsibility was undoubtedly Lenin’s, since he had persuaded himself that Polish workers and peasants were dying with impatience to greet Dzerzhinsky and his fellow Polish Bolsheviks (many of them also employees of the Cheka), while, as Stalin had correctly predicted, the Communist offensive in fact generated a patriotic upsurge among all classes of the population….
Ulam, Adam. Stalin; The Man and his Era. New York: Viking Press, 1973, p. 188
WHAT THE RED ARMY FACED DURING THE INTERVENTION
The intervention war did not the end until the closing months of 1922, when the last Japanese soldier left Vladivostok promising to return. By the end of 1920, however, all Russia in Europe and a part of Siberia were free from the foreign foe, and a counter-Revolution had been mastered…. I saw Regiment’s march through the streets of Leningrad and Moscow in 1920 clad in the uniforms of almost every country in Europe–French, British, Italian, German, Polish, Russian, and many others. If ever there was an Army which fought “with sweat and blood and tears,” clothed in rags and tatters, on a minimum of food, and pan with a minimum of equipment, it was this army of the Revolution between 1918 and 1922…. It is doubtful if at any period during these years the Red Army had rifles for more than 600,000 to 700,000 men, or more than 1000 guns and 3000 machine guns.
But one and all made the same mistake. They supported the forces which were for the restoration of the power of the landlords and for depriving the peasants of their new freedom of possession of their own land. This alone doomed intervention to disaster…. Not one government declared war on Soviet Russia, but 14 governments sent armies to make war or on her, to destroy her administration, to re-establish the landlords in possession of the land and the capitalists in possession of the factories, the mills, the mines, and the State.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 138-139
Scarcely was the 1917 revolution concluded than civil war and armed intervention began. British, French, and American troops invaded northern Russia through Murmansk, and the port of Archangel was captured. British, Japanese, and American troops occupied Vladivostok. British armed forces seized the Georgian oil centers of Baku and Batum, where the young Stalin had led the oil workers’ struggles. The French army occupied Odessa. Polish forces invaded and occupied the Ukraine. In the meantime, reconstituted tsarist armies, supported by the imperialist governments, had begun a full-scale civil war. An army of 150,000 led by Gen. Denikin advanced into South Russia, seizing Kiev and Kharkov. Gen. Yudenich menaced Petrograd. In Siberia, Adm. Kolchak, with an army of 125,000, seized Perm and other towns, proclaimed himself Supreme Ruler of Russia, and threatened to advance upon Moscow.
Cameron, Kenneth Neill. Stalin, Man of Contradiction. Toronto: NC Press, c1987, p. 34
Let us draw near to what Mr. Winston Churchill, as Stalin recently recalled, defined as “The invasion of the fourteen nations.”
The Army of the White adventurer, Kolchak, champion of the Tsar, received from the French Government 1,700 machine guns, 30 tanks, and dozens of field guns. In Kolchak’s offensive thousands of Anglo-American soldiers, 70,000 Japanese soldiers and about 60,000 Czechoslovakian soldiers took part.
Denikin’s army of 60,000 men was entirely equipped in arms and munitions of war by England. It received 200,000 rifles, 2,000 guns, 30 tanks. Several hundred English officers acted as either advisers or instructors to Denikin’s Army.
The disembarkation of the Allies at Vladivostock comprised two Japanese divisions, two English battalions, 6,000 Americans, 3,000 French and Italians.
England’s spent in the Civil War in Russia 140 million pounds and (a less important item for the people meddling with the world) the lives of 50,000 soldiers.
From 1918 to 1921 England and France never ceased killing Russians and laying Russia waste. Let us just note, in parentheses, that, at the end of 1927, there were still 450 engineers and 17,000 workmen employed in repairing the damage done in one single oilfield in the Caucasus by the passage of Western civilization. And the destruction wrought in Russia by the monstrous interference of the great European and American countries may be estimated at about 44 billion gold rubles.
Barbusse, Henri. Stalin. New York: The Macmillan company, 1935, p. 112
Let us remember that the Whiteguards were mobilized in France, and made an armed state within the State, developing their various organizations and their military formations under the benevolent eye of the authorities…. These hired desperados of Czarism marched, fully armed, beneath the Arc de Triomphe,…
Barbusse, Henri. Stalin. New York: The Macmillan company, 1935, p. 113
The summer of 1918 brought further threats to Lenin and his government. The Allied intervention, instigated primarily by Winston Churchill, but supported by the United States, France, Japan, and Italy, had led to detachments of British, French, and American troops occupying Murmansk, Archangel, Vladivostock, and other Russian towns.
Grey, Ian. Stalin, Man of History. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979, p. 120
To these famished, frozen, typhus-stricken Russians sailed no ships of goodwill laden with books, tools, teachers, and engineers but grim ships of war and transports laden with troops and officers, guns, and poison-gas. Landings were made at strategic points on the coast of Russia. Monarchists, landlords, and Black Hundreds flocked to these rallying centers. New White armies were conscripted, drilled, and equipped with hundreds of millions of dollars of supplies. The Interventionists started their drive on Moscow, seeking to plunge the sword into the heart of the Revolution.
Out of the East rolled the hordes of Kolchak following the trail of the Czechs across Siberia. Out of the West struck the armies of Finland, the Letts, and Lithuanians. Down from the forests and snowfields of the North moved the British, French, and Americans. Up from the seaports of the South plunged the tanks, airplanes, and Death Battalions of Denikin. Out of the Estonian marshes–Yudenich. Out of Poland– the veteran legions of Pilsudski. Out of the Crimea–the cavalry of Baron Wrangel.
Williams, Albert. Through the Russian Revolution. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1967, p. 234
DESCRIPTION OF HOW BAD WHITE CONTROLLED AREAS WERE
In all the regions that had been overrun by the armies, the richest food-growing regions of Russia, the marching forces of each side had requisitioned the reserves of the peasants, and the peasants had almost ceased producing. Thousands of draft animals had perished. Hospital and medical supplies were gone. There was a universal shortage of consumer goods. The paper roubles were almost valueless. The cities and the towns were in a hopeless state of despair. Nothing could be more drab and colourless than Petrograd as I saw it in 1920. Shop windows were boarded up. Streets were dangerous for vehicles because of their battered condition. Buildings grimly recorded the bespattering of their walls by machine-gun fire. Railways were cluttered with shattered rolling-stock. Not more than a tenth of the locomotives available at the outbreak of the Great War were running. Bridges by the thousand had been destroyed. Coal production was down to 7,000,000 tons per annum. There was a dearth of everything. Hunger stalked town and village alike, and brigandage was rife throughout the countryside. Money payments gave way to payments in kind. Industrial labour had shrunk to half pre-war figures and output was down to 18 per cent of the level of 1913. Ten million peasants were using wooden ploughs.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 142
SU INVADED BY 14 COUNTRIES, INCLUDING FINLAND
By the summer of 1919, without declaration of war, the forces of 14 states had invaded the territory of Soviet Russia. The countries involved were: Great Britain, France, Japan, Germany, Italy, the United States, Czechoslovakia, Serbia, China, Finland, Greece, Poland, Romania, and Turkey.
Sayers and Kahn. The Great Conspiracy. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946, p. 79.
Instead of acting with vision and cooperating with revolutionary Russia the Allies decided to attack Russia from all sides, supporting every would-be tyrant and dictator who aspired to rule and could organize a band of mercenaries.
Davis, Jerome. Behind Soviet Power. New York, N. Y.: The Readers’ Press, Inc., c1946, p. 93
TROTSKY AND TUKHACHEVSKY CAUSE POLISH DEBACLE
The Red Troops, Commanded by General Tukachevsky and War Commissar Leon Trotsky had dangerously over-extended their lines of communications. Now they suffered the consequences, as the Polish counter offensive drove them back along the entire front.
Sayers and Kahn. The Great Conspiracy. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946, p. 94
WHITE ARMIES WERE LED BY PRE-FASCISTS
There were a few sincere nationalists among them, but the white armies were overwhelmingly dominated by reactionaries who were the prototypes of the fascist officers and adventurers who were later to emerge in central Europe.
Sayers and Kahn. The Great Conspiracy. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946, p. 100
TROTSKY ALLIED HIMSELF WITH EX CZARIST OFFICERS, SUBVERSIVES, AND SR’S
The former Social Revolutionary terrorist, Blumkin, the assassin of Count Mirbach, became chief of Trotsky’s personal bodyguard.
Trotsky also allied himself with a number of former Tsarist officers whom he befriended and, despite frequent warnings from the Bolshevik Party, placed in important military posts. One ex tsarist officer whom Trotsky became intimately associated with in 1920, during the Polish campaign, was Tukhachevsky, a military leader with Napoleonic ambitions of his own.
The aim of the combined Left Opposition was to supplant Lenin and take power in Soviet Russia.
Sayers and Kahn. The Great Conspiracy. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1946, p. 193
CHEKA KILLED FAR LESS THAN PEOPLE TURNING IN OPPONENTS
Where the vengeance of the Cheka claimed hundreds of victims, private spite took a toll of thousands and tens of thousands. Just imagine what it meant in practice. If a wife was tired of her husband or he of his wife, if a servant had a grudge against his former master or an employee against his former boss, it meant a few words to the Cheka and then–silence.
Duranty, Walter. Duranty Reports Russia. New York: The Viking Press, 1934, p. 117
In point of fact, is doubtful whether the total number of Cheka executions throughout the whole period up to 1922 surpasses 50,000….
Though lives were cheap in Russia and Cheka leaders pitiless in defending the revolution when in danger, they would have defeated their own object by the wholesale slaughter of workers and peasants on the scale reported abroad. Nor are such men as Dzerzhinsky or Latsis, now head of the State Salt Trust, the bestial butchers they have been depicted.
Duranty, Walter. Duranty Reports Russia. New York: The Viking Press, 1934, p. 118
The “Chekists” soon came and took me off with them. They cross-examined me without any of the tortures or “scientific methods” of which professional anti-Soviet writers abroad have told such alarming stories.
Tokaev, Grigori. Betrayal of an Ideal. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1955, p. 47
VILLAGES DETERMINE IF LOCAL ARMIES ARE RED OR WHITE
I am certain that the same was true of the Civil War in Russia, and I know, moreover, that when soldiers of any faction were reported in the neighborhood of the average Russian Village, the first act of its inhabitants was to drive their cattle off into Woods or some other place of refuge. After that scouts were sent to report whether the soldiers were red or white. If the former the local priest made himself scarce and the newcomers were “hailed with delight” by the village Soviet. If the troops were white, they received an official welcome from the council of elders led by the priest bearing a holy icon.
Duranty, Walter. I Write as I Please. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1935, p. 195
REDS HAD NO 5TH COLUMN AMONG WHITES DURING CIVIL WAR
The desertion of officers from the Red side to the White was an event of daily occurrence in the Civil War. At Tsaritsyn, and again on the Ural front, the Fifth Column was particularly strongly represented among the staff officers of the Red Army and among the population. There was treason everywhere.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 73
The “Reds”, needless to say, had no such Fifth Column among the “Whites”, the counter-revolutionaries.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 72
STALIN SAVES PERM AS HE SAVED TSARITSYN
Stalin’s activities at Tsaritsyn and in the Urals, and later on other fronts, were not those of a strategist so much as of the sword of the revolution in the struggle against the Fifth Column. This he himself admitted, half unconsciously, in a letter which will be referred to later. Here in the Urals Stalin’s energy came once more into play; and not only in the struggle against the Fifth Column, or in the reorganization of the staffs. He restored the fighting capacity of the Third Army as an organization. He secured from the central Government the dispatch of reinforcements, and Perm was re-taken by the Reds. But in the course of his fulfillment of this task there came further friction with the actual head of the Red Army, Trotsky. Once more Trotsky demanded Stalin’s recall; and Lenin repeated his tactic of at first completely ignoring this quarrel between Trotsky and Stalin, sending no answer to Trotsky’s demand, and then recalling Stalin when he had done his work.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 74
In recognition of his activity in defending the town of Tsaritsyn, the so-called “Red Verdun” of the lower Volga, against the troops of the Cossack general Krasnov, the name Tsaritsyn was changed to Stalingrad.
Chamberlin, William Henry. Soviet Russia. Boston: Little, Brown, 1930, p. 90
Moreover at the very time that Stalin was recalled to Moscow he was, at Trotsky’s suggestion, appointed a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic….
On January 1, 1919, Stalin and Dzerzhinsky were sent to the Eastern Front to investigate setbacks suffered there by the Red Army, particularly the causes of the surrender of Perm. After the situation on the Eastern Front improved, Stalin— and Dzerzhinsky returned to Moscow.
Medvedev, Roy. Let History Judge. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989, p. 59
There is no question that Stalin contributed to the successful defense of Tsaritsyn from the Ataman Krasnov’s Cossack bands in 1918, and thus an extremely important strategic bastion was preserved from the Whites.
Ulam, Adam. Stalin; The Man and his Era. New York: Viking Press, 1973, p. 176
Late in 1918 Stalin was sent on a fact-finding mission to Siberia, where he salvaged a collapsing wing of Trotsky’s Red Army.
Richardson, Rosamond. Stalin’s Shadow. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994, p. 70
STALIN WORKED WITH TROTSKY DEFENDING PETROGRAD
Stalin’s next commission required actual collaboration with Trotsky… It is difficult to tell who contributed the more to the defense of Petrograd, Trotsky or Stalin.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 75
Stalin evolved a plan for the use of the Red Navy to capture the two forts that threatened the city by an attack on them from the sea. The Naval specialists declared that this was impossible. Stalin nevertheless went on with his plan, and won. His success was a first proof of his strategic gifts. He was no longer simply the “purger”, or the reorganizer of army commands; for the first time he had elaborated a strategic plan and won with it.
Both Trotsky and Stalin were decorated for their defense of Petrograd.
Lenin accordingly wanted to abandon Petrograd for the time. Trotsky, the official commander of the Armed Forces of the Revolution, was against this plan. Stalin at once supported Trotsky.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 76
The White threat to Petrograd in May 1919 brought him [Stalin] there on a special mission, and, predictably, he discovered there a major plot of treason, found the directives of the commander-in-chief (Trotsky’s protEgE) harmful, and saved the day by his initiative–all of which developments he communicated without inhibition to Lenin.
Ulam, Adam. Stalin; The Man and his Era. New York: Viking Press, 1973, p. 182
And what had saved the day in the field? Stalin’s “indelicate interference” had led to the Reds’ recapture of the crucial forts of Red Hill and Gray Horse. The naval specialists resisted his orders, protesting that they violated the rules of naval science. But, said Stalin, “I feel bound to declare that for all my respect for science, I will act the same way in the future.”
…Stalin displayed real talents in command. He did not panic. He immediately assessed the enemy’s weak points: on the Northern Front the Whites had “neither sufficient rear space, nor adequate manpower, nor food.”…
Ulam, Adam. Stalin; The Man and his Era. New York: Viking Press, 1973, p. 183
It was Stalin who won the Battle of Petrograd; but he won it as an abrek not as a general. On his return to Moscow he was welcomed as a triumphant conqueror.
Delbars, Yves. The Real Stalin. London, Allen & Unwin, 1951, p. 114
It began very successfully for Yudenich. Feeling that we would not be able to manage all the fronts simultaneously, Lenin proposed to surrender Petrograd. I opposed it. The majority of the Politburo, including Stalin, decided to support me.
Trotsky, Leon, Stalin. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1941, p. 308
IN THE SOUTH STALIN DEMANDS COMPLETE CONTROL AND TROTSKY’S EXPULSION
There now remained only one threatened front in the civil war, the front held by Denikin’s volunteer army, later commanded in the Crimea by General Wrangel. On that front Stalin met old acquaintances from Tsaritsyn–Voroshilov, Budenny, Frunze, and other revolutionary army leaders. They formed a group in which Stalin felt at home. These commanders were not intellectuals, although Frunze, the son of a non–commissioned officer of the regular army, had studied for a time at a technical college. It was, indeed, the robust lower middle-class environment in which Stalin could let himself go–his own class, among whom he had not to feel the unexpressed sense of superiority of the intellectuals. Before undertaking this new task Stalin made conditions, or, rather, a condition. He openly revealed his opposition to Trotsky. After his successes in the Urals and at Petrograd, he was no longer prepared to put up with Trotsky’s arrogance. He demanded that it should be clearly understood that Trotsky must no longer interfere with his activities. He went further: Trotsky must not even approach a front on which he, Stalin, was serving as special plenipotentiary of the central Government, lest he should upset Stalin’s authority. The whole southern front was to be withdrawn from Trotsky’s sphere. He also demanded the recall of a number of officials, and also the appointment of new commanders, of his own choice, on the southern front. Stalin’s new self-confidence proved to be well justified. Lenin agreed to his demands.
STALIN’S SOUTHERN STRATEGY
Here on the southern front Stalin’s great strategic talent showed itself unmistakably. For he was no longer content with carrying out his famous purges on the front placed under him: as in Petrograd, he had the military plans submitted to him. His report to the Central Committee of the party was now that of a strategist. He rejected and annulled the plan of the supreme command on the southern front. The plan had provided for a breakthrough from west to east, through the Don basin. As the Red troops had suffered a setback, this plan had not been carried out, but the supreme command had held to the plan. One of the army commanders, Korin, had been ordered to advance over the Don steppes against Novocherkask. Stalin rejected this plan, giving some military reasons for doing so: ‘The steppes are not suited for a crossing by infantry and artillery.’ But his main reason was that the military specialists had paid no attention to the political conditions. In one of his reports to the Central Committee he pointed out that such a thrust would automatically have the effect of an attack on the villages of the Don Cossacks. The advance as planned would lead through a region whose population was strongly opposed to the revolution and the Soviet power. The Cossacks would naturally defend themselves, greatly strengthening the position of the enemy, as it would enable Denikin to assume the role of rescuer of the Don region. Stalin demanded the immediate abandonment of the plan. The attack must not be directed over the Don steppes against Novocherkask, but from Kharkov in the direction of Rostov. The Red troops would then be marching through the Donetz basin, through an industrial, mining region, with a population friendly to Bolshevism. Stalin foresaw that this advance would split the enemy armies into three groups, with a number of political results. In the event, for instance, of a retreat the counter-revolutionaries would require the Cossacks to evacuate their villages, and in view of the mentality of those peasant soldiers this would undoubtedly lead to a conflict between Cossacks and the military leaders of the counter-revolution.
The Central Committee accepted Stalin’s view. The old plan was thrown over, and Stalin’s plan was carried through–to success. Stalin, who had only recently spoken of himself as a ‘civilian’, had revealed his great strategic talent.
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 77-79
On another occasion he formulated conditions to Lenin: he wanted the original plan of operations dropped and his own substituted. “If that is not done, my work on the southern front becomes pointless and criminal. That gives me the right or rather imposes on me the duty, to go to the devil rather than remain here. Yours, Stalin.”
Similarly as in Tsaritsyn, Stalin threw back the Germans in the Ukraine, liberating Kharkov twice in the years 1918 and 1919. To somebody listening today, in the summer of 1942, to the war reports on the radio, the recurrence of the same battles in the same place seems completely dreamlike….
Ludwig, Emil, Stalin. New York, New York: G. P. Putnam’s sons, 1942, p. 65
Denikin was routed and fled to the sea. The great Southern fighting force of the Whites was destroyed and though out of its ruin emerged the puny, bedraggled army of general Wrangel occupying the Crimea, the menace to the Soviet State was definitely lifted.
Graham, Stephen. Stalin. Port Washington, New York: Kennikat Press, 1970, p. 66