Soviet-Polish Relations from the Soviet-Polish War to the Warsaw Uprising of 1944
Written by Hari Kumar, 13 June, 2023. Final Draft
Frontispiece De Lazari A.N. (Alexsandr Nikolaevich) and Lesevvit N.N Soviet Map Civil War. They were drawn up by De Lazari A.N. (Alexsandr Nikolaevich) and Lesevvit N.N.[1] Klein notes in his ‘Introductory Essay’:
“In 1929, the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress acquired a series of ten visually striking Russian pictorial propaganda maps published in 1928 by the Division of Military Literature of the State Publishing House of the Red Proletariat. The maps commemorate the tenth anniversary of the October 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and the subsequent Bolshevik victory in the Civil War, 1918-21…
During his leadership, Vladimir Lenin, the first head of the Soviet state, encouraged the use of posters as a form of visual media for soliciting support for the Bolshevik movement and conveying communist propaganda. The maps contain political quotations by Lenin on each map…” [2]
Introduction
The anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising (1 August 1944) is shortly due. This article is one of two which examines Soviet and Polish relations at two points. First at the end of the First World War after the successful 1917 Bolshevik revolution, and second as the Soviet army entered Europe at the end of the Second World War WW2. The Uprising was one of the most controversial episodes of WW2. One prominent Western military historian – David Glantz, noted:
“No military operations during the Soviet-German War (1941–1945) have generated more discussion and controversy than the offensive operations the Red Army conducted along the eastern approaches to Warsaw during late July, August, and September 1944.” [3]
Before the Warsaw Uprising story is examined, we consider the Polish-Soviet War of 1920. This forms Part One of this article. [4] Poland’s long struggle for an independent state is the background of that war. Polish aristocrats and landowners tried to regain their former estates and dominance against the German, Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires. After 1918, Poland was the pawn of international capital – Britain, France and the USA. The Polish-Soviet war began as the militarist Pilsudksi led the invasion of the USSR capturing Kiev.
The 1920 Polish-Soviet War was only one part of the Civil War in Russia. After the Polish invasion was repulsed, the Soviet army invaded Poland, and in effect tried to ‘export revolution’. This episode was later assessed by V.I. Lenin to have been a ‘mistake’. To understand the roles of Trotsky and Stalin in this period mandates asking how the Red Army was formed. This then re-examines the differences between Stalin and Trotsky on Tsaritsyn, Perm, and the Polish-Soviet War. The policy of ‘export of revolution; to Poland is then examined. Finally, the article assesses the charges laid by Trotsky, laying blame on Stalin for the failed Soviet attack on Warsaw.
Part Two of this article will focus on events leading up to the Warsaw Uprising. Here Polish leaders again adhered to the imperialist plans of Great Britain. Both in 1920, and then in 1944, the struggles between Western imperialism and the Soviet state are key to understanding events. German imperialism occupied Poland in both world wars. Poland’s refusal to ally with Soviet Russia was in part responsible for the Second World War. Polish stances were fed by Western capitalists who aimed to drive Germany against the USSR. Meanwhile, Western capitalism rejected overtures from the USSR for a military and political alliance aimed at isolating and defending against Nazism. It was this covert war from Western imperialism that forced the USSR to sign the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. Finally in 1945 Soviet bayonets brought the possibility of finally overcoming the Polish landed aristocracy.
PART ONE – THE POLISH SOVIET WAR 1920
The Changing borders of Poland up to 1918
Poland lies in the center of Europe. It is therefore unsurprising that during the 16th-18th centuries, its’ small kingdoms were squeezed between the empires of Austria-Hungary and Tsarist Russia. Another later predator was Prussia. From 1386 until the final Imperial-engineered partitions, the commonwealth of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania shared one king and one parliament. [5] Successive conquests from both the East and the West from three powers ended the commonwealth.
Map 1 shows how the entire territory was swallowed up in various partitions, which successively ate away the territory of Poland:
“Partitions of Poland, (1772, 1793, 1795), three territorial divisions of Poland, perpetrated by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, by which Poland’s size was progressively reduced until, after the final partition, the state of Poland ceased to exist.” [6]
Hence parts of Poland were taken by the Russian Tsarist Empire; parts by the Prussian state later to become Germany; and finally the Austro-Hungarian Empire largely took Galicia. This injustice was recognised by both Marx and Engels. Engels wrote of the partitions that they were “the cement holding together the three great military despots”:
“Another reason for the sympathy felt by the workers’ party for the Polish uprising is its particular geographic, military and historical position. The partition of Poland is the cement which holds together the three great military despots: Russia, Prussia and Austria. Only the rebirth of Poland can tear these bonds apart and thereby remove the greatest obstacle in the way to the social emancipation of the European peoples.” [7]
Swallowing Poland was not only unjust to national aspirations, but it also obstructed the democratic revolution in Poland, and continental Europe. The partitions resulted from the “big feudal aristocracy” combining with the European despots:
“What is the main support of the reactionary forces in Europe since 1815, and to some extent even since the first French revolution? It is the Russian-Prussian-Austrian Holy Alliance. And what holds the Holy Alliance together? The partition of Poland, from which all the three allies have profited.” [8]
“The partition of Poland was effected through a pact between the big feudal aristocracy of Poland and the three partitioning powers…
From the day of their subjugation, the Poles came out with revolutionary demands, thereby committing their oppressors still more strongly to a counter-revolutionary course. They compelled their oppressors to maintain the patriarchal feudal structure not only in Poland but in all their other countries as well. The struggle for the independence of Poland, particularly since the Cracow uprising of 1846, is at the same time a struggle of agrarian democracy – the only form of democracy possible in Eastern Europe – against patriarchal feudal absolutism.
… The big agrarian countries between the Baltic and the Black Seas can free themselves from patriarchal feudal barbarism only by an agrarian revolution, which turns the peasants who are serfs or liable to compulsory labour into free landowners, a revolution which would be similar to the French Revolution of 1789 in the countryside. It is to the credit of the Polish nation that it was the first of all its agricultural neighbours to proclaim this. The first attempted reform was the Constitution of 1791; during the uprising of 1830 Lelewel declared an agrarian revolution to be the only means of saving the country, but the parliament recognised this too late; during the insurrections of 1846 and 1848 the agrarian revolution was openly proclaimed.” [9]
Marx and Engels supported the national rights of Poland especially as this would assist workers in confronting the Tsarist Empire – the central enemy of democracy. National aspirations simmered, and erupted at various points. Most especially in the Uprising of 1794 led by Tadeusz Kościuszko.
That 1794 Uprising fought against both Russia and Prussia, and sought control of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. However it was sabotaged by the reactionary landowning noble aristocracy who allied with Catherine the Great of Russia. This enabled them to crush nascent democracy. Thereafter the democratic movements were suppressed.
Indeed the various national movements did not achieve fruition for some time. However after World War I, the national sentiment of the Polish people again erupted. This time it took the form of the “Wielkopolska uprising” of 1918–1919 (or the Posnanian War or the “Greater Poland Uprising”). This attacked German rule and influenced the Allied imperialist imposed Treaty of Versailles (June 1919) which favoured Polish aristocratic leaders.
The Treaty of Versailles
On May 7th, 1919, the terms of the Versailles Peace Treaty were conveyed by representatives of the Allied Powers to the German Foreign Minister, Ulrich Graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau. [10]
The principal aims of the imperialists imposing the Treaty of Versailles upon defeated Germany were to make Germany militarily impotent, to annex parts of her territory and all her colonies, and to drain a large proportion of her economic wealth for many years to come for their benefit.
Part 1 of the treaty set up the League of Nations, an “international body” to be controlled by the European Allies and Japan (The United States government refused to join).
Parts 2 and 3 defined the portions of Germany proper to be detached from her territory. Moresnet, Eupen and Malmedy were to be ceded to Belgium; Alsace-Lorraine with its iron-fields to France; northern Schleswig-Holstein to Denmark; West Prussia and most of the province of Posnan to Poland (thus establishing a “Polish corridor” to the sea separating East Prussia from the rest of Germany). The Saar basin was placed under the control of the League of Nations, but with its coal mines under French control; a plebiscite was to be held among the population of the Saar after 15 years to determine its future. The left bank of the Rhine and part of the right were to be demilitarised.
Germany was also stripped of all colonies; the German armed forces were severely restricted; and crippling reparations laid on Germany; control by “international commissioners” established over the rivers Hine, Elbe, and Oder; and the Rhineland was to be occupied by the Entente Allies.
Under the Versailles Treaty Poland was formally recognised as a state. The newly resurrected state included 70% of West Prussia, and Eastern Upper Silesia was divided between Germany and Poland after a plebiscite. Danzig was to be a “free city” under the sovereignty of the League of Nations.
Memel and southern Silesia were detached from Germany; the former was ceded to Lithuania in 1924, and the latter to Poland in 1921.
The remaking of Europe’s map beyond Poland
The situation was extremely fluid. While Poland was re-created, much of Eastern Europe was also being refashioned after it was “atomized by war and revolution”. [11] Ferments occurred all over this part of Central Europe. Many small states were defining their borders in a series of wars against each other. Other ex-Tsarist provinces – Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania – also declared independence. Such declarations were without sanction from the Treaty of Versailles as was granted to Poland. The wars against each other served to define their own boundaries. At times these brushed up against Poland as it vigorously demarcated itself against Bolshevik Russia. The Eastern border of Poland was still undefined against the new USSR.
At the same time more central portions within the territory of the former Tsarist Russian Empire were under also attack from imperialist sponsored ‘Whites’ or counter-revolutionaries:
“The Ukraine was ruled by the German-sponsored “Directory”; the Don and Kuban Cossacks had their own assemblies; Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan were Menshevik; Siberia and Archangel had ‘White’ governments”. [12]
This lay in a vast area of about 60,000 square miles (Map 3) – known as the ‘Marshlands’ or the border countries of Poland, or as Polesie or the Pripet Marshes. It lay between the new Poland, and what became the USSR. Most of the inhabitants were neither Russian nor Polish. National divisions were ill-defined here at this time. Often religion serves to demarcate. The River Bug historically was a line between Orthodox Christians to the East, as opposed to Catholic Christians in the West. Within the Marshlands, the ‘border Poles’ were distinct from the other ethnic groupings in other ways than religion alone, for example being more prosperous:
“In the North the peasantry was Lithuanian, in the center Byelorussian, in the South Ukrainian. The towns were predominantly Jewish, since this had been the Pale of Jewish Settlement of the Tsarist Empire. The Poles of the borders were weak numerically, but strong socially and culturally. They formed the backbone of a landed aristocracy dating from Poland’s medieval conquests and the most prosperous element of the city bourgeoisie. Wilno and Lwów were Polish cities set in an alien sea… nationality it must be stressed had little meaning in the Borders.” [13]
Under its new Commander-in-chief, Pilsudski (see below), Poland tried to capture as much of this territory as possible.
Meanwhile, the West Ukrainian People’s Republic was formed in 1918 based on Lviv (Lwów ). This republic laid claim to Eastern Galicia. However, the Versailles Entente powers refused to recognize the West Ukranian People’s Republic, because they had negotiated with the Austro-Hungarian and Prussian states during the Brest-Litovsk treaty talks. [14]
The population of Lwów contained several proto-nationalities including Ukrainians, Jews, and Poles. Given such multi-national diversity, tensions were high if one appeared to gain an upper hand. Lwów’s Ukrainian minority supported the proclamation of the West Ukranian People’s Republic, while the Polish majority did not:
“the city’s significant Jewish minority accepted, remained neutral or had a negative attitude towards the Ukrainian proclamation, and the Polish majority was shocked to find themselves in a proclaimed Ukrainian state.” [15]
Aggressively acting on this disgruntled sentiment, Poland seized parts of the West Ukranian People’s Republic. However it took nine months to capture Lwów. Poland went on to occupy parts of Galicia. The Ukranian rump then joined the Ukranian People’s Republic in January 1919. Here the government was formed by an alliance of social democrats and Socialist-revolutionaries – governed by the ‘Directory’ of the fascist inclined Symon Petliura.
In summary, the state of Poland was created, after the First World War by the Entente States (Britain, France and the USA). But the Polish state became quickly embroiled in struggle against its neighbours in the Marshlands or borderlands. It was also clear the German occupation would be coming to an end, and its troops either would disintegrate or be pulled back to Germany. The race for territories grew fast and furious – fueled by the imperialists of the Entente.
Pilsudski Commander in Chief of the Polish Military
Jozef Pilsudski (1867-1935) was a former noble of the Polish-Lithuanian aristocracy. As a social-democrat socialist for a period he was one of the leaders of the Polish Socialist Party. Becoming a nationalist he fought against Tsarist Russia with Austria-Hungary in WWI. His class character was to be one ‘hand for international imperialism’, the other hand being General Wrangel – whom we meet later. His role was to lead another attack on Soviet Russia:
“Notwithstanding the defeat of Kolchak and Denikin, notwithstanding the fact that the Soviet Republic was steadily regaining its territory by clearing the Whites and the forces of intervention out of the Northern Territory, Turkestan, Siberia, the Don region, the Ukraine, etc., notwithstanding the fact that the Entente states were obliged to call off the blockade of Russia, they still refused to reconcile themselves to the idea that the Soviet power had proved impregnable and had come out victorious. They therefore resolved to make one more attempt at intervention in Soviet Russia. This time they decided to utilize both Pilsud-ski, a bourgeois counter-revolutionary nationalist, the virtual head of the Polish state, and General Wrangel, who had rallied the remnants of Denikin’s army in the Crimea and from there was threatening the Donetz Basin and the Ukraine.
The Polish gentry and Wrangel, as Lenin put it, were the two hands with which international imperialism attempted to strangle Soviet Russia.” [16]
Pilsudski began developing the ‘Polish Legion’ within units of the Austro-Hungarian army, during the First World War (WW1) aiming it from the start to fight against Russia. Therefore he refused to swear allegiance to the German Kaiser in 1917, and forbade his Polish Legion members to do so. Imprisoned by Germany, he was released in November 1918 in hopes he would stiffen Poland against the Bolsheviks.
As Commander-in-Chief, he helped lead the new Polish government. Later with Ignacy Paderewski (Prime Minister) and with considerable French assistance – Pilsudski continued to build the army:
“The Poles had twenty months to consolidate their forces before the decisive campaign, and they had the advantage of a French training mission of 5,000 officers (among them Charles de Gaulle). More important still was the size of the Polish army: … 740,000 in August 1920 should be compared to the largest White force, Denikin’s – which had at its peak had only 100,000 combat troops.” [17]
He gave himself the title of ‘Marshall’. Very soon Polish forces over-ran former Tsarist Belorussia, Lithuania and Ukraine (Map Four). Oil fields in Galicia were also taken.
Lenin and Stalin viewed him as an agent of the Entente. Confirming this, Pilsudski tried to sell Poland and his forces to Entente members as a battering-ram:
“The Poles offered to take Moscow for Britain, with an army of 500,000 at a proposed cost of anywhere from Pounds Sterling 600,000 to 1 million per day. No one proved willing to pay. The British were still backing (General) Denikin. In December 1919, Pilsudski put out feelers to Paris for support of a major Polish offensive against Bolshevism.” [18]
Pilsudski passionately fought to forge a new federation of the various Western and Southern peoples around the borderlands of the former Russian empire (Map 2) or the Marshlands. His vision was that the Polish and Lithuanian leaders would lead a new union or commonwealth under Poland’s control, which he called Miedzymore or Intermarum (“between the Black and Baltic Seas” or “from sea to sea”). [19]
While Pilsudski did not persuade many of the surrounding state leaders to join his project, he did find one new ally, the White general Semyon Petluriya of the Ukraine. Petluriya’s ‘Directory’ formed the government of Ukraine, and fought for an ‘independent Ukraine’ – at least as far as the newly established Soviet state was concerned. After military defeats at the hands of the Red Army – Petluriya sought asylum in Warsaw, Poland.
In the Treaty of Warsaw – Petliura abandoned Ukranian claims to Lwów and Eastern Galicia to gain Polish aid to fight the Bolsheviks. Petliura was denounced by Lwów Ukrainians, while Polish nationalists attacked Pilsudski for even acknowledging Ukraine as an entity. Mitigating his ‘sin’ Pilsudski claimed large parts of Western Ukraine as Polish. Ultimately the alliance with Petliura was formed to fight the Bolsheviks. It was thus the joint forces of Petliura and Pilsudski that launched the attack and seizure of Kiev.
The Brest-Litovsk Treaty after the Bolshevik Revolution
The 1917 revolutionary struggles established the Bolshevik Government, but it was far from secure and only a fledgling socialist state. The unilateral Peace proclaimed by the USSR, was not accepted by the foreign warring armies. Germany remained at war with Russia:
“The position of the Soviet Government could not be deemed fully secure as long as Russia was in a state of war with Germany and Austria. In order finally to consolidate the Soviet power, the war had to be ended. … The Soviet Government called upon “all the belligerent peoples and their governments to start immediate negotiations for a just, democratic peace.” But the “allies” – Great Britain and France — refused to accept the proposal of the Soviet Government.” [20]
V.I. Lenin argued a period of peace was necessary for the USSR to get on its feet. In that peace, the Red Army could be built he argued. Therefore he pushed to start negotiating with Germany and Austria:
“The Soviet Government, in compliance with the will of the Soviets, decided to start negotiations with Germany and Austria. The negotiations began on December 3 in Brest-Litovsk. On December 5 an armistice was signed. … It became clear in the course of the negotiations that the German imperialists were out to seize huge portions of the territory of the former Tsarist empire, and to turn Poland, the Ukraine and the Baltic countries into dependencies of Germany. To continue the war under such conditions would have meant staking the very existence of the new-born Soviet Republic. The working class and the peasantry were confronted with the necessity of accepting onerous terms of peace, of retreating before the most dangerous marauder of the time — German imperialism — in order to secure a respite in which to strengthen the Soviet power and to create a new army, the Red Army, which would be able to defend the country from enemy attack.“ [21]
Lenin’s proposal to sign an armistice with Germany and Austria, provoked a storm of antagonism of Ultra-Leftists in alliance with Russian ultra-nationalists. Several communist oppositions united under the name of the “Left Communists”, which was led by Leon Trotsky:
“All the counter-revolutionaries, from the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries to the most arrant Whiteguards, conducted a frenzied campaign against the conclusion of peace. Their policy was clear: they wanted to wreck the peace negotiations, provoke a German offensive and thus imperil the still weak Soviet power and endanger the gains of the workers and peasants. Their allies in this sinister scheme were Trotsky and his accomplice Bukharin, the latter, together with Radek and Pyatakov, heading a group which was hostile to the Party but camouflaged itself under the name of “Left Communists.” Trotsky and the group of “Left Communists” began a fierce struggle within the Party against Lenin, demanding the continuation of the war. These people were clearly playing into the hands of the German imperialists and the counter-revolutionaries within the country, for they were working to expose the young Soviet Republic, which had not yet any army, to the blows of German imperialism.“ [22]
Even so, negotiations began in December 2017. Trotsky was made Commissar of Foreign Affairs, and he appointed Adrian Joffe as the chairman of the peace negotiations.
The ‘Central Powers’ (the alliance of Germany and Austria-Hungary) had already occupied parts of Poland, Lithuania and Courland. All of these states, said Germany – demanded ‘self-determination’. Of course German leaders understood that these would simply be their client states. The Central Powers put such ‘self-determination’ as one of their demands to the Bolshevik Government.
Trotsky was instructed by the Bolshevik Central Committee to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. But he refused to sign. This provoked a crisis which the German imperialists used as provocation to storm even deeper into USSR territory. The German negotiators declared the war was restarting:
“On February 10, 1918, the peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk were broken off. Although Lenin and Stalin, in the name of the Central Committee of the Party, had insisted that peace be signed, Trotsky, who was chairman of the Soviet delegation at Brest-Litovsk, treacherously violated the direct instructions of the Bolshevik Party. He announced that the Soviet Republic refused to conclude peace on the terms proposed by Germany. At the same time he informed the Germans that the Soviet Republic would not fight and would continue to demobilize the army… The German government broke the armistice and assumed the offensive. The remnants of our old army crumbled and scattered before the onslaught of the German troops. The Germans advanced swiftly, seizing enormous territory and threatening Petrograd. German imperialism invaded the Soviet land with the object of overthrowing the Soviet power and converting our country into its colony. The ruins of the old tsarist army could not withstand the armed hosts of German imperialism, and steadily retreated under their blows.” [23]
Fortunately the Red Army at Narva at last, stopped the German advance, but this was only at quite a human cost. This then became known as the “birthday of the Red Army”:
“The Soviet Government issued the call — “The Socialist fatherland is in danger!” And in response the working class energetically began to form regiments of the Red Army. The young detachments of the new army — the army of the revolutionary people — heroically resisted the German marauders who were armed to the teeth. At Narva and Pskov the German invaders met with a resolute repulse. Their advance on Petrograd was checked. February 23 — the day the forces of German imperialism were repulsed — is regarded as the birthday of the Red Army.” [24]
Following Trotsky’s actions, the USSR was in an even more serious situation than before:
“On February 18, 1918, the Central Committee of the Party had approved Lenin’s proposal to send a telegram to the German government offering to conclude an immediate peace. But in order to secure more advantageous terms, the Germans continued to advance, and only on February 22 did the German government express its willingness to sign peace. The terms were now far more onerous than those originally proposed. Lenin, Stalin and Sverdlov had to wage a stubborn fight on the Central Committee against Trotsky, Bukharin and the other Trotskyites before they secured a decision in favour of the conclusion of peace. Bukharin and Trotsky, Lenin declared, “actually helped the German imperialists and hindered the growth and development of the revolution in Germany.” (Lenin, Collected Works, Russ. ed., Vol. XXII, p. 307.)
On February 23, the Central Committee decided to accept the terms of the German Command and to sign the peace treaty. The treachery of Trotsky and Bukharin cost the Soviet Republic dearly. Latvia, Estonia, not to mention Poland, passed into German hands; the Ukraine was severed from the Soviet Republic and converted into a vassal of the German state. The Soviet Republic undertook to pay an indemnity to the Germans.” [25]
Because of the controversy with the Left Opposition, Lenin insisted that the decision to sign a ‘Peace Accord’ was brought back to be approved by the Seventh Party Congress:
“In order that the Party might pronounce its final decision on the question of peace the Seventh Party Congress was summoned. The congress opened on March 6, 1918. This was the first congress held after our Party had taken power. It was attended by 46 delegates with vote and 58 delegates with voice but no vote, representing 145,000 Party members…. reporting at this congress on the Brest-Litovsk Peace, Lenin said that “. . . the severe crisis which our Party is now experiencing, owing to the formation of a Left opposition within it, is one of the gravest crises the Russian revolution has experienced.” (Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. VII, pp. 293-94). The resolution submitted by Lenin on the subject of the Brest-Litovsk Peace was adopted by 30 votes against 12, with 4 abstentions…. .
On the day following the adoption of this resolution, Lenin wrote an article entitled “A Distressful Peace,” in which he said: “Intolerably severe are the terms of peace. Nevertheless, history will claim its own.. Let us set to work to organize, organize and organize. Despite all trials, the future is ours.” [26]
Evidently the final treaty of 3 March 1918 was a retreat. One historian of the Civil War flags it as: “the most draconian peace settlement that any European power had ever imposed upon another.”[27] The harsh terms:
“detached all Russia’s territorial gains in Eastern Europe dating back to the 17th century (including Finland, the Baltic provinces, Belorussia, Poland, and Ukraine), as well as more recent gains (in 1878 and since 1914) in eastern Anatolia – including Kars, Ardahan, and Batumi (known to the Turks as Elviye-i Selâse, the “three provinces”) – and forced demobilization on the Soviet government, as well as demanding that all Russian naval vessels be confined to port. More than one-third of the old empire’s population (56,000,000 people), one-third of its railway network, half its industry, three-quarters of its supplies of iron ore, and nine-tenths of its coal were thereby immediately transferred to the control of Germany and its allies, while all Russian claims to privileges within Persia and Afghanistan.” [28]
Despite such severity, it was a “respite” for the Party and the state:
“The Peace of Brest-Litovsk gave the Party a respite in which to consolidate the Soviet power and to organize the economic life of the country. The peace made it possible to take advantage of the conflicts within the imperialist camp (the war of Austria and Germany with the Entente, which was still in progress) to disintegrate the forces of the enemy, to organize a Soviet economic system and to create a Red Army. The peace made it possible for the proletariat to retain the support of the peasantry and to accumulate strength for the defeat of the Whiteguard generals in the Civil War.” [29]
The Treaty forced the Soviets to demobilise, which allowed the Central Power troops into Ukraine and the Crimea and the Don areas. They met with little resistance and penetrated to the oil fields of Baku. Only the anarchist forces of Makhno gave a scattered resistance. By now most of the counter-revolutionary White militias had sided with the Central Powers. That included those of the Provisional Siberian Government (PSG). The Ukrainian National Republic had already signed its’ own treaty with them in January 1918. German troops now took Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
The situation was grim for Soviet Russia which was now “cut off from her principal sources of food, raw materials and fuel”. [30] Yet in November 1918 the German uprisings (Kiel, Berlin, Munich) took place. Suddenly Germany’s role in the war was dramatically forced to an end. As its’ troops deserted the front lines en masse, while hunger stalked its people. Germany was forced to sue for peace. The disillusioned German masses had spoken, but they lacked an effective leadership. Initially there was a genuine hope for the resolution to break out in Germany, and later in Hungary:
“the Soviet Government was now able to annul the predatory Peace of Brest-Litovsk, to stop paying the indemnities, and to start an open struggle, military and political, for the liberation of Estonia, Latvia, Byelorussia, Lithuania, the Ukraine and Transcaucasia from the yoke of German imperialism. Secondly, and chiefly, the existence in the centre of Europe, in Germany, of a republican regime and of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies was bound to revolutionize, and actually did revolutionize, the countries of Europe, and this could not but strengthen the position of the Soviet power in Russia. True, the revolution in Germany was not a Socialist but a bourgeois revolution, and the Soviets were an obedient tool of the bourgeois parliament, for they were dominated by the Social-Democrats.” [31]
Meanwhile in the USSR the struggle against the White armies mounted.
The failure of the Hungarian and the German Revolutions
Some point to Bolshevik aggression on the borders of Russia. It is quite correct that the Bolsheviks were also active in the ‘border countries’ – the ‘Marchlands’. Around the same period, the advent of Hungarian and German risings in key cities, raised prospects that the Bolsheviks could support central European Bolsheviks in several states. This exacerbated fears of the Entente Allies, and Pilsudski:
“In March of 1919 the Communists captured power in prostrate Hungary, set up a Soviet republic in Bavaria, and attempted a coup d’etat in Berlin. There was also a mounting Spartacist ferment in Westphalia, Wurtemberg, and growing unrest in Austria. On February 27, 1919, the Lithuanian and Byelorussian Communist Republics merged and assumed the name of the Soviet Socialist Republics of Lithuania.” [32]
Unfortunately however the Hungarian rising was not led by Marxist-Leninists and it was meant as a feint by the Hungarian national bourgeoisie. [33] This feint worked in its intent to deceive the Allied Powers into dropping their plans to dismember Hungary.
Moreover the German Berlin, Munich, Hamburg and Kiel Risings were also poorly led and not soundly grounded. Importantly the Communist Party of Germany adopted ultra-left faction views even as early as its’ formation. These sabotaged the struggle – even though Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebnicht fought this. Indeed at the very foundation meeting of the Communist Party of Germany in December 30 1918. As Bland wrote:
“Some 100 delegates from the Spartacus League, and the International Communists of Germany (Internationale Kommunisten Deutschlands) — was held… in Berlin. The conference resolved to transform itself into the First Congress of the Communist Party of Germany (Spartacus League) (CCG) [Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (Spartakusbund)] (KPD).
The most important part of the congress centres upon the question of whether the Party should participate in the forthcoming elections to the Constituent National Assembly. Against the opposition of Karl Liebnicht and Rosa Luxemburg, the congress adopted by 62 votes to 23 a leftist resolution to boycott the elections.
As Lenin commented in April 1920:
“Contrary to the opinion of such prominent political leaders as Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the German “Lefts” considered parliamentarism to be ‘politically obsolete’ as far back as January 1919. It is well known that the ‘Lefts’ were mistaken”. [34]
This led to a series of fatal errors for the revolution. The counter-revolution surged forward under the traitorous leadership of the Socialist Party Germany (Social Democratic Party of Germany (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutchlands) (SPD) led by Frederick Ebert:
“On November 10th, 1918 a secret meeting took place between Ebert and General Wilhelm Groener, representing the High Command… at which Ebert obtained a pledge of the army’s full support “to prevent the spread of terroristic Bolshevism”. [35]
Gustav Noske also an SPG leader, led the Freikorps (Free Corps) consisting of ex-army reactionary officers. Ebert and Noske used the Freikorps to murder the best leaders of the CPG. Meanwhile future revisionists were released under ‘mysterious circumstances’:
“On January 15th, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, who had refused to leave Berlin, were captured and brutally murdered by members of the Free Corps. Captured with the two leaders was another leading member of the CPG, Wilhelm Pieck, who later “escaped” under mysterious circumstances.
One of the officers involved, Captain Pabst, stated later that he (i.e., Pieck Ed.):
“Was released because he had supplied information about other Spartakus personalities which facilitated their arrest”. [36]
Pieck later emerged as a leading exponent of revisionism within the Communist Party of Germany.” 34
The Free Corps destroyed other soviets that were established, including the Bavarian Republic in April 1919. Meanwhile in January 1919 the Nazi Party was already established in Munich.
Through such developments, Pilsudski and Petliura moved forward.
Early Polish clashes against the Soviets
As noted above, the border states were in flux. They were composed of mixed populations of the local groupings together with Poles and Russians in various proportions. Wilno (Vilno, or Vilnius as the Lithuanians called it) was in the centre of the German occupation in the Ober-Ost region, and was the hometown of Pilsudski. He was determined to seize it for Poland.
In November 1918 the Soviet formed the Soviet Western Army which occupied Minsk and Wilno. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was declared in January 1919. And in March 1917 the frontline Soviet of Lit-Byel was established – consisting of Lithuania and Byelorussia. Under the leadership of the Armenian communist – Alexander Myasnikov, together with Mikhail Frunze – the Frontline Committee of Minsk, stopped the white General Kornilov from taking Petrograd. Myasnikov became an important commander in the Soviet Western Army.
The Bolsheviks treated anything East of the River Bug as remaining in Soviet Russia (Map 3). West of that they envisaged lay the Polish state boundary. But the Polish government pushed back Eastward.
In January 1919, the city of Wilno (now in Lit-Byel) saw a Polish coup forming the “Samoobrona” or Government of Self-Defence. It was meant to seize power to pre-empt the Workers Councils – just as the Germans were withdrawing. However a few days later the Soviet Western Army re-entered and displaced the Samoobrona.
The first armed clash with the Polish national forces came in February 1919 when the Polish Wilno Detachment took the town of Bereza Kartuska. [37] As small battles extended, a 300-mile-long front developed “from the Niemen at Mosty, down the Szcara River, the Oginski Canal, and the Jasiolda River to the Pripet East of Pinsk”.[38]
Incensed, Pilsudski moved to re-take Wilno succeeding in April 1919. This was a blow to the communist forces there and to the USSR.
The loss of Wilno exposed the poor state of the Western Army and raised alarms for the Soviets. The II Army had been pushed back from Estonia, the VIII Army was expelled from Riga even after setting up the Soviet state in Latvia; the XII Army in Ukraine was being assaulted by the White General Denikin; while in the East, Admiral Kolchak threatened the Urals. Questions about the sturdiness and command of the Red Army became fundamental to the survival of the USSR.
As the various parts of Ukraine aligned or were taken over by either Poland or to the USSR – the troops of the two states again clashed. As they did so, the front extended right down to the Romanian border, through Galicia. The Polish commanders decided to hit at Minsk to remove the USSR from Byelorussia.
They succeeded. Pilsudski halted his armies here, leaving Poland in control of Wilno, Lwów and Minsk – the three major cities in the ‘borderlands’. His decision to halt was based on a worry about moving deeper into USSR territory, where the Soviet rear was securely controlled. Moreover, the Poles were worried by Denikin’s White forces. The latter had already announced anti-Polish hostility, as the Whites wanted to resurrect the old Tsarist Empire. This made the Whites hostile to independent territories bordering on Russia.
The ensuing military stand-off led to a cease-fire, and diplomatic negotiations began from the autumn of 1919 onwards till spring 1920. But they stalled over Lenin’s refusal to commit to not attacking Petliura – although he had accepted 6 of 7 demands by Pilsudski. [39] In reality, Pilsiduski was intent to achieve his goal of the Miedzymore.
Polish Distrust of the USSR
Several reasons undermined any potential Polish trust for the Soviets. An intense Polish distrust of Leon Trotsky, who was now the Commissar for War – stemmed from his stated views of Poland. Trotsky advocated the export of revolution from the USSR into neighbouring states, by invasions. Trotsky had already loudly said:
“Free Latvia, free Poland and Lithuania, free Finland, and on the other side, free Ukraine will not be a wedge but a uniting link between Soviet Russia and the future Soviet Germany and Austria-Hungary. This is the beginning of a European Communist federation – a union of the proletarian republics of Europe.” [40]
Then during the evolving peace negotiations, Trotsky proclaimed “swooping on Poland”. Hearing such statements Polish representatives did not place confidence in any peace talks:
“The Poles did not want to negotiate since they distrusted Soviet Russia, whose war commissar, Trotsky, asserted in an interview, given to the Internationale Communiste on December, that he would “swoop on Poland” as soon as he “finished off Denikin.” [41]
“Trotsky.. Made the most bellicose of declarations about Soviet intention, which appeared in the French Communist Party’s ‘L’Internationale Communiste” on 15 December 1919: “The Polish lords and gentry will snatch a temporary, marauders victory” he said, “but when we have finished with Denikin we shall throw the full weight of our reserves onto the Polish front”. [42]
During this period Trotsky openly speculated on other arenas to ‘export the revolution” to. He thought a cavalry army should advance across the Pamirs to Kabul and Delhi.[43]
Meanwhile, as the White armies within the USSR were defeated by 1919-1920, the Entente Allies adopted a more nuanced public stance towards the USSR. The “Supreme Council, including Great Britain, France, the United States, and Italy, lifted the blockade of Soviet Russia”. In this newer climate, the Entente put pressure on Poland to superficially – appear more open to offers of peace treaties from Russia:
“Another Soviet peace offer followed in January. The note, signed by Lenin, Chicherin, and Trotsky, asserted that Soviet policy toward Poland was “not based on fortuitous and temporary military maneuvers and diplomatic schemes but on the unshakeable principle of national self-determination.” Soviet Russia unconditionally recognized Polish independence and sovereignty. Confirming the peace offer in December, Moscow, “devoid of any aggressive intentions,” declared that Bolshevik troops would not advance to the west of the present front line.” [44]
The two sides thus did negotiate, but this was in spasms between 1919-1920. The Polish communist Marchlewski led the Bolshevik negotiators. Negotiations were tenuous and were doomed for four main reasons.
Firstly the aggressiveness of Pilsudski.
Secondly the continued hidden intent of the Entente Allies to use Poland as a battering ram against the USSR, especially as the strategy of using the White armies within the USSR were failing.
Thirdly although the Polish Bureau of the USSR Bolshevik Party, warned against a Polish-Russian war – the ultra-left Polish Communist Party (KPRP) itself condemned and sabotaged any peace negotiations.[45] As Davies puts it:
“2 July 1919… Marchlewshki’s adventures gave rise to a serious difference of opinion. Lenin welcomed Marchlewski’s initiative; but the CC of the Polish CP (KPRP) meeting in Minsk on July 2 condemned it.” [46]
Finally, the very pugnacious public statements by Trotsky as the Commissar of the Military, did not persuade the Polish government of sincerity.
Before discussing the Polish-Soviet War of 1920, we first consider the controversies in forming the Red Army.
After the First World War Poland acts as the Pawn of Entente Powers
When the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was finally settled between the Bolshevik Soviet Government and the German and Austro-Hungarian states, the Western Entente powers became further alarmed at a possible stabilization of the USSR:
“The conclusion of the Peace of Brest-Litovsk and the consolidation of the Soviet power, as a result of a series of revolutionary economic measures adopted by it, at a time when the war in the West was still in full swing, created profound alarm among the Western imperialists, especially those of the Entente countries.“ [47]
The Entente had supported and directly fostered, not only the White insurgent armies within the USSR. But it also egged on the resistance to the USSR of bordering states. In Lenin and Stalin’s assessments, the Entente powers were using Poland as a pawn against the infant Soviet state:
“It is beyond all doubt that the campaign of the Polish gentry against workers’ and peasants’ Russia is in actual fact a campaign of the Entente. The point is not only that the League of Nations, which is led by the Entente and of which Poland is a member, has evidently approved Poland’s campaign against Russia. The chief point is that without the Entente’s support Poland could not have organized her attack on Russia, that France in the first place, and also Britain and America, are doing all they can to support Poland’s offensive with arms, equipment, money and instructors. Disagreements within the Entente over the Polish question do not affect the matter, for they concern only the ways of supporting Poland, and not the support itself. Nor is the matter affected by Curzon’s diplomatic correspondence with Comrade Chicherin, or by the ostentatious anti-intervention articles in the British press, because all this hullabaloo has only one object, namely, to throw dust in the eyes of naive politicians and by talking about peace with Russia to cover up the foul work of the actual armed intervention organized by the Entente.” [48]
Nonetheless, Lenin was anxious to establish peace on the Polish border. This policy was to be sabotaged.
The Bolshevik Revolution and the first Red Army
When the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Bolshevik party overthrew the Provisional Government in Petrograd on the 8th November 1917, they set up the Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom). They struck a Committee on Army and Naval Affairs, which was:
“Prepared by the Bolsheviks, carried out fighting orders with precision and fought side by side with Red Guards. The navy did not lag behind the army. Since Kronstadt was a stronghold of the Bolshevik Party, and has long since refused to recognise the authority of the Provisional Government. The cruiser Aurora trained its guns on the Winter Palace, and on October 25th their thunder ushered in a new era, the year of the Great Socialist Revolution”. [49]
Already on the 8th October 1917, the Second Congress of Soviets had adopted the Decree on Peace:
“The congress called on the belligerent countries to conclude an immediate armistice for a period of not less than three months to permit negotiations for peace.” [50]
On 10 November 1917, preceding the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, Lenin signed an order to demobilize the Russian Imperial Army, which until then was still at war with Germany in the First World War.
The army was 12 million strong, and Mikhail Kedrov oversaw the demobilization as deputy Army Commissar. By mid December Sovnarkom’s ‘Appeal for Peace’ had not received any answer from the remaining warring nations. To the contrary, it was clear the warring parties were organising new battles. The Congress of Demobilization was still in session, when Army Commissar Nikolai Podvoiskii, the first Narkomvoen (Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs) discussed forming a new army with the Bolshevik’s Party Military Organisation. On March 13th 1918 however, at his own request Podvoiskii stepped down from this post. [51]
There were differences of opinion within the Bolsheviks on the structure of the Army being formed. Initially Kedrov argued it should be based purely on industrial workers and peasants who had “proven loyalty” to the Bolshevik Party. The agreed proposal was that the army would be made up of “labouring classes, workers and peasants with a firm proletarian core”. [52]
Nonetheless by January 1918, mass desertions from the army were rife, and soldiers committees were dissolving units. Soldiers seized arms and simply went home. Luckily, since 1917, the soviets had organised Red Guards and militias. These seized State Power for the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Bolsheviks, by overthrowing the Provisional Government. It was also these Red Guards that defended Petrograd on November 10th 1917, from the counter-revolution of General Petr Krasnov and former minister-president Alexsandr Kerensky.
Frederick Engels had advocated a militia-based army, while the Paris Commune of 1870 had actually put this into practice. These examples inspired militia leaders like Valentin Trifonov who pressed for the Red Guards to become a peoples’ militia, and the backbone of the army. On January 15th, Sovnarkom struck the All-Russian Collegium to “Organise a Worker-Peasant Red Army”. This was declared in the “Declaration of the Rights of the Laboring and Exploited”, to arm all labourers and to form a socialist red army of workers and peasants. Guided by the movement from below, this saw the army as a volunteer army from below:
“Like everything in our revolution, the formation of a socialist army cannot await instructions from above. It must be formed from below, by the people themselves; therefore all organisations – factory and volost’ committees, local party organisations, trade unions, local soviets, and all Red Guard staff – immediately must set themselves to the task of organising the Socialist Army.” [53]
The model was the Paris Commune with its fully volunteer army. To this end, the soldiers’ committees, rejected any officer leadership. All military courts were abolished by Sovnarkom in November, and replaced by comrade courts (tovarish-cheskie sudy). On December 1, 1917, the Petrograd Military District abolished all ranks and insignia, and privileges for officers, and started the election of officers.
When the peasant-based partisans actively fought against the German and Austrian occupying forces, or against the Whites of Petluriya in Ukraine, several commanders and some commissars (including Voroshilov, Stalin, and Budennyi) had initially supported them.
But such partisans resisted the attempts to integrate into the Red Army and were unreliable in joint actions. Moreover, they began appointing Socialist-Revolutionary and anarchist political advisers. In particular, the strong anarchist, rural petit-bourgeois element with some forces led by Nestor Makhno, resisted effective central leadership, and discipline:
“The partisans were very similar to the Red Guards. In this sense the rural partisan forces were inspired by the larger revolutionary repudiation of super-ordinate authority which had brought the Bolsheviks to power in 1917; indeed, at first several Red commanders and some commissars including such influential ones as Voroshilov, Stalin and Budennyi defined the partisans as truly revolutionary fighting forces. As long as the partisans were waging their struggle against the German and Austrian occupation forces in 1918 or against the hetman’s regime in the Ukraine, especially when the Red Army was still organising its first units, the Soviet Government welcomed their aid, even if it already looked on their practices with some misgivings. By late 1918 and early 1919, the attitude of the center had changed decisively…. The partisans were resisting all attempts to integrate them into the Red Army’s forces.” [54]
Surprisingly, some 8,000 generals and officers of the Imperial army volunteered to serve the Soviet state. They were received with great suspicion, though they were described as “military specialists”. This avoided drawing attention to their prior status in the Tsarist army. Meanwhile to overcome these elites and to create a new, communist officer corps, Sovnarkom initiated courses for Red Commanders in December. By the end of 1918, there were 13,000 red commanders throughout the state.
The first major test of the new state defence forces came in Estonia, in 1918 at Narva – when the German army battled with the Red Guards. In the absence of central professional leadership, and the refusal of the Red Guards to accept any orders unless given by elected commanders, a high death rate in the Red Guards rout occurred. Immediately after this, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed. By now the Red Army had come under intense pressure to adopt professional disciplines.
The reorganisation of the Red Army – the dispute over military specialists
After the Brest-Litovsk fiasco, Trotsky resigned as foreign commissar. In the wake of the Brest-Litovsk respite, Sovnarkom began to reorganize the army [55]
As part of the reorganisation, Trotsky was appointed commander-in-chief of the army, in place of the collegium. He was made the People’s Commissar for Military Affairs on 14 March 1918, becoming the second Bolshevik Commissar for war, following Podvoiskii.
Given the dearth of trained communist commanders, Trotsky began strongly advocating enrolling the prior Tsarist officer corps – “military specialists” or voenspetsy. [56] They included the “Genshtabisty“ (General Staff officers):
“The Genshtabisty (as the General Staff officers were called) were.. an elite group within the (Tsarist -ed) Army…
The Genshtabisty were undoubtedly a unique elite group within the officers’ corps which, as a whole, was supposed to be an elite within the Russian society.” [57]
Their role in the Red Army was controversial. Trotsky exaggerated their professed loyalty to the USSR. This is seen from the figures for desertion to the Whites or to civilian life. Nonetheless the majority did not desert:
“Although it was claimed at the time, by Trotsky, that only 5 out of 82 voenspetsy army commanders ever deserted… materials in the Russian archives has established that some 549 highly valued genshtabisty deserted from the Red Army in the period 1918-1921, and that in total, almost one in three voenspetsy managed to flee to the enemy. … (but) the majority of officers employed in the Red Army (including 613 genshtabisty) remained at their posts.” [58]
Undoubtedly it was correct to professionalize the officer corps. However it was incorrect to favour military specialists by a lack of supervision and placing them above the political cadre. Inevitably, this caused conflict with the soldiers committees.
Trotsky appealed to the All Russian Central Executive Committee (VtsIK), who stated that all commanders in the Red Army would be only appointed by higher-ranking commanders. But even this compromise was resisted by many soldiers, and elected commanders were still in position up to 1919. The original Sovnarkom decree (3 January 1918) saw the Red Army of Workers and Peasants as composed of “the most conscious and organized elements of the working masses”.[59] This memory lingered.
This fueled agitation against the specialists. As a counter to Tsarist officer elites, the military commissars were instituted to be placed within each army corps. A sensible final compromise came into being known as “dual command” (dvoenachalie). Each commander was now ordered to have a political equivalent – the commissar. Each order had to be signed by both military and political commanders. After this that the All-Russian Bureau of Military Commissars (Vsebiurvoenkom) identified the old soldiers’ committees as an obstacle in ensuring authority in the army, and moves began to disband them. As establishment military historians acknowledge, political commissars of the ‘dual command’ proved to be one of the “key martial innovations of the Reds”. [60]
The major opposition to Trotsky’s leadership revolved around Trotsky’s attacks on the commissars for their questioning of these specialists’ authority. His credibility was not helped by the treachery of ex-Tsarist General Mikhail Murav’ev:
“In July the commander of the Western Front Murav’ev, raised a mutiny against Soviet power under the banner of solidarity with the recent Left SR uprising in Moscow. Murav’ev had already been arrested once for abusing his authority; Trotsky had arranged not only his release but his promotion to command of the Eastern Front. Murav’ev was killed resisting his second arrest…
Iokaim Vatsetis the hero of the Latvian infantry division that had just put down the Left SR uprising in Moscow [of July 6-7 1918 – ed], rushed off to Simbirsk to replace Murav’ev and reorganize the Eastern Front. Vatsetis arrived at HQ to find bureaucratic chaos… Vatsetis accused the Supreme Military Council – namely, Trotsky and Chief of Staff Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich – of reducing Soviet Russia to a state of “utter defenselessness”. [61]
Trotsky’s response to criticism did not endear him to the commissars. Trotsky accused them of eroding military discipline. He attracted even more criticism when he ordered the shooting of Commissar Panteleev in 1918:
“Trotsky’s authority declined markedly in the wake of the Murav’ev incident. He sought to deflect criticism from himself and the military specialists by blaming the commissars for the army’s poor performance; but he won the lasting enmity of the commissars after he ordered the court-martial and shooting of one of their number – Commissar Panteleev, for desertion. Though he had warned all commissars a few weeks earlier that they would be the first persons shot if their units retreated without authorisation, still the first execution sent shock waves through the ranks. Trotsky quickly developed a reputation as a commander who placed military expediency over political reliability and who listened too much to the military specialists who surrounded him in increasing numbers.” [62]
Only after Joachim (or Jukums) Vatsetis (actually the second, main commander in chief under Glavkom – High Command of the Red Army) arrived on the Eastern Front, were several field tribunals set up. These tried cases of sabotage and treason. Concomitantly the Cheka special investigations forces [All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combat of Counter-Revolution and Sabotage] re-introduced the death penalty. These were deemed necessary to ensure the defeat of the White forces, and the ‘treachery’ of some military specialists:
“The treachery of some military specialists and the frequently poor morale and fighting ability of the conscripts prevented the Red Army from halting the White advance during the summer months. The introduction of the death penalty and the field tribunals and the special detachments of the Cheka began to turn the tide.” [63]
Even as late as August 15th, Trotsky found it necessary to reassure Lenin that:
“I consider it necessary to confirm once again that our troops are good ones and fighting with a will… as regards our organisation we have effected a great improvement… (but) the command apparatus is weak. Hence mishaps, and on occasion, panic retreats for no reason etc.” [64]
In spite of this reassurance, Lenin was sending messages the next day insisting that Skljanski (Trotsky’s second in command) attack “malpractice and criminal acts” in the army” [65]. By the 18th August Lenin was:
“astonished and alarmed at the slowing down of the operation against Kazan’. What is particularly bad is the report of our having the fullest possible opportunity of destroying the enemy with your artillery.” [66]
Repeatedly, Trotsky was charged by numerous commissars and Red Commanders, as blindly favouring the Tsarist ex-generals. After Central Executive Committee member A.Kamensky (A. Kamenskij) wrote an article in Pravda, Trotsky became even more defensive. Kamensky. [67],[68]
Conflicts between commissars and military specialists were numerous in 1918, as 75% of the Red Army commanders were from the old army. Another layer of authority was the Cheka, which also blurred clear lines of authority. Further divisions at the rank-and-file level occurred as party recruits insisted on reporting to their own communist party cells in the local party and armies. The commissars were being cramped on two sides now – from the military specialists at one end, and from the other end separate Party organisations. At the same time, elements of the party members were ‘lording’ it over other recruits – often of peasant background.
The peasant-based militias that had arisen exacerbated these tensions. The old Red Guard militias had evolved into the voluntarist model, of the rural partisans or guerrillas. These had elected commanders. Their anti-authoritarian principles, persisted. This reflected a peasant-based sense of self-defence units, as any central authority had broken down in many parts.
Lenin’s “Theses of May” were aimed at repairing relations of the working class with the peasantry, and transforming the Commissariat of War into “the Commissariat for War and Food“ [69]. This established clearer signals of solidarity to the peasants. Rural soviets were urged to mend relations with the poor and middle peasants. Army units composed only of poor peasants were now formed. This paralleled the ‘militarization’ – or professionalization of the army proceeded.
The overall upper command of the army was also reformed:
Following the setbacks on the Volga during the summer of 1918, however, it was abolished on 6 September 1918 and was replaced by the Revvoensovet (Revolutionary Military Soviet, or Council) of the Republic (RVSR), which restored some of the influence of senior commissars. In the midst of these events, on 2 September 1918, Vācietis was promoted to main commander in chief (Glavkom) of the Red Army (his predecessor, M. D. Bonch-Bruevich, who had failed to recognize the crucial importance of the Eastern Front, was quietly shunted aside). On 11 September 1918, the RVSR then devised a formal structure for the entire Red Army, which was divided (initially) into five armies, each with 11 divisions of between six and nine regiments (plus reserve units), grouped around three fronts (the Northern Front, the Eastern Front, and the Southern Front) and the Western Fortified Area. Revvoensovets were then established for each army (from 12 December 1918), military commissars were assigned to shadow commanders and to offer ideological guidance and motivation to Red forces, and regular units finally displaced almost all irregular (“partisan”) formations.” [70]
Stalin was appointed to be the representative of VTsIK (All-Russian Central Executive Committee) to the “Council of Labour and Defense” (STO) – which was “co-equal to” Sovnarkom (Council of People’s Commissars”:
“The coordinating organs of the Red Army were then topped off, following a VTsIK decree of 30 November 1918, with the formation of the Council of Workers’ and Peasants’ Defense (from April 1920, the Council of Labor and Defense, the STO). This body, which was chaired (ex officio) by Lenin and included Trotsky (as chair.. although he was rarely available to attend its meetings), Stalin (as the representative of VTsIK), and several people’s commissars of the most interested commissariats, was created by Sovnarkom but was coequal to it, as STO directives were considered to be the equivalent of state laws. It played no part in the formation of military strategy, but STO sought instead to direct and coordinate the work of all economic commissariats with all institutions having a stake in the defense of Soviet Russia. In the circumstances of a confusion of civil wars, it managed that task with relative success. [71]
Later Stalin was sent to the Southern Front at Tsaritsyn, which episode is examined later.
The White Danger
The encirclement of the USSR by the capitalist states, facilitated foreign incursions into the USSR, either directly or indirectly by funding and arming counter-revolutionary white forces.
“By the summer of 1919, without declaration of war, the armed forces of fourteen states had invaded the territory of Soviet Russia. The countries involved were:
| Great Britain | Serbia | France | China |
| Japan | Finland | Germany | Greece |
| Italy | Poland | USA | Rumania |
| Czechoslovakia | Turkey. |
Fighting side by side with the anti-Soviet invaders were the counter-revolutionary White armies led by former Czarist generals striving to restore the feudal aristocracy which the Russian people had overthrown.” [72]
In this desperate climate, facing losses on many fronts, the Central Committee began calling up large numbers of Communist Party members. Even by September, the situation remained tense. The Soviet Government decreed martial law for the whole country. Although the Eastern fronts were succeeding, almost immediately the South erupted under the White armies of General Anton Denikin. At this time 1,134,356 men were called up in the largest recruitment of the Civil War, between October and December 1918.
The White General V.Z.Mai-Maevskii captured the Don with the aid of a deserted 9th Red Army commander Colonel N. D. Vsevolodov. On 30 June 1919, Tsaritsyn was captured. After this on 3 July 1919 General Denikin issued the “Moscow Directive.” This called on the White Don Army to move through Kursk, Orel and Tula to Moscow – while the White Caucasian Kuban Cossack Army converged from Tsaritsyn. [73] It scored serious devastation on the Southern Red Army front, and its Southern Front. But the northern push from Tsaritsyn was less successful. [74]
Trotsky’s intervention at Petrograd ensured Moscow’s safety. [75]
Tsaritsyn in the Southern Front
Meanwhile, Stalin had already drawn attention to inaction in the East, and the attempt of German troops to capture Certovo Station, controlling supply lines to Rostov. On Sovnarkom’s initiative, Stalin was put in charge of the capture of Certovo. [76]
Given the evidence of serious deficiencies of the Eastern command, the Southern Front was created by the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic with its’ own revolutionary military council:
“which included one military specialist, the former general Pavel Sytin, and three commissars J.V.Stalin, Kliment Voroshilov and Sergei Minin. Almost at once conflicts erupted between the military specialists and the commissars.” [77]
“At the end of May Sovnarkom had put Stalin in overall charge of supply in the South of Russia and had given him extraordinary powers”. [78]
The context of this mission – which was to become contentious later – was important. Tsaritsyn (later named Stalingrad) was a gateway to two granaries for the USSR state – the Ukraine and Siberia, and to oil from Baku:
“The workers in Moscow and Petrograd were receiving a bare two ounces of bread a day. The republic was cut off from the granaries of the Ukraine and Siberia. The Southwest, the Volga region, and the North Caucasus, was the only area from which grain could still be obtained, and the road to them lay by way of the Volga, through Tsaritsyn. Only by procuring grain could the revolution be saved.. Stalin left for the South invested by the CC with extraordinary power to direct the mobilisation of food supplies in the South.. On June 6, 1918, Stalin arrived in Tsaritsyn.. The capture of Tsaritisyn would have cut off the republic from its last sources of grain supply and from the oil of Baku, and would have enabled the Whites to link the counter-revolutionaries in the Don region with Kolchak and the Czechoslovak counter-revolution for a general advance on Moscow.” [79]
The German imperialists had already made an enforced treaty with the Ukrainian Directory, and they supported the White General Krasnov:
“The German imperialists did their utmost to isolate, weaken and destroy Soviet Russia. They snatched from it the Ukraine — true, it was in accordance with a “treaty” with the Whiteguard Ukrainian Rada (Council) — brought in their troops at the request of the Rada and began mercilessly to rob and oppress the Ukrainian people, forbidding them to maintain any connections whatever with Soviet Russia. They severed Transcaucasia from Soviet Russia, sent German and Turkish troops there at the request of the Georgian and Azerbaidjan nationalists and began to play the masters in Tiflis and in Baku. They supplied, not openly, it is true, abundant arms and provisions to General Krasnov, who had raised a revolt against the Soviet Government on the Don. Soviet Russia was thus cut off from her principal sources of food, raw material and fuel.” [80]
Krasnov’s aim to cut off Moscow from the rear was not fulfilled. [81] However, stopping Krasno required establishing anti-profiteering regulations and fighting what can only be called corruption. The correspondence between Lenin and Stalin of June-August 1918 shows both the “chaos and profiteering” of “multiplicity of collegiums and revolutionary committees”:
“Arrived in Tsaristyn on the 6thJune. Despite the confusion in every sphere of economic life, order can be established.
In Tsaritsyn, Astrakhan and Saratov the grain monopolies and fixed process were abolished by the Soviets, and there is chaos and profiteering. Have secured the introduction of rationing and fixed prices in Tsaritsyn. The same must be done in Astrakhan and Saratov, otherwise all grain will flow away though this profiteering channels. Let the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars also demand that these Soviets put an end to profiteering. Rail transport is dislocated owing to the efforts of the multiplicity of collegiums and revolutionary committees. I have been obliged to appoint special commissars; they are already establishing order despite the protests of the collegiums. The commissars are discovering heaps of locomotive in places there they did not suspect their existence. Investigation has shown that eight or more trains a day can be sent by the Tsartisy-Povorino-Balshov-Kozlov-Ryazan-Moscow line. Am now accumulating train in Tsaritsyn. Within a week we shall proclaim a “Grain Week” and shall dispatch to Moscow right away about one million poods.” [82]
Stalin complained of Trotsky’s management directly to Lenin, and asked for “military powers” since until then – he had held only a political appointment:
“Comrade Lenin, Just a few words.
1) If Trotsky is going to hand out credentials right & left without thinking – to Trifnov (Don Region); to Avtonomv (Kuban region); to Koppe (Stavropol), to members of the French Mission (who deserve to be arrested), etc. – it may be safely said that within a month everything here in the North Caucasus will go to pieces, and we shall lose this region altogether. Trotsky is behaving in the same way Antonov did at one time. Knock it into his head that he must make no appointments without the knowledge of the local people, otherwise the result will be to discredit the Soviet power.
2) If you don’t let us have the aeroplanes & airmen, armoured cars & 6 inch guns, the Tsaritsyn Front will be lost for a long time;
3) There is plenty of grain in the South, but to get we need a smoothly working machine which does not meet with obstacles from troop trains army commanders & so on. More, the military must assist the food agents. The food question is naturally bound up with the military question. For the good of the work, I need military powers. I have already written about this, but have had no reply. Very well, in that case I shall myself without any formalities, dismiss army commanders and commissars who are ruing the work. The interest of this work dictates this, and of course, not having a paper from Trotsky is not going to deter me.” [83] [84]
By dint of correcting the imbalance towards “military experts”, Stalin turned the situation:
“One favourable factor on the Tsaritsyn-Gashun Front is the complete elimination of the muddle due to the detachment principle, and the timely removal of the so-called experts (often staunch supporters either of the Cossacks or of the British & French) have made it possible to win the sympathy of the military units and establish iron discipline in them.”
By September 6th the offensive for Tsaritsyn was successful. [85] This turn-around of the situation was only after the arrival of Stalin. A fact that is acknowledged in Trotsky’s own papers, albeit indirectly.
On June 7, Stalin informed Lenin and Christian Rakovskji, an “unrepentant Trotskyite” [86] from Caricyn (Tsaristyn), that unfavourably for the Bolsheviks – Batajsk had been captured. Rakovskji wrote to Trotsky informing him of this, and that others (Sytin who had been in charge of the defence of Tsaritsyn) had already confirmed the situation was untenable, just one day after Stalin’s arrival:
“The sole line of communication of these troops with Great-Russia, and that a circuitous one, across the Caspian Sea to Astrachan’ cannot even be regarded as satisfactory.” [87]
Yet by September 1918 the Front was secure. Stalin in an interview by Iszvestia on September 21 1918, said:
“First of all Comrade Stalin said, two gratifying facts should be noted: One is the promotion to administrative posts in the rear area of working men with an ability not only for agitating in favour of a Soviet power, but also for the building the state on a new, communist basis; the second is the appearance of a new corps of commanders consisting of officers promoted from the ranks who have had practical experience in the imperialist war, and who enjoy the full confidence of the Red Army men.” [88]
Trotsky’s management of that Front had been clearly exposed.
Trotsky now insisted upon Stalin’s recall by threatening his ally Vorosohilov, with a court martial on October 4, 1918.[89] As Meijer makes clear, Trotsky’s action was precipitated by a further telegram from Voroshilov and Stalin to Lenin, which on 3rd October complained of Trotsky’s work.
On Trotsky’s promptings, the Orgburo and the RSVR supported Sytin – and removed Stalin. However by the time of his recall, Stalin had both secured Tsaritsyn; and formed the nucleus of the Tenth army under Voroshilov. Alexandrov points out that he achieved this by:
“Ruthlessly breaking down the resistance of the counter-revolutionary military experts appointed and supported by Trotsky, and taking swift and vigorous measures to reorganize the scattered detachments.” [90]
Sytin was left in charge, until in October when he was removed from the command of the Southern Front. [91]
In October, Stalin’s speeches on the Southern Front were given prominence in Iszvestia and Pravda.
However there were further repercussions. Upon Stalin’s return to Moscow, he met with Lenin and Sverdlov, and reported further victories in the Tsaristyn area. Stalin pointed out that he had persuaded Vosroshilov and Minin to stay on, subject strictly to the central command. Further, in a letter from either Lenin or Sverdlov – it is stated:
“(Stalin) would like very much to work on the Southern Front; he expresses great apprehension that people whose knowledge of this Front is poor may commit errors, of which he cites numerous examples. … He is not putting any stipulation about the removal of Sytin and Mechonosin… In informing you Lev Davydyc, … I ask you to think them over and let me have a reply, as to whether you agree to talk matters over with Stalin personally, and secondly, whether you consider it possible under specific circumstances to put aside former differences and arrange to work together with as Stalin so much desires.” [92]
Trotsky had to accede to Lenin’s obvious pressure to meet Stalin.
However, Stalin did not return to the Southern Front. Instead his next military mission was his appointment to the Defense Council on November 30th, and then a special mission to investigate military failures in Perm.
In the meantime, Voroshilov wrote urgently to Lenin complaining of the inability to obtain small arms and shells. [93] To which Trotsky replied that the “crisis” was due to the “incredible, completely rabid expenditure of ammunition” at Tsartisyn. [94]
As typical of Trotsky, after he ridicules legitimate grievances, he then “discovers” the problem for himself, expounding in a lengthy analysis. [95] The systemic problem of which Vosroshilov was complaining, was due to the small scale of the factories responsible, and the hostility of their former owners.
Throughout this period, it is clear that the military commissars, and the Red Commanders had become ever more frustrated with the military leadership. This comes across loudly from the note of A.Egorov (Chairman of the Higher Credentials Commission of the People’s Commissariat for Military Affairs), as early as 20th August 1918. Egorov writes to Lenin and Trotsky, to chastise the command in simple and blunt terms as follows:
“Practical military art and so the theory of it, bases itself wholly on the experience of the past… the necessity and the feasibility of a single command for directing warfare, in a word that the military leader must be given full power has been demonstrated by long experience.. Only a single uniform purpose can direct operations… the military axioms indicated above.. fail to find application in the military operations of the armies of the Republic.. A survey of all the operations in progress on the various fronts indicates that they contain no definite, uniform conception or purpose.” [96]
Disaster at Perm – Stalin’s Mission to Perm
Trotsky does not contest that Stalin and the head of the Cheka, Felix Dzershinksi – were ordered to the Front to investigate shortcomings of the army. As Lenin put it:
“The news from Perm area is extremely alarming. Perm is in danger… Perm is in a dangerous position. I consider it essential that reinforcements be dispatched.” [97]
By December 31, 1918, Lenin was writing to Trotsky that “a number of Party reports have come in from the Perm area about the catastrophic state of the army and about drunkenness.”
Lenin suggested sending Stalin to Perm. [98]
Trotsky had no option but to accede to Stalin’s mission, while defending the responsible leader – Lasevic – by moving him to the Northern Front. [99] Stalin wrote to Lenin as follows:
“The investigation has begun. We shall keep you regularly informed of its progress. Meanwhile.. one urgent need of the Third Army.. The fact is that of the Third Army (more than 30,000 men), there remain only about 11,000 weary and battered soldiers who can scarcely contain the enemy’s onslaught. The troops sent by the Commander-in-chief are unreliable, in part even hostile, and require thorough sifting. To save the remnants of the Third Army and to prevent a swift enemy advance on Vyatka (according to all reports from the command of the front and the Third Army this is very real danger) it is absolutely essential urgently to transfer at least three thoroughly reliable regiments from Russia and place them at the disposal of the army commander. We urgently request you to exert pressure on the appropriate military authorities to this end.” [100]
From this time on, concerns were increasingly raised by Lenin, at Trotsky’s management:
“I am very disturbed as to whether you have not got absorbed in the Ukraine to the detriment of the over-all strategic task on which Vecetis insists and which consists in launching a rapid, determined, and general offensive against Krasnov. I am afraid that we are behindhand with this and that the latest success of Krasnsov’s forces at Caricyn (Tsaritsyn) will result again in our putting off our offensive and letting the moment slip by.” [101]
Trotsky defended his Ukraine actions, and blamed Stalin instead:
“Stalin’s protection of the Tsaritsyn trend is the most dangerous sort of ulcer, worse than any act of perfidy or treachery on the part of the military specialists.” [102]
Perhaps Lenin cannot have been overly impressed with this. Because by January 31 1919, Felix Dzerzhinski (Head of the Cheka) and Stalin provided a very detailed exposure of the fall of Perm. [103] In brief those main findings were that:
“Disaster was inevitable… apparent by end of November, when the enemy.. surrounded the Third Army.. and launched a fierce attack on Khusva… The morale and efficiency of the army were deplorable owing to the weariness of the units.. there were no reserves whatever. The rear was totally insecure ( a series of demolitions of the railway track in the rear of the army). The food supply of the army was haphazard and uncertain (at the most difficult moment, when a furious assault was launched against the 29th division, its units were in action for five days literally without bread or other food).
Although it occupied a flank position, the Third Army was not secured against envelopment from the North.. As to the extreme right flank, the neighbouring army, the Second, being immobilized by a vague directive from the Commander-in-chief.. and compelled to remain immobile for 10 days, was not in a position to render timely support to the Third Army by advancing at the most crucial moment before the surrender of Khushva… in 20 days, the army in its disorderly retreat retreated more than 300 versts… losing in this period 18,000 men, scores of guns and hundreds of machine guns.. Strictly speaking it was not a retreat still less could it be called an organised withdrawal of units to new positions; it was an absolutely disorderly flight of an utterly routed and completely demoralized army… The noisy laments of the Revolutionary Military Councils and Third Army HQ that the disaster was a “surprise only prove that these institutions were out of touch with the army, had no inkling of the fatal significance of the events at Khusha and Lysva and were incapable of directing the army’s actions.” [104
Following this Lenin resorts to Stalin’s help over this period on a number of different fronts. There had been a series of food shortages to the army, and sabotage of the rail links ensuring food distribution. Lenin got rapidly involved:
“29.1.1920; To Military Council of the 5th Army – Smirnov:
Pjakes reports that there is manifest sabotage on the part of the railway workers. The Omsk railway works, which employ 3,000 workers, have produced no locomotives and four railway wagons in the space of a month: there are suspicions of sabotage by the Izevsk workers; I am surprised that you are putting up with this and do not punish sabotage with shooting; also the delay over the transfer here of locomotives is manifest sabotage; please take the most resolute measures.” [105]
Shortly thereafter Lenin upbraids Trotsky as follows:
“ 1.2.1920 Lenin to Trotsky
The situation with regard to railway transport is quite catastrophic; Grain supplies no longer get through. Genuine emergency measures are required to save the situation. For a period of 2 months, measures of the following kind must be put into force….
-
- The individual bread ration is to be reduced for those not engaged on transport work; & increased for those engaged on it;
- Three quarters of the senior Party workers from all departments except the Commissariats of Supply and of Military Affairs, are to be drafted to railway transport…”
Chairman of the Council of Defence V. Ulyanov Lenin.” [106]
In response to emergency crises, Lenin again turned to Stalin:
“3-4 February 1920;
The CC considers it essential in order to save the situation that you should go at once to the right flank of the Caucasus Front via Debal’cevo where Sorin is at the moment. At the same time, you must take urgent measures to transfer substantial reinforcements and Party workers from the Southwestern Front. In order to put matters on a proper footing you will be made a member of the Military Revolutionary Council of the Caucasus Front while continuing at the same time to belong to the Military Revolutionary Council of the South-Western Front.” [107]
In reply Stalin, then in Kursk, argued that:
“my profound conviction is that my journey would not bring about any change in the situation; that it is not journeys by individuals that are needed but the transfer of cavalry reserves, the Southwest being without them.” [108]
Lenin agreed – provided:
“That the next weeks, you concentrate all your attention and energy on serving the Caucasus Front, subordinating to it the interests of the South Western Front.” [109]
Although this episode has been variously presented by Trotsky as insubordination or even ‘laziness’ of Stalin’s, it is likely that Stalin was at least unwilling to simply pull Trotsky’s chestnuts out of the fire, and again end up being side-lined. However the situation in the army was soon to change.
The Eighth Party Congress 1919 – The Military Opposition and Trotsky repudiated
Many, including Trotsky and Old Bolsheviks like Mikhail Frunze (a commander on the Eastern Front) had complained of the unruliness of the partisan elements. However Trotsky himself was under scrutiny for the opposite error, that is of over-emphasizing the role of the old Tsarist military staff.
Matters came to a head at the Eight Party Congress of 18 March 1919. There the lessons of recent defeats were drawn. The Short History of the CPSU(B) views the 8th Congress as a “turning point” in the party, on the question of the peasantry:
“The Eighth Congress marked a turning point in the policy of the Party towards the middle peasants…
The policy adopted by the congress towards the middle peasants, who formed the bulk of the peasantry, played a decisive part in ensuring success in the Civil War against foreign intervention and its Whiteguard henchmen. In the autumn of 1919, when the peasants had to choose between the Soviet power and Denikin, they supported the Soviets, and the proletarian dictatorship was able to vanquish its most dangerous enemy.” [110]
The Eighth Party Congress took place as it was clear there had been some serious defeats under Trotsky’s Command. Hagen points out, that the failed defence of the city of Perm “emboldened Trotsky’s critics”:
“At the end of December the city of Perm fell to Kolchak’s armies and threatened the Bolshevik stronghold of Vlatka.. the response to the military defeat… the string of failures had emboldened Trotsky’s critics to attack him directly.” [111]
All the tensions about discipline and of leadership came to a head, and these finally ended the use of the Paris Commune model to organize the Red Army. [112]
On 18 March 1919, 403 delegates attended, of whom 40 represented 31,000 party members in the Red Army. Trotsky was ill, but Grigorii Sokol’nikov presented the “Theses of the Commissariat ”, largely drafted by Trotsky. The need to eliminate vestiges of volunteer army organizing and to tighten discipline – was well received. However, his defense of the military specialists was not.
At the Congress, serious discontent was voiced by the Military Opposition. This went over-board in resisting any centralized control of the Red Army. Vladimir Smirnov presented their theses:
“The Military opposition contended that the commissars deserved more than a narrow control function, because they already had more combat experience than many military specialists.” [113]
It is untrue that Stalin opposed professionalization, as Trotsky charges. On March 21, 1919 – Stalin vigorously opposed the continued remnants of ‘volunteerism’ in the army:
“All the questions touched upon here boil down to one: is Russia to have, or not to have, a strictly disciplined regular army?
Six months ago, after the collapse of the old, tsarist army, we had a new, a volunteer army, an army which was badly organized, which had a collective control, and which did not always obey orders… The facts show that a volunteer army cannot stand the test of criticism, that we shall not be able to defend our Republic unless we create another army, a regular army, one infused with the spirit of discipline, possessing a competent political department and able and ready to rise at the first command and march against the enemy…
… Either we create a real workers’ and peasants’ army, a strictly disciplined regular army, and defend the Republic, or we do not, and in that event our cause will be lost.
… Smirnov’s project is unacceptable, because it can only undermine discipline in the army and make it impossible to build a regular army.“ [114]
Meanwhile, Trotsky was repudiated for his “arrogant and hostile attitude towards the old Bolshevik cadres in the army”:
“The problems connected with the building up of the Red Army held a special place in the deliberations of the congress, where the so-called “Military Opposition” appeared in the field. This “Military Opposition” comprised quite a number of former members of the now shattered group of “Left Communists”; but it also included some Party workers who had never participated in any opposition, but were dissatisfied with the way Trotsky was conducting the affairs of the army. The majority of the delegates from the army were distinctly hostile to Trotsky; they resented his veneration for the military experts of the old tsarist army, some of whom were betraying us outright in the Civil War, and his arrogant and hostile attitude towards the old Bolshevik cadres in the army. Instances of Trotsky’s “practices” were cited at the congress. For example, he had attempted to shoot a number of prominent army Communists serving at the front, just because they had incurred his displeasure. This was directly playing into the hands of the enemy. It was only the intervention of the Central Committee and the protests of military men that saved the lives of these comrades. But while fighting Trotsky’s distortions of the military policy of the Party, the “Military Opposition” held incorrect views on a number of points concerning the building up of the army. Lenin and Stalin vigorously came out against the “Military Opposition,” because the latter defended the survivals of the guerrilla spirit and resisted the creation of a regular Red Army, the utilization of the military experts of the old army and the establishment of that iron discipline without which no army can be a real army.” [115]
In a twist, the Congress Military policies were now rejected by both the Military Opposition and by Trotsky – who allied with each other:
“While rejecting a number of proposals made by the “Military Opposition,” the congress dealt a blow at Trotsky by demanding an improvement in the work of the central military institutions and the enhancement of the role of the Communists in the army.” 86
Therefore the Central Committee struck a special committee of three Central Committee members (Stalin, Grigori Zinoviev and the military commissar of the Petrograd labour Commune Boris Pozern) and two members of the Military Opposition (Emel’ian Iaroslovaskii and G.I. Safarov).
Even the most vigorous admirer of Trotsky, cannot easily deny that Trotsky had been rebuked. “Trotsky’s Papers” contain an extract of the Minutes of the Meeting of the CC of the RCP held on 25th March 1919, where Trotsky is instructed to meet on a monthly basis with party workers:
“Comrade Zinoviev announced that the Military Section of the Congress had succeeded in attaining unanimity, thanks to our having made a concession of a kind, and adopted resolutions which it was decided not to make public at the Congress, namely:
1) On the reorganization of the All Russian General Staff;
2) On Field HQ;
3) On an obligatory monthly conference between Comrade Trotsky and Party workers.
Cmde Zinoviev considered that the Congress had , by token of its entire line of conduct on the military question, administered a serious caution and that, in consequence of this, it was inadmissible that all its direction should be treated with insufficient heed, and that, for this reason, it was essential for Comrade Lenin to talk things over with Comrade Trotsky…
The Meeting decided that:
A written approach be made to Comrade Trotsky, this is to be in 3 sections:
1) Comrade Zinoviev’s statement;
2) The unpublished resolutions together with an explanation as to why they constitute
the expression of the genuine wishes of the Congress;
3) The resolution of the Political Buro of the CC.” [116]
Again in a typical move, Trotsky gave a rather long-winded reply attempting to exculpate himself from criticism, imputing psychological disease to Voroshilov, in March (undated). [117]
With the conclusion of the 8th Party Congress of 1919, the Civil War in its conduct within the USSR – had achieved some success. Enough to have reached a “brief respite”:
“The defeat of Kolchak and Denikin was followed by a brief respite.
When the imperialists saw that the Whiteguard armies had been smashed, that intervention had failed, and that the Soviet Government was consolidating its position all over the country, while in Western Europe the indignation of the workers against military intervention in the Soviet Republic was rising, they began to change their attitude towards the Soviet state. In January 1920, Great Britain, France, and Italy decided to call off the blockade of Soviet Russia.” [118]
By March 1920, Lenin in his speech to the “First All-Russia Congress of Working Cossacks”, also recognized the successes of the Civil War. But he cautioned on the direction of Poland:
“True, they may still incite Poland against us. The Polish landowners and capitalists are growling and threatening, saying that they want to get back the territory of I772, that they want to subjugate the Ukraine. We know that France is inciting Poland, flinging millions into that country, because France is bankrupt anyhow and is now putting her last stake on Poland. And we say to the comrades in Poland that we respect her liberty as we respect the liberty of every other nation, and that the Russian workers and peasants, who have experienced the yoke of tsarism, know very well what that yoke meant. We know that it was a heinous crime to divide Poland up among the German, Austrian and Russian capitalists, and that this division doomed the Polish nation to long years of oppression, when the use of the native language was regarded as a crime, and when the whole Polish nation was brought up in one idea, namely, to throw off this treble yoke. We therefore understand the hatred the Poles feel, and we declare to them that we shall never cross the line on which our troops are now stationed—and they are stationed a long way from any Polish population. We are proposing peace on this basis, because we know that this will be a tremendous acquisition for Poland. We do not want war on account of frontiers, because we want to obliterate that accursed past when every Great Russian was regarded as an oppressor.
But since Poland responds to our peace proposal by silence, since she continues to give a free hand to French imperialism, which is inciting her to a war against Russia, since fresh trainloads of munitions are arriving in Poland every day and the Polish imperialists threaten to start a war on Russia, we say, “Just try it! You’ll get a lesson you’ll never forget.” [119]
Lenin’s thrust here is for peace. The exhortation “Just try it!” – was an assurance to the peoples of the USSR that the Soviet State was solidly based. However several Soviet Governmental calls for negotiations had been essentially ignored by Poland. These are detailed by Jane Degras, [120] and can be traced from 1917 onwards.
By 28 March 1920, the Polish government sent its own counter-proposal for peace. In response Georgy Chicherin (Commissar for Foreign Affairs March 1918 to July 1930) demanded an immediate halt to fighting to enable success in the negotiations. In response the Poles prevaricated as Chicherin made clear in an interview he gave to the ‘Guardian’ newspaper. [121]
Open letters from the Soviet government to the world’s workers and toilers, including those of Poland – made the Soviet position clear to the workers. This was that the Soviet Government guaranteed Poland’s independence and an agreed to border; that the Soviet Union had attempted to bring Poland to the negotiating table without success; and that there was no reason for the attempted interventions of the Western imperialists as mediators.
Negotiations do not Stall the Polish Attack
Many including the pro-Polish academic Norman Davies, dance around the fact that Poland had initiated the 1920 war. It is true that the Bolsheviks had just concluded the Treaty of Moscow with Lithuania, which included future plans for a joint alliance against Poland.[122]
Moreover, undoubtedly Lenin had made up provisional plans for a striking force on Galicia. [123]
Yet it remains that the Polish forces attacked and captured the city of Kiev, transforming prior clashes into a full war:
“There can be no doubt that the major conflict of the Polish-Soviet, Soviet-Polish, or Polish-Bolshevik War began with Pilsudski’s decision to march beyond the borderlands into the Ukraine in April 1920, while the bulk of the Red Army was still engaged in the civil war.” [124]
“On 24 April 1920, the very day upon which the military terms of the Polish–Ukrainian Treaty of Warsaw were settled, (Pilsudski) launched “Operation Kiev,” sending around 75,000 men—three Polish armies (the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th Armies) and two Ukrainian divisions—onto Ukrainian territory guarded by the Red Army’s Western and South West Fronts (numbering about 120,000 men combined). … Kiev was reached by Polish and Ukrainian units on 7 May 1920.” [125]
The very day before, on April 23 1920 – Lenin had put forward a proposal for peace with Poland, which included ceding Belorussia and indeed – much of Ukraine. But Pilsudski rejected this immediately. [126] Instead Pilsudski launched the invasion on Kiev (See Maps 2 and 4).
Sergey Kamenev was now the commander-in-chief of the Red Army at this point. Even at this dangerous moment, at the precipice of a new, fully blown war – Trotsky announced:
“The Polish szlachta (gentry) and bourgeoisie have attacked us in a war…
Death to the Polish bourgeoisie. On its corpse we have concluded an alliance with worker-peasant Poland.” [127]
As we discuss below, there was no such alliance in any tangible form.
The Polish Attack Kiev and Seize the city
The Polish General Staff deduced from their secret services both that Denikin’s time was up, and that Trotsky’s plans against Poland were maturing. This spurred Pilsudski into offensive action:
“…the Polish General Staff ’s Second Department which directed the secret services.. reported on January that the moment of the final annihilation of Denikin’s forces is approaching very quickly. At the same time . . . the Bolsheviks are turning to the Western Front, which up to now has been treated as secondary. According to Trotsky’s plans (speeches, orders), after completion of the operations against Denikin and Kolchak, the Bolsheviks are to begin an action against Poland… Intelligence received about the planned large-scale action by the Bolsheviks against Poland is fully in agreement with Trotsky’s plans, and in accord with the general situation at the moment.” … Considering this situation, Piłsudski came to the conclusion.. it was better to begin an offensive quickly… The idea was to defeat Soviet forces present at the Polish front the expected “at least troops” could arrive from the Southern To defeat them decisively, it was necessary to strike at the main concentration of forces. Until early April the Second Department believed the Bolsheviks intended to carry out their main strike in the Southwestland, so Piłsudski wanted to hit them there.”[128]
However in a shrewdly calculated response to the attack on Kiev, the Bolsheviks evacuated Kiev. The Bolshevik leaders calculated this would move the USSR peoples “to redouble their war efforts”. This was a successful move:
“…the Politburo resolved to charge “the Presidium of the All-Russian Executive Committee to prepare a manifesto in case of the capture of Kiev.” That such a capture was not only expected but also desired is clear from the… Politburo instruction: “Soviet power ought to be presented as the defending side.
The loss of Kiev was thus purposely designed by the Soviets as a clever means of mobilizing the Russian population to redouble their war effort.” [129]
The Bolsheviks correctly rallied the population, by utilizing nationalist sentiments to eject the Polish invaders. That effort was led by Karl Radek, himself of Polish origin. Trotsky called for the death penalty for deserters, again a correct tactic in those circumstances [130] :
“Karl Radek, a Polish-Jewish Bolshevik in charge of this propaganda campaign, went as far as to talk about a “national war” fought by “Motherland-loving truly Russian people.” The Bolshevik newspaper Pravda published a letter written by the well-known former tsarist General Aleksei A. Brusilov vowing that “the Polish invasion of the territories belonging to the Russian Orthodox people from time immemorial must be repulsed by force of arms.” Quite a few former tsarist military men responded to this appeal by volunteering for the Red Army….
Several days later, declaring “the fight against desertion” to be “presently a matter of life and death for the Western Front,” Trotsky called for using the death penalty as punishment. He also decided to employ at the Western Front the best commanders from all the other fronts. In late May, the Politburo, in order to help the war effort by suppressing ubiquitous sabotage, had resolved “to give martial law the most decisive and relentless character.” The Cheka, or secret police, was granted “the rights of revolutionary tribunals.” [131]
Despite the loss of Kiev for now, Lenin was quite “calm”. The Central Committee was also sanguine including Mikhail I. Kalinin, head of All-Russian Central Executive Committee (1919 to 1946). Trotsky even proclaimed the Poles had “fallen into a trap”. The armed forces Commander-in-chief Sergey Kamenev – was of the mind that the Polish offensive was “advantageous to us”: [132]
“Four days later Lenin declared, “We regard this new adventure with the utmost calm.” (..although – ed) “despite all our pliancy, war [with Poland] has been foisted on us.” (DiM, vol.3, doc. 7, 13).
The same day, Supreme Commander Kamenev described the Polish offensive as “advantageous to us.”
The next day, Trotsky put it even more bluntly. By taking the offensive, the Poles “fell right into a trap.” It was obvious to him that “the outcome of the forthcoming struggle does not leave any room for doubt.” The end result would be an allied Soviet Poland, opening a way to “the proletariat of Europe and all the world.” He emphasized, however, that it was the Polish proletariat which “will transform its country into a socialist republic.” [133]
“The same idea was put even more clearly by Mikhail I. Kalinin, the head of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, who said publicly on May: “If we deliver the first blow to the Polish bourgeoisie, the Polish proletariat will deliver the final one.” [134]
This was however over-optimistic, and neither the ‘final blow’ spurring onwards, or the Polish proletariat delivering a ‘final’ blow – was to happen. Nonetheless the city of Kiev was re-taken, a battle in which the mounted cavalry Cossacks led by Semen Budennyi were prominent:
“The minor Bolshevik offensive in the South-west land began on 26 May. Two armies, one army corps, and one cavalry army of the Southwestern Front attacked two Polish armies. It took the famous Cavalry Army until June 5 to break the Polish front
Cavalry Army, consisting of Cossacks and led by Semen Budennyi, was the Red Army’s elite formation, known for its great mobility, fighting ability and savagery. Once they broke the front, Polish troops were forced to hastily from Kiev to avoid encirclement. Subsequently, Budennyi’s cavalry managed for a long time to keep one step ahead of Polish troops, catching them off balance and forcing them to withdraw farther west.” [135]
By middle of summer 1920 the Soviet forces had succeeded in a large-scale counter-offensive and had again reached the River Bug (See Map 3). This was where the Soviets placed the ethnographic border with Poland. In fact this pre-dated the Soviet views. Traditionally, the River Bug was considered as a border between East and West.
The Bolshevik Western Front, commanded since April by Mikhail Tukhachevskii, consisted of twenty-one divisions (which) broke the Polish front:
“By June, the Bolshevik offensive in the Northwest Land, also known as the Battle of the Berezina, was over. While the Poles managed to repel the attack, they did so only with the greatest difficulty, and their confidence began to wane.”[136]
So now a turning point had arisen. As the Soviet troops chased down the Polish invaders, they entered deeper into disputed territory, and into indisputable parts of Poland. A dilemma arose. Should the war be pursued by the USSR into Poland proper?
In May 1920, when assessing the Polish invasion of Kiev-Ukraine-USSR, Stalin highlighted that the Polish attack as it stretched out into foreign lands (i.e. Russian land) undermined its’ own advantage:
“Poland is the attacking side, having rejected Russia’s peace proposals, and Russia the defending side, which is an enormous and inestimable moral advantage for Russia…
Poland is not content with her own territory and is pushing her armies forward, subjugating Lithuania and Byelorussia, and driving deeply into Russia and the Ukraine. This circumstance alters the situation fundamentally, to the great detriment of the stability of the Polish armies.
As the Polish armies advance beyond the borders of Poland and penetrate deeper into the adjacent regions, they get farther and farther away from their national rear, weaken their communications with it, and find themselves in an alien, and for the most part hostile, national environment. Worse still, this hostility is aggravated by the fact that the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of the areas adjacent to Poland (Byelorussia, Lithuania, Russia, the Ukraine) consist of non-Polish peasants who are oppressed by Polish landlords, and that these peasants regard the offensive of the Polish troops as a war for the power of the Polish gentry, as a war against the oppressed non-Polish peasants. This, in fact, explains why the slogan of the Soviet army, “Down with the Polish gentry!” is meeting with so powerful a response among the majority of the inhabitants of these regions, why the peasants of these regions welcome the Soviet armies as their deliverers from landlord oppression, why, in expectation of the arrival of the Soviet armies, they rise in revolt at the first convenient opportunity and attack the Polish army in the rear. It is to this circumstance, too, that must be attributed the unparalleled enthusiasm of the Soviet armies, which is attested by all our military and political workers.” [137]
However at this very critical point, the English intervened with a diplomatic note (The Curzon Telegram Proposal) offering the USSR negotiations and a very favourable border line between Poland and the USSR (Map 4 and 5). This was the famous ‘Curzon Line’. If further proof was needed that the English imperialists had sponsored the Polish attack, this provided it.
The Curzon Telegram and the views of Lenin on a peace
The Telegram was in reality a “threat”. As explained by Fiddick it was:
“a very real threat, in the form of an ultimatum from British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon, who warned the Bolsheviks on July 11 that England would intervene on Poland’s side if the Red Army did not halt short of that line which later came to bear Curzon’s name. London also demanded an amnesty for General Wrangel’s forces and offered British mediation through a conference which would include Russia and most of her border states.” [138]
The Soviet Government did not outright refuse this offer – contrary to what is touted. For example by Trotsky. But Fiddick points out that “Trotsky’s dim memory, however, is rather unreliable on this matter”:
“It has been commonly believed that Lenin and the majority of Soviet leaders decided to disregard the British warning, and the possibility of negotiating an end to the war as well. The Moscow government, “with its eyes fixed on Warsaw and its conviction that the emergence of a Soviet Poland was only a matter of weeks, showed little interest in peace discussions, while pressing on the advance of its armies as rapidly as possible.” The major source of this interpretation has been Trotsky’s memoirs, in which he recalled that in the summer of 1920 the desire to transform the war from one of defense “into an offensive and revolutionary war began to grow.” Although he was personally in favor of “an immediate conclusion of peace,” Lenin apparently had his mind set … on carrying the war to an end, up to the entry into Warsaw.”
Since the war commissar was not in Moscow to argue his case, Lenin was able to sway the Party to his point of view, with only Rykov opposing him in the Politburo.
Trotsky’s dim memory, however, is rather unreliable on this matter, for not only was he absent during the sessions of the Politburo, he was also mistaken about Rykov, who was not then a member of that policymaking body.” [139]
The Polish delegation had been instructed to terminate the negotiations if it showed signs of ending in an agreement for peace:
“Since they departed soon after they arrived, they must have received the impression that the Soviets were very eager for peace. Such an impression was quite accurate, at least as far as the Party leaders were concerned, for on the very day the Poles walked out, August 2, Lenin confided to Stalin by telegram that “opinion is mounting in the Central Committee that peace with bourgeois Poland should be concluded immediately.” [140]
Attitudes of Bolshevik Leaders on switching from defense to invasion of Poland
As the Polish attack was thrust back and the Red army pushed forward, the issue of whether this defensive war should become an offensive war became urgent. Which Bolsheviks believed it was correct to adopt an offensive position? This is equivalent to an ‘export of revolution’. We examine the views of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. Who of the leading Bolsheviks supported this?
After this political background, will we return to the military situation.
i) Lenin
We already saw that Kamenev, and Trotsky had shown some support for moving from a self-defence into a war of invasion. Perhaps Lenin may have been equivocal on this policy. As Lenin wrote to Stalin on 23 July, he had been impressed by the evolving situation in Europe including Italy. It was, he thought:
“Time to encourage revolution in Italy. My own view is that to this end we should sovietise Hungary and perhaps also the Czech lands and Romania.” [141]
However Lenin had as we saw, been steadily pushing forward meaningful talks with the Poles – who had walked out on talks as soon as they realized the Bolsheviks were trying in all honesty to obtain a peace. We also saw that it was Trotsky’s memoirs that pushed this notion that Lenin was anxious to push to Warsaw.
Lenin’s view was further stated in September 1920 in his “Political report of the Central Committee to the 9th All-Russian Conference of the Communist Party”. Although at a closed session, it was fully published recently. Volume 31 of Lenin’s Collected Works carries a much less informative and shorter news-release version of the full Report. [142]
In a long speech Lenin describes the stage at which this decision was taken, and the fundamental views informing the decision:
“The defensive period of the war with worldwide imperialism was over, and we could, and had the obligation to, exploit the military situation to launch an offensive war…” “We use every opportunity to move from the defense to the offense.” [143]
Lenin traces the origin of this decision, to the response the USSR had to make to the Curzon Proposal to halt the war, to stop the Red Army’s drive into Poland:
“On 12 July, when our troops, having crossed an enormous space in an unceasing offensive, approached the ethnic border of Poland, the English government.. Curzon, addressed a note to us demanding that we halt our troops 50 versts from the ethnographic border of Poland, on the condition that the peace be concluded on that line. This line ran from Bialystok and Brest-Litovsk, giving us Eastern Galica. It was very advantageous to us. It was called the Curzon Line. And that was when we faced ourselves facing the basic question. The Central Committee had to make a most important decision… ..either accepting …assuming a position that was .. purely defensive…or else to exploit the elan of our army and the advantage we enjoyed to help in the sovietization of Poland. … a defensive or an offensive war.. We in the Central Committee knew that this was a new, fundamental question, that we stood at a turning point of the whole policy of Soviet power.” [144]
The decision was made was to “launch an offensive war”:
“Our conviction ripened that the Entente’s military offensive against us was over, that the defensive war with imperialism had ended, and that we had won it. The stake was Poland …We faced a new task. The defensive period of the war with worldwide imperialism was over, and we could, and had the obligation to, exploit the military situation to launch an offensive war. We had defeated them when they advanced against us; we would now try to advance against them in order to assist the sovietization of Poland … (and) Lithuania…
We decided to use our military forces to assist the sovietization of Poland. Our subsequent overall policy flowed from this [decision]. We formulated it not in an official resolution recorded in the minutes of the Central Committee … but we said among ourselves that we must probe with bayonets whether the social revolution of the proletariat in Poland had ripened.” [145]
Lenin states above that “we had the obligation” to invade. However he also was completely frank that the USSR “probe with bayonets” had resulted in “an enormous defeat” for the Soviets:
“What were the results of such policies? Of course, the main result was that now we have suffered an enormous defeat. As far as we were able to probe with a bayonet the readiness of Poland for social revolution, we must say that this readiness was slight. To probe with a bayonet meant gaining direct access to the Polish farm labourers and to the Polish industrial proletariat… Warsaw, Lodz and Dabrowa.. Were very far from [our] borders…Thus we were able to probe Poland’s readiness for a socialist revolution only to an extremely small extent. We encountered a great national surge of petty bourgeois elements who, as we got closer to Warsaw, were terrified for their national existence… Of course we diagnosed incorrectly” [146]
Lenin took the blame for the strategic decision. But some also claim that he “ordered the march on Warsaw”:
“After the Polish campaign was lost, Lenin did not try to hide the fact from his fellow communists that it was he who had ordered the march on Warsaw. Justifying his decision to the Communist Party’s Ninth Party Conference held in September 1920, Lenin described how the Soviet government decided to ‘use military force in order to assist the sovietisation of Poland’. Elsewhere, Lenin described the Polish campaign as a war not just against Poland but against ‘the entire Versailles System’.” [147] , [148]
But whether this was a personal blame, rather than a collective blame of the Central Committee that he headed is uncertain. The interpretation that Lenin ordered the march to Warsaw is challenged by Thomas Fiddick, whose data we consider shortly in this section.
Later a close comrade, Klara Zetkin – had a detailed conversation with Lenin about the Polish-Soviet war episode. In a very personal account of this, she illustrated the dilemma from the vantage point of the German revolutionary movement:
“The early frost of the Red Army’s retreat from Poland had blighted the growth of the revolutionary flower fostered in our thoughts when the Soviet troops, by a bold and rapid advance, had reached Warsaw. I described to Lenin how it had affected the revolutionary vanguard of the German working-class when the “comrades,” with the Soviet star on their caps, in impossibly old scraps of uniform and civilian clothes, in bast shoes or torn boots, spurred their small, brisk horses right up to the German frontier. “Will they or won’t they maintain the occupation of Poland and come over the border, and what then?”…
Lenin listened attentively to what I said on the matter…
“Yes,” he said at last, “so it has happened in Poland, as perhaps it had to happen. You know of course all the circumstances which were at work; that our recklessly brave, confident vanguard had no reserves of troops or munitions, and never once got even enough dry bread to eat. They had to requisition bread and other essentials from the Polish peasants and middle classes. And in the Red Army the Poles saw enemies, not brothers and liberators. They felt, thought and acted not in a social, revolutionary way, but as nationalists, as imperialists. The revolution in Poland on which we counted did not take place. The workers and peasants, deceived by the adherents of Pilsudsky and Daszynsky, defended their class enemy, let our brave Red soldiers starve, ambushed them and beat them to death.” [149]
To Klara Zetkin, Lenin made clear that he himself did not blame Budennyi for the military defeat – far from it:
“Our Budennyi is the most brilliant cavalry leader of the world. A young peasant — you know that? Like the soldiers in the French Revolutionary Army, he carried the marshal’s staff in his knapsack, only in his case it was the saddle pocket. He has no great knowledge of military science, but an excellent strategic instinct. He is courageous to foolhardiness, to an almost madly imprudent degree. He shares the greatest privations and the gravest dangers with his men, and they would allow themselves to be cut to pieces for him. He himself is as good as many squadrons. But all the excellencies of Budyenny and of other revolutionary army leaders could not make up for our deficiencies in military and technical affairs, still less for our political miscalculations — the hope of a revolution in Poland. Radek predicted how it would turn out. He warned us. I was very angry with him, and accused him of ‘defeatism: But he was right in his main contention.” [150]
In fact, Lenin was careful to distinguish between a military fault and a strategic, or political – fault. Returning to his frank internal critique:
“Where should we now look for the mistake? Perhaps the mistake was political, perhaps it was strategic as well. I do not claim in the slightest to know military science… I will analyze this matter from the perspective of where to see if it was a primarily a political or strategic mistake… ” [151]
Working through a detailed set of hypotheses, Lenin indicates that a political – mistake had been made. But he says, it is up to future historians to decide what exact mistake there had been. Because he argued, the USSR simply did not have enough time to allow the Central Committee to make a full investigation then. It was largely because Wrangel’s White forces and the Entente were still pressing them. Nonetheless he made clear:
“I repeat perhaps this was a political mistake, for which the whole Central Committee is responsible, and for which each one of us takes personal responsibility. This is a fundamental mistake. Strategy is subordinate to politics.” [152]
Lenin was aware of a possible over-optimistic view of the likelihood that the Polish workers would rise and join the invading Bolshevik army. For example, Karl Radek – himself of Polish origin. It is said that Lenin was angry with such views:
“(Lenin) was very angry with Radek, who dared to express the opinion that the Red Army would not be welcomed by the workers and peasants of Poland. He turned instead to another Pole, Unszlicht…
So long as the Polish war was progressing favourably, he let it run its course. Indeed his confidence increased. The successes of Budyenny in Galicia and the massive build-up in Byelorussia seemed to confirm his optimism. When in the middle of July the diplomatic situation demanded a formal ruling, he did not hesitate. He insisted that the Red Army advance into the heart of Poland with all possible speed. On 17 July he impressed this vital decision on the Politburo without much difficulty.” [153]
While Davies also claims that Trotsky advised Lenin to halt any advance, it was already too late by the time Trotsky stated this:
“He overruled Trotsky’s advice proffered on behalf of the Supreme Command to halt the offensive and await further developments.. By that time Tukhachevsky was more than half-way to the Vistula.” [154]
Further warning signs came on Aug 6, from Felix Dzerzhynski – another Pole – who telegraphed Lenin that “we consider the biggest problem the organizing of a Polish Red Army and we hope to found a proletarian force in the very near future.” [155] But if the “organizing” was in the “near future” – it was clearly not ready for the invasion.
Polish revolutionaries were organized, on 23 July 1920, in the Polish Bureau of Bolsheviks (Polrevkom). It was founded in Moscow, under the chairmanship of Julian Marchlewski. The latter had been the chief negotiator for the Bolsheviks with the Polish government and military. They issued a declaration (Do wloscian polskich, “To the Polish peasantry’) which called for the inviolability of peasant lands and for liquidating all peasant debts. But it appeared not to have any effect. Probably as it had no respect amongst the Polish people, and the CP was considered a stooge of the Russians. [156]
It is quite possible, that Lenin had allowed himself to be misled by the international workers support for the USSR, exemplified in the “Hands Off Russia” committees:
“Hands off Russia” committees formed in several countries, having been started in Manchester in February 1919. But especially in England and Germany. It gained major traction when dockers in Hamburg and London refused to load cargoes of arms for Poland.” [157]
Yet Lenin had urged Chicherin to negotiate carefully; had supported the negoitations with the Polish delegation; and had written to Stalin on August 2nd that:
“On August 2, Lenin confided to Stalin by telegram that “opinion is mounting in the Central Committee that peace with bourgeois Poland should be concluded Immediately” (Fiidick Ibid p. 273)
Ultimately – we are forced to agree with Lenin’s own later assessment – namely that the offensive thrust into Poland was a “political mistake”. It remains unclear what Lenin’s view of his own personal responsibility was. He may have been arguing in his internal report that he was responsible for not having stood ground against some of his comrades on the Central Committee who wanted to move ahead. Or even some of the army, in particular Tukhachevsky – who was intent on moving forward to Warsaw. To enable this he ignored – nay flouted orders to release troops for fighting against Wrangel in the Crimea:
“…that same date (i.e. August 2nd), Tukhachevsky rebelled against the restraints which his superiors were attempting to impose on him. On July 31 Glavkom had ordered its front commander to release his forty-eighth division for use against Wrangel in the Crimea. On the next day, receiving no reply, Kamenev reiterated the demand and even asked for two more divisions. On August 2 Tukhachevsky, angry and adamant, answered: “It is impossible to withdraw from the forces of the front the divisions indicated by you.” So clearly was this act of insubordination in opposition to Party policy that Tukhachevsky’s refusal carried no signature from any member of the RVS (i.e. the Revolutionary Military Council Revvoensoviet – RVS). In defiance of both Glavkom and the Party he now began to send his armies westward, through that narrow salient below East Prussia toward the Polish Corridor.” (Fiddick Ibid p. 274)
What about the other two main leaders we need to consider – what was their position? Namely, what did Trotsky and Stalin indicate about this invasion?
The Attitude of Bolshevik Leaders on switching from defense to invasion of Poland
ii) Trotsky
Trotsky took a rather self-contradictory position on the Sovietization of Poland, although he and his followers later claimed that he was against the war. This is difficult to square with many of his bellicose statements. It is true that in some private messages he was more cautious, although sources do not stress this in clear details. This author believes that what can be definitely said is that he was inconsistent. A polite description might be talking out of both sides of the mouth, as shown by this citation from Mawdsley:
“Trotsky publicly branded the Polish Army a “szlachta [gentry] army, and army of slaves, held by force, steeped in priests lies and bourgeois deceit”; privately he warned the CC that “we have for the first time a regular army led by good technicians”. [158]
His speeches were full of swirling flourish:
“In his speech at the meeting on 7 August 1920, Trotsky said that the liberation of Poland from Tsarism had opened the first pages of the history of the First International. ‘Now a Russia freed from Tsarism is fulfilling its great historical mission and giving crucified and violated Poland back to the Polish workers and peasants.’” [159]
Alongside such rousing speeches, Trotsky also put his pro-attack views clearly in his “Theses On the Polish Front and our Tasks” – that the USSR could incite revolution in Poland by invading. The Red Army would rally the “Polish Proletariat”:
“The Polish bourgeois republic has given proof that it will not and cannot co-exist with Soviet Russia. It has fallen into its own trap. The gentry and bourgeoisie of Poland will be rounded up by the Polish proletariat who will then proceed to turn their country into a socialist republic.”[160]
“Trotsky proclaimed: “Listen workers, listen peasants, listen Red Army soldiers. The Polish szlacta (gentry) and bourgeoisie have attacked us in a war… Death to the Polish bourgeoisie. On its corpse we have concluded an alliance with worker-peasant Poland.” [161]
Trotsky had advocated adventurist polices just before the Polish-Soviet War. He advocated chasing the White forces of Judenis onto Estonian territory. This would have provoked further imperialist attacks and alienated Estonian peasantry. Chicherin, Lenin and Stalin all warned against this. [162]
When Trotsky refused to listen and repetitively badgered Lenin and Chicherin for an answer, Both Lenin and Chicherin wrote back in essence saying ‘you are not listening.’ [163]
In fact Trotsky’s over-reach went far further. Speculating after the fall of the Hungarian Soviet, upon prospects for the Red Army, Trotsky admitted they were modest, at least in the West. Although he said “In these conditions the small White Guard countries on our western periphery can establish a “cover” for us for the time being“.
However Trotsky fantasized about the Far East:
“There is no doubt at all that our Red Army constitutes an incomparably more powerful force in the Asian terrain of world politics than in the European terrain. Here there opens up before us an undoubted possibility not merely of a lengthy wait to see how events develop in Europe, but of conducting activity in the Asian field. The road to India may prove at the given moment to be more readily passable and shorter for us than the road to Soviet Hungary. The sort of army which at the moment can be of no great significance in the European scales can upset the unstable balance of Asian relationships of colonial dependence, give a direct push to an uprising on the part of the oppressed masses and assure the triumph of such a rising in Asia…
Naturally, we had had in mind even earlier on the need to assist the revolution in Asia and had never abandoned the idea of revolutionary offensive wars. But it was not so long ago that we were still, with a considerable measure of justification, directing all our attention and all our thoughts to the West. The Baltic provinces were in our hands. In Poland, as it appeared, the revolution was developing at a rapid pace.
There was a Soviet regime in Hungary. The Soviet Ukraine had declared war on Roumania and was preparing to advance to the west…
In the period immediately ahead preparation of the “elements” of an Asian orientation and, in particular, preparation of a military thrust against India to aid the Indian revolution can only be of a preliminary, preparatory character.” [164]
On one point Trotsky agreed with Stalin, namely to remain optimistic that the invaders would be repelled as Polish troops were over-extended :
“The deeper the right wing of the Polish troops penetrates into the Ukraine, turning against itself Ukrainian insurgents of all kinds, the more fatal for the Polish armed forces will be the concentrated blow which the Red fighters will give them. Our whole task now consists in all-round preparation of this blow.” [165]
However as noted above, Trotsky’s tone and content fluctuated. Hence publicly after Kiev was re-taken by the Red Army he said that Russia was again open for negotiation on the border with Poland. But in the same article he concluded however:
“We shall wage the struggle for the defence, consolidation and prosperity of our socialist republic to the very end, against all enemies, and at the same time we shall help the Polish workers and peasants to free themselves from their oppressors both Polish and foreign.
Forward to the complete rout of the White-Guard bands of Wrangel!
Forward against the bourgeois-gentry aggressors of Poland!” [166]
In August he was still roaring and urging the Army on towards Warsaw:
“Heroes! You have inflicted a shattering blow on White Poland, which was attacking us. Nevertheless, the criminal and frivolous Polish Government does not want peace. Pilsudski and his agents know that nothing threatens the independence of Poland, to whom, we, Workers’ and Peasants’ Russia, have agreed to give frontiers wider than those indicated by the Entente. But Pilsudski fears the coming of the day when he will have to justify the war to the Polish people, and he is hoping for intervention by France and Britain. For this reason the Polish Government is evading peace negotiations. Not daring to admit this openly, it is playing hide-and-seek. Its delegates do not turn up on time, or, if they do, they come without plenary powers. The wireless station in Warsaw does not accept our answers, or else the Polish Government pretends that it has not seen them, even when we have receipts from the Warsaw wireless station.
We want peace now, just as we did on the first day of the war. But precisely because of this we must wean the government of Polish bankrupts away from playing hide-and-seek with us. Red forces, forward! Heroes, on to Warsaw! ” [167], [168]
iii) The Attitude of Bolshevik Leaders on switching from defense to invasion of Poland
Stalin
Stalin to the contrary, warned much more consistently against invading Poland. A very clear analytical approach took precedence as opposed to rousing and speechifying.
On May 25-26 he said that an attack on Poland was much more dangerous for the USSR than was the Red Army’s attacks on Denikin and Kolchak. This was because the Poles had a rear to fall back on. Moreover Soviet attack on Poland would raise Polish national sentiment against the Soviets:
“No army in the world can be victorious (we are speaking of firm and enduring victory, of course) without a stable rear. The rear is of prime importance to the front, because it is from the rear, and the rear alone, that the front obtains not only all kinds of supplies, but also its man-power — its fighting forces, sentiments and ideas. An unstable rear, and so much the more a hostile rear, is bound to turn the best and most united army into an unstable and crumbling mass. The weakness of Kolchak and Denikin was due to the fact that they had no rear of “their own,” that they, imbued as they were with essentially-Russian dominant-nation aspirations, were obliged to a very large extent to build their front and to supply and replenish it from non-Russian elements who were hostile to these aspirations, and that they were obliged to operate in areas which were obviously alien to their armies. It was natural that armies which had no internal, national, and still less class cohesion, and which were surrounded by a hostile environment, should cave in at the first powerful blow of the Soviet armies.
In this respect, the rear of the Polish forces differs very substantially from that of Kolchak and Denikin — to the great advantage of Poland. Unlike the rear of Kolchak and Denikin, the rear of the Polish forces is homogeneous and nationally united. Hence its unity and staunchness. Its predominant sentiment — a “sense of motherland” — is communicated through numerous channels to the Polish Front, lending the units national cohesion and firmness. Hence the staunchness of the Polish troops. Poland’s rear, of course, is not (and cannot be!) homogeneous in the class sense; but class conflicts have not yet reached such a pitch as to undermine the sense of national unity and to breed antagonisms in a front of heterogeneous class composition. If the Polish forces were operating in Poland’s own territory, it would undoubtedly be difficult to fight against them.” [169]
In fact Stalin was also concerned about the Soviet rear – this time from the perspective of the potential anti-proletarian elements, who needed to be watched carefully. Recall that White sentiments had widely percolated:
“The chances of victory we have spoken of can be of real value only if other conditions are equal, that is, on condition that we make as great an effort now as we did formerly, during Denikin’s offensive, that our armies are supplied and replenished punctually and regularly, that our propagandists redouble their efforts to enlighten the Red Army men and the population around them, and that we clear our rear of scum and fortify it with all our strength and by every means.” [170]
Even more clear are Stalin’s words on ‘boastfulness’. A word that Lenin belatedly used, when he later acknowledged the error of taking the offensive (see above). But far earlier on – after the Red army re-took Kiev and the decision was in the sway – Stalin had cautioned against “boastfulness” and undue optimism about taking Warsaw:
“But it would be a mistake to think that the Poles on our front have been disposed of.
After all, we are contending not only against the Poles, but against the whole Entente, which has mobilized all the dark forces of Germany, Austria, Hungary and Rumania and is providing the Poles with supplies of every kind.
Moreover, it should not be forgotten that the Poles have reserves, which are already concentrated at Novo-grad-Volynsk, and their effect will undoubtedly be felt within the next few days.
It should also be borne in mind that there is as yet no mass demoralization in the Polish army. There is no doubt that more fighting is still to come, and fierce fighting at that.
Hence I consider the boastfulness and harmful self-conceit displayed by some of our comrades as out of place: some of them, not content with the successes at the front, are calling for a “march on Warsaw”; others, not content with defending our Republic against enemy attack, haughtily declare that they could be satisfied only with a “Red Soviet Warsaw.”
I shall not demonstrate that this boastfulness and self-conceit are entirely at variance both with the policy of the Soviet Government and with the strength of the enemy forces at the front.
I must declare most categorically that we shall not be victorious unless we strain every effort in the rear and at the front. Without this, we cannot defeat our enemies from the West.
This is emphasized particularly by the offensive of Wrangel’s troops, which has appeared like a “bolt from the blue” and has assumed menacing proportions.” [171]
“On 11th July, 1920, Stalin had dismissed the idea of an advance on Warsaw as ridiculous while Wrangel still haunted the Soviet rear, a menace not yet “.. . countered by any special or effective measures against the growing danger.” [172]
Much later on in 1936, Stalin was blunt about the whole incorrect concept underlying the invasion of Poland – one of an “export of revolution”:
“You see, we Marxists believe that a revolution will also take place in other countries. But it will take place only when the revolutionaries in those countries think it possible, or necessary. The export of revolution is nonsense. Every country will make its own revolution if it wants to, and if it does not want to, there will be no revolution. For example, our country wanted to make a revolution and made it, and now we are building a new, classless society.” [173]
Elsewhere it needs to be discussed in what ways the counter-attack of the Soviets in World War II after the battle of Stalingrad differed from the situation in 1920.
But we now revert to the more purely military aspects of the Soviet offensive driving towards Warsaw.
The Soviet drive to Warsaw – From the Curzon Telegram to an offensive war – two fronts
Having driven the invaders out of Kiev, the decision was taken by the Party and the Red Army to pursue the Polish troops into Poland. This would involve two major fronts – from the Western Army and the South-Western army.
Mikhail Tukhachevskii (or Tukhachevsky) led the Western Front – consisting of the XV and XVI Armies. He had been appointed by Kamenev:
“On April 29 1920, Kamenev, Red Supreme Commander, had written to Lenin requesting that Mikhail Tukhachevsky be placed in overall charge of the army in the field for a Polish campaign. Tukhachevsky was not merely an aristocrat; he could trace his ancestry back to a 12th century noble clan of the Holy Roman Empire… his mother was a peasant.” [174]
In April Budenny and Voroshilov were called to Glavkom Moscow to discuss the situation in the Ukraine.
Stalin was appointed to the South-Western Front together with Dzerzhinsky on May 26th.
The South-Western Front was commanded by Yegorov with the XIIth and XIVth Armies, and the 1st Cavalry Army. This latter was the famed calvary of Cossacks led by Budyenny (or Budyonny) – known as the Konanniia (or Konarmiya).
Glavkom was led by Kamanev and set the target to capture Warsaw.
“By the 23 May the final directives had been made for attack. The XIIth army, and the XIVth army with the cavalry was to attack the Polish Front in the Ukraine.” [175]
As the Red Army surged forward, suddenly the British imperialists proposed a ‘Peace Conference’ that was contained in the Curzon Telegram. But on 17 July Soviet rejected the attempted interjection. Lenin believed that “they were snatching victory” from the Soviets by “crooked promises”:
“During the week that the Soviet leaders considered the Curzon Line Telegram they convinced themselves that they had nothing to fear from the Allied Powers. …
Lenin commented to Stalin: “They want to snatch victory from our hands with the aid of crooked promises”…
The Commander-in-chief Sergey Kamenev summarised the Soviet viewpoint in his statement of July 21: “On both of our fronts operating in Poland, instructions have been given for the energetic development of the offensive, without regard to the frontier line mentioned in Curzon’s telegram.” [176] [177]
The commander-in-chief Kamenev was supremely confident of reaching Warsaw:
“Soviet defeat of Poland would simultaneously destroy the whole basis of the Versailles settlement and bring Soviet troops on to — or over — the German frontier.” [178]
“There can be no doubt that a high degree of optimism influenced Kamenev’s decision to fall in with the proposed offensive against Warsaw.. On 21st July he reported … the whole affair could be finished within 3 weeks.” [179]
“Kamenev had evidently fallen under the spell of the idea of imminent victory while visiting the Western HQ in Smolensk. It was here on 19th July, Smilga (Commander of the Western Revvoensoviet) announced that the left wing of the Polish forces had ceased to exist and that Warsaw itself was completely demoralised. To Yegorov on 23rd July Kamenev (ordered) that by 4th August his Southern right wing … should come into contact with the Western left wing.”[180]
Unfortunately, by the 6th June Wrangel began attacking the Soviet rear in Ukraine. And at around the same time Rumania began to threaten South-Western Army front, and Yegorov was asked to cover it.
At onset an enormous mortal loss of the Soviet forces was apparent, as was an “increasing disharmony” in the Soviet forces:
“The advance into Poland had been achieved at great cost. During the month of July losses varied from 25-40%… The IX Army of Lazerevich shrank from 30,243 men to 23,324 …Equally serious was the increasing disharmony of the Western and South-Western Fronts.” [181]
Stephen Brown presents a short summary and over-view, but also an interpretation:
“In summer 1920 Stalin was serving as a member of the revolutionary military council of the South-West Front, one of two prongs of the Red Army’s invasion of Poland. In early August 1920, the South-West Front was attacking L’vov, the Polish stronghold in Galicia, while the other prong of the Red Army’s advance, the West Front under the command of Mikhail Tukhachevskii, was aimed directly at Warsaw. On 11 August Sergei Kamenev, the Red Army’s Commander-in-Chief, ordered the South-West Front to send its main fighting force, the elite cavalry unit known as the Konanniia, northwards towards Warsaw for the purpose of aiding Tukhachevskii’s weak southern flank. Stalin refused to obey this order and the Konanniia continued to fight at L’vov until 21 August 1920. Meanwhile, on 16 August, the Polish leader Joseph Pilsudski launched his counterattack into the gap between the West and South-West Fronts, smashing Tukhachevskii’s southern.”[182]
Why did Stalin “refuse” to obey orders? We will return to this.
To understand the problem, we follow Davies where he states the “intended direction of the Red Army’s movements (which) can be exactly established and measured”. In summary:
“Yegorov’s line of march was to the West-South-West, Tukhachevsky’s to the West-North-West.” [183]
This disposition can be seen below in Map 5 below (p.52). The Fronts were at such a divergence that, it was unlikely that the Glavkom had any “immediate intention” of using the “Western and South Western Fronts in unison”. The fronts were:
“divided by a deliberate divergence of forty-five degrees. This meant that for every four miles they marched, they grew three miles further apart. One can safely conclude that the Soviet Supreme Command had no immediate intention of using the Western and South-Western Fronts in unison.” [184]
The main North Western front was supported only by “thin units”:
“On the eve of the Soviet offensive, Red forces were disposed into the ‘Northern Group’, the XVth Army (under A. I. Kork) to its south, and the XVIth (commanded by N. V. Sollogub) on the eastern bank of the Berezina. The total strength deployed for the offensive, according to Tukhachevsky’s figures, amounted to 92,400 officers and men. There were adequate supplies for the first days of the offensive — 180 rounds per man, 400 shells to each gun — but this optimistic view could not cover up the fact that the whole supply system was confused and amounted to a major weakness on the Soviet side. It is worth noticing that the Red Army… had the greatest difficulty in first strengthening and then servicing its western striking force. The major part of this effort had been expended on forming a concentrated striking force at the centre of the front, but the secondary areas … were held with relatively thin units.” [186]
The intent was to rendezvous the Western and South Western Fronts on the River Bug.
“The South-western Front operations, although in a subsidiary role, were to bear a ‘broad and decisive character’ — for which reason Budenny’s cavalry would be assigned as reinforcement. The offensive was timed for 14th May in Belorussia.
The first task was to raise the strength of the Soviet armies in the west. …
For the south-west, the transfer of Budenny’s cavalry had been decided upon. By 15th May, according to Tukhachevsky’s own figures, 92,393 infantry and cavalry had been assembled on the Western Front. Transport facilities were, however, bad. In the initial plan, the main blow was to be mounted by the XVIth Red army moving in the direction of Igumen-Minsk ; a supporting role was allotted to the XVth Army operating to the north of the XVIth. Since this meant in fact opening the offensive by forcing the River Berezina, the left bank of which had been heavily invested by the Poles, the plan was at once modified by Tukhachevsky.” [187]
But everything was delayed beyond any likely safety for the Red Army.
Core major problems in the drive to Warsaw.
There were some major core problems.
First was the delay in the attack from Tukhachevsky.
Second was the low army numbers resulting from both loss in war, and from desertions.
Thirdly there was a simultaneous attack from Wrangel in the Crimea, and further to the Southwest from Rumania.
Fourthly a brimming over-confidence leading to fatal errors.
Finally there was a failure of coordination from the top command down, from Kamenev.
Problems began from the very start, as Tukhachevsky was delayed. So much as to cause failure:
“Tukhachevsky’s intention was for Yegorov’s armies to converge on the Bug and to advance into Poland in harness with himself. Yet by the end of July this movement had not even started.” [188]
Not only Kamenev, but also Tukhachevsky was also supremely confident. To the point of cockiness, of the “boastfulness” that was identified by Stalin:
“Tukhachevsky ’s failure was due, not to the haste of his advance but to its tardiness. He deliberately risked a transient weak position in the expectation that the Poles would be powerless to exploit it. He was fooled… by the astonishing feat of Polish regrouping between 6-12 August.. He missed his goal by 3-4 days.” [189]
The military historian Mawdsley is scathing on Tukhachevsky. Although instead of the view from Davies that the pace of advance was too slow – Mawdsley argues it was too fast. Likely the key is the point about over-stretched supply lines we discussed before, In any case Tukhachevsky comes off badly:
“The second and more important Red strategic mistake was Western Army Group’s rush across the Curzon Line toward the Vistula. Tukhachevsky wrongly believed that he could effect a decisive victory on his own. He under-estimated the Poles and exaggerated his early victories; divisions that the reported smashed were actually able to retreat intact. He misapplied the lessons of the uninterrupted Civil War offensives that had kept the armies of Kolchak and Denikin off-balance and broken their sprit. The magic formula did not work against a resolute enemy.. that grew stronger as it retreated on its home base and did not give up manpower and supplies to the attacker.” [190]
Even more damning, and even more astonishingly – the IIIrd Army men had captured a copy of Pilsudski’s 6th August orders showing the Polish counter-attack. But Tukhachevsky refused to consider changing plans, and dismissed it as a bluff. [191] And yet the problems were immense:
“His supply system was inadequate; his support services were far behind; his numbers were dwindling; the resistance of the local population was growing every day; the further the fighting moved away from the Russian bases at Vyazama, Smolensk, and Polotsk the nearer it came to the Polish bases in Poland. Tukhachevsky knew all this better than anyone. … Every day’s delay…” [192]
Tukhachevsky’s delays were problematic since the first attack as ordered, took place on the 14 May led by the XV Army. But it was only some days later (May 19th) that the follow-up attack by the XVI army took place, when the first attack was already waning. [193]
Moreover there was simply a shortage of troops. As Erickson states:
“the pre-attack changes brought new and hidden dangers with them, for technical units were badly below strength, and the very idea of a ‘non-stop offensive’ was seriously prejudiced by the inadequate supply of reserves.” [194]
To compound matters there was a high rate of desertion:
“Over the front there had been from 14 May to 15 June 24,615 deserters from the XVIth Army signals.” [195]
Another two inter-related core problems however were the poor coordination and dealing with the sudden attack from Wrangel.
One especial aspect of this was the apparently odd “behaviour of the South-Western command (that -Ed) has never been satisfactorily explained”. As Davies puts it:
“Absence of coordination between the Soviet Western and South-Western Commands. Despite an order of 13 August to join the Western Front, the South-Western Command played no significant part in the battle whatsoever.. Its XII Army launched an attack on Hrubieszow… the Konarmya’s maneuver towards Zamosc begun on 20 August, conceded not with the attack on Warsaw but with the general retreat; the XIV Army now facing the Dniester did not attempt to engage. The consequences were undoubtedly serious. … Pilsudski’s strike-force, only 60 miles from the XII Army and 80 miles from the Konarmiya was allowed to proceed undisturbed for 10 days… The behaviour of the South-Western command has never been satisfactorily explained.” [196]
We will examine this behaviour in detail now.
The sverve of the Konarmiya towards Lwów and Wrangel’s attack (“The behaviour of the South-Western command)
Undoubtedly the delayed Tukhachevsky attack was the primary cause of ensuing debacles.
However, it was certainly compounded by two events.
First, on the 24th July – the Konarmiya swerved towards Lwów to the South – as commanded to do so by Kamenev. Moreover even the XIV Army was forced to move South to face off Rumania – again by Kamenev:
“As from 24 July the XIV Army turned south to face the threat of a Rumanian diversion from the Dneister; and the Konarmiya turned south-west and moved on to Lwów. Only the XII Army on the northern flank marched in line for a rendezvous with Tukhachevsky but found itself floundering in the marshy valley of the Stochod.” [197]
Why was this order made? After the 11th July Curzon Line Telegram, Lev Kamenev was in London negotiating with the British, he urged to take Galicia for the Soviets as Curzon had apparently ceded it to Russia in his proposal. Lev Kamenev saw Galicia as a gate to Hungary. Lenin was convinced:
“Lenin agreed with the most radical group within the Central Committee, including Nikolai I. Bukharin and others who were “in an adventurous mood,” as Chicherin put it.” [198]
Meanwhile, Trotsky was also game for this. Hence the final order – which formally came from the Commander-in-Chief Sergey Kamenev – to turn the Ist Cavalry of Budyenny into Lwów:
“It was precisely because the offensive in Belarus moved forward so easily that the original strategic plan for the Southwestern Front had been changed… Instead of closing ranks with the southern flank of the Western Front while moving westward into Congress Poland, Budennyi was then ordered to turn to the southwest and march on Lwów. This new disposition was taken mainly for political reasons. On the one hand, Trotsky feared that Romania might get involved in the war, now that the forces of the Western Front had crossed the Curzon line in spite of the British ultimatum. By turning its main forces toward East Galicia, which adjoined Romania, the Southwestern Front would still be contributing to “the final rout of the Polish Army,” while at the same time discouraging Bucharest from intervening. On the other hand, Lev Kamenev, conducting at the time negotiations in London, pointed out to Lenin in the wake of the Curzon note of 11 July 1920 that it was “particularly important, in view of Curzon’s unexpected mentioning of East Galicia including Lwów, that our troops without fail enter Galicia and capture Lwów. The fulfillment of Curzon’s threats is not to be believed because Britain.. has no soldiers to send to Poland… To the capturing of Galicia, which Curzon in advance has declared to be Russian territory, one must turn particular attention.. this is a gateway to Hungary, which precisely at this time is important to keep in our hands.” Kamenev’s idea gained the ear of Lenin who, buoyed by the breathtaking successes in Belarus, wired Stalin, the commissar of the Southwestern Front and a Politburo member…: “The situation in the Comintern is splendid. Zinoviev, Bukharin, and I, too, think that revolution in Italy should be spurred on immediately… To this end, Hungary should be Sovietized, and perhaps also Czechia and Romania.” [199]
It is true that Stephen Brown argues that in addition, Akexander Egorov (commander of the South West Front) and Stalin also were in agreement with the attack on Lwow as it would split the Polish army in two and secure the Rumanian border. Brown also argues that Lenin viewed Lwów as a “gateway” to Rumania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. [200]
Meanwhile, on the Western Front, matters were not going well. Lenin telegraphed Stalin on 1st June that:
“…the situation on the Western Front is worse than Tukhachevsky or Glavkom think.” [201]
Secondly and most alarmingly, was the attack starting from 6 June, from General Wrangel’s forces in the Ukraine as noted above.
In fact, Stalin had alerted about Wrangel before that danger was apparent to all:
“After his forces had been beaten back to the Black Sea, Denikin had fled to the Crimea, which remained an isolated pocket of territory beyond Bolshevik control. There Denikin had been replaced as White commander by General Wrangel, who prepared to take advantage of the Polish War by breaking out of Crimea and advancing towards Moscow.
Wrangel’s ambitions caused renewed tension between Trotsky and Stalin. Trotsky had no problem with Stalin being sent to monitor Wrangel’s activities, but he was furious when Stalin, learning from intelligence sources that Wrangel was about to attack, informed Lenin of this and asked him to inform Trotsky and Trotsky to inform the Red Army’s Commander-in-Chief; as far as Trotsky was concerned, Stalin should have
used the correct military channels to inform the Commander-in-Chief and not routed his message through the Party hierarchy. Even though Stalin’s proposal that the Red Army launch a pre-emptive strike against Wrangel made military sense, Trotsky ordered him on 3 June not to do so, only to find that, as Stalin had predicted, Wrangel began his advance on 6 June.” [202]
It was on the 6th June that General Wrangel launched at the Soviet rear in Ukraine – hitting the XIII Army. By 10 June Wrangel was in control of the Northern Ukraine:
“The Wrangel Front had grown into serious proportions and also acted as a menace to the rear of the Soviet armies operating against Poland”. [203]
It was Kamenev who as Commander-in-Chief – had ultimately ordered Yegorov to drive onto Lwów. It was not Stalin who commanded this, as was to be alleged later by Trotsky.
On the 23rd July, Kamenev delivered very poorly thought out orders directing the 1st Cavalry to Lwów and then to continue:
“in the properly decided direction”, and simultaneously Kamenev ordered:
“…the Western armies to reach the Vistula and occupy Warsaw by the 18th August”. [204]
Davies comments on the important matter of timing.
Yegorov was directed to Lwów on 22-23 July – but the directive from Tukahchevsky to the First Cavalry to move North to Lublin, came only on 10 August. By then the trajectories of the armies had become even more divergent (See Map 5):
“Then there is the vital matter of timing. Yegorov’s directive was dated 22 July. The South-Western Front had been moving away for over three weeks before anyone thought of calling it back. Tukhachevsky’s directive was dated 10 August. In direct anticipation of the Battle of Warsaw he deliberately shifted his centre of gravity northwards, thus making liaison with Yegorov even more difficult than before. The two fronts were both behind schedule. Tukhachevsky who aimed to reach Warsaw on 12 August had been delayed by the battles on the Narew and Bug; Yegorov who aimed to reach Rawa Ruska on 29 July had been delayed by an even greater margin by the battle of Brody. Both fronts were only approaching their objective at the time when they should have won them. Each was too preoccupied with its own problems.” [205]
As Wrangel made bloody hay in the Ukraine, finally on the 31st July Yegorov was “instructed to concern himself with Wrangel and possible Rumanian intervention if it arose.” This led Yegorov to request more troops which Tukhachevsky refused. Finally Yegorov got these troops from the XII Army – which was thereby of course weakened. [206]
As discussed above:
“Kamenev suggest(ed) the delimitation of the role of the South-Western Front in the event of Rumanian intervention against Soviet Russia.” [207]
It was very late in the day, that “Glavkom woke up to the significance of the Polish concentrations in the South”. We noted above that only on the 10th August was Tukhachevsky to order suspending the attack on Lwów:
“At the eleventh hour Glavkom woke up to the significance of the Polish concentrations in the south. Tukhachevsky had assumed that the rear, his XVIth Army, would be covered by the XIIth – but this had already been weakened to draw forces for use against Wrangel. The way to Tukhachevsky’s rear armies lay exposed and undefended.
On 11th August Glavkom ordered Yegorov to break off the Lwów operations (Shaposhnikov’s suggested ‘feint’) in which the 1st Cavalry Army was engaged and swing his effort towards Lublin.”
Kamenev began to worry more at this stage:
“It was only in the second week of August that Kamenev proposed moving the Konarmiia towards Warsaw. On 10 August Kamenev expressed concern to Tukhachevskii that operations at Warsaw were not proceeding as he would have liked. Kamenev was especially alarmed that Tukhachevskii was sending three of his armies to the north of Warsaw, leaving only the relatively weak XVI (Sixteenth) Army facing the Polish capital directly from the east. Kamenev now feared that in attempting to outflank the Poles from the north, Tukhachevskii might be struck a blow in the flank and the rear from the south.” [208]
Undoubtedly this change in orders – from attacking Lwów to moving against Lublin – rattled Yegorov, who “argued” against this change. Kamenev was far from clear, he was “very tentative”:
“Yegorov began to argue. He submitted that Timoshenko’s 6th Cavalry Division (the best in the 1st Cavalry Army) should be sent against Wrangel and the XIVth Army could relieve the 1st Cavalry. Kamenev had put the whole question in a very tentative way to Yegorov, but Tukhachevsky would not agree with the proposed modifications, demanding control over the south-western forces.. The 1st Cavalry Army, having been withdrawn from action, had meanwhile been re-committed to heavy fighting near Brody, where it found itself in the thick of a prodigious battle against stubborn Polish defence.” [209]
Only on the 13th August did Glavkom send an “unmistakable order to Yegorov” which, “demanded that Yegorov and Budyenny’s troops pass to Tukhachevsky’s control.”
On the 14th Yegorov transmitted this order to Budyenny, having been hampered by deciphering delays.
On the 15th August:
“Tukhachevsky signalled to Budyenny of the Ist Cavalry Army and Voskanov of the XIIth Army that they were to begin moves designed to co-ordinate them expressly with Tukhachevsky’s plans. Budyenny at once queried the validity of this order. By a quirk of fate the order carried only Tukhachevsky’s signature since it was a copy of the original despatched in error. With only a single signature the order was not valid. The confirmation which Budyenny inevitably demanded arrived only on 17th, by which time the 1st Cavalry was deeply committed to new engagements for the capture of Lwów, having resumed its action on 16th. Not until 20th could it be extricated…” [210]
“Stalin had very definitely opposed the order to come under Tukhachevsky, insisting that such a transfer only held things up and inevitably meant an unnecessary, harmful hitch in the operations. The operations’ signified the capture of Lwów and the 1st Cavalry command developing its own military-political campaign in Eastern Poland.” [211]
At this point Tukhachevsky moved his troops North to attempt encircling Warsaw. Although the Red Army pressed the Polish troops led by General Sikorski hard, the Polish counter-attack moved into the gap we saw earlier.
On the 16th August the Ist Cavalry Army was “many miles from the scene of the decisive operations.” The Polish General Sikorski was in danger of being taken in the rear.
But by the 18th August the die was cast:
“Tukhachevsky’s left wing was rolled away under the Polish blows. The XVIth Red army, attacked in flank and rear, already weakened to the point of being skeletal, fell back in utter disorder. The IVth Red army, trapped in the north, received its orders much too late. The dilapidated state of rail communications deprived Tukhachevsky of the chance to bring up 50,000 reinforcements. Only on 20th did Budyenny tear himself away from Lwów and turn in the direction of Lublin. It was, by this time, much too late. By 21st Pilsudski struck deadly blows at the XVIth, the IlIrd and XVth Red armies. The IVth was trapped beyond hope, some of its elements being forced over the German frontier into internment. Sikorski on 12th September launched his offensive which recovered Rovno and Tarnopol; on 20th Pilsudski hammered the IIIrd Red army into pieces, taking Grodno on 26th.” [212]
“To the south Budyenny had to fight his way out of threatened encirclement, all the while harassed by enemy aircraft and shelled ceaselessly by Polish guns. The tardy move to support the Warsaw operation had been completely abortive. Both Soviet cavalry forces — Budenny’s 1st Army and Gai’s 3rd Corps —had to cut their way out. Only Budenny finally succeeded, although Gai, imprisoned in the northern passage, fought skilfully and tenaciously in order to stave off defeat and surrender. By this time, however, the demoralised Red armies streamed back across the lines which had been so furiously contested.” [213]
This time narrative is confirmed by even the most pro-Polish recent historians, for example:
“Considering also that until at least 15 August the Bolsheviks were completely confident of the Western Front’s taking Warsaw in any event, the decision to send two armies of the Southwestern Front against the city, and thus to stop the advance into Galicia, could only be interpreted by these armies as a monumental error. Preventing the Cavalry Army from taking Lwów seemed especially injurious. Bolshevik troops in East Galicia would then certainly lose the initiative and be forced to switch to the defensive. At the same time, given that Budennyi’s army had to rest until 14 August, and that the projected capture of Warsaw by the Western Front was scheduled for 16 August, it was obvious that his cavalry would be too late to help Tukhachevskii. Therefore, it was not only Stalin but also the commander of the Southwestern Front, Aleksandr I. Egorov, as well as Budennyi himself, who vehemently opposed the decision. A direct communication link between the Western Front command and the Cavalry Army was not established until as late as 14 August. Then, when Tukhachevskii’s order to move on Warsaw finally arrived, it lacked the requisite countersignature of the front commissar, which was enough for Budennyi to disregard it. At long last, having received a properly signed order, the Cavalry Army reluctantly left the outskirts of Lwów on 20 August. By then, the crucial Battle of Warsaw had already been decided.” [214]
Historians lay the blame for defeat
In the view of the authors of the “Short Course of the History of the CPSU(B)”, the defeat was unequivocally due to the poor leadership of Trotsky and Tukhachevsky:
“But success was frustrated by the suspicious actions of Trotsky and his followers at the General Headquarters of the Red Army. Through the fault of Trotsky and Tukhachevsky, the advance of the Red troops on the Western Front, towards Warsaw, proceeded in an absolutely unorganized manner: the troops were allowed no opportunity to consolidate the positions that they won, the advance detachments were led too far ahead, while reserves and ammunition were left too far in the rear. As a result, the advance detachments were left without ammunition and reserves and the front was stretched out endlessly. This made it easy to force a breach in the front. The result was that when a small force of Poles broke through our Western Front at one point, our troops, left without ammunition, were obliged to retreat. As regards the troops on the Southern Front, who had reached the gates of Lvov and were pressing the Poles hard, they were forbidden by Trotsky, that ill-famed “chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council,” to capture Lvov. He ordered the transfer of the Mounted Army, the main force on the Southern Front, far to the north-east. This was done on the pretext of helping the Western Front, although it was not difficult to see that the best, and in fact only possible, way of helping the Western Front was to capture Lvov. But the withdrawal of the Mounted Army from the Southern Front, its departure from Lvov, virtually meant the retreat of our forces on the Southern Front as well. This wrecker’s order issued by Trotsky thus forced upon our troops on the Southern Front an incomprehensible and absolutely unjustified retreat—to the joy of the Polish gentry. This was giving direct assistance, indeed—not to our Western Front, however, but to the Polish gentry and the Entente.” [215]
Of course, the Short Course was designed to be a study guide for cadre in the CPSU(B), to ensure a baseline understanding. [216]
It is interesting then that in broad terms modern military historians – academics at Western bourgeois universities – largely agree. They do not dwell too much on Trotsky. But they do largely hold Kamenev and Tukhachevsky as the primary responsible people for the Soviet defeat. They include for example, the historian Norman Davies; John Ericson – a military historian, who had debriefed many USSR commanders;[217] and Evan Mawdsley – perhaps the first military historian of the Soviet Command in the West.
While the two leaders (Kamenev and Tukhachevsky) disagreed about how to deal with the infamous gap between the two fronts – there is little doubt that:
“The Glavkom had shown itself to be singularly confused in its approach to the problem of two fronts and their coordination for the final action:” [218]
Much later on both rejected criticisms of military strategists for their conducts. Long after the Polish-Soviet War, Tukhachevsky always continued to “insist that the export of revolution was feasible”.[219] Tukhachevsky was undoubtedly an “exporter” of revolution:
“Tukhachevskii, the youthful and ambitious commander of the Red Army’s West Front. On 2 July Tukhachevskii told his soldiers:
‘Turn your eyes to the West. In the West the fate of the World Revolution is being decided. Over the corpse of White Poland lies the road to World Conflagration.’” [220]
According to Ericson, Tukhachevsky took “risks which lacked a “uniform calculation”:
“While criticising considerable mal-administration in the Western command — failure to move reserves, feebleness of technical means — Tukhachevsky in conclusion insisted that the export of revolution was feasible, and next time the bourgeoisie might not find so automatic a salvation and so easy an escape from the Bolshevisation of Europe. Tukhachevsky took risks which lacked uniform calculation; his sweep to the north (in the style of the Imperial Russian Army’s movement in the 1830 Polish Rising) had given rise to misgivings among the high command as a whole. The IVth Red army and Gai’s 3rd Corps lay stretched upon a dangerous limb. Yet perhaps the greatest weakness was in his rear, which was an ill-assorted jumble of peasant-carts, ammunition trains, artillery parks and straining locomotives. With an improvised army, with wide variances of divisional strengths — falling as low as 500 men — Tukhachevsky’s 95,000 effectives advanced 550 kilometres and occupied 190,000 square kilometres of territory.” [221]
The threat from Wrangel’s forces simply cannot be underplayed. The decision to rob the Fronts of men in order to defend against Wrangel in the South was “remarkable”. It could have been possible to move men from the center how were “immobilized”, thinks Erickson:
“It is all the more remarkable that reinforcement against Wrangel had to come from a heavily committed front when the Red Army numbered over 5,000,000. On the two decisive fronts, Western and South-western, 360,000 and 221,000 men respectively were mobilised, the combined 581,000 representing only 10 per cent of the total Soviet military strength. At the decisive point only 50,000 men could be mustered, and that with difficulty. In fact the true Red Army which lay at the disposal of the command was made up of only 7-800,000 men out of 5,500,000 mobilised. A basic force of 4-500,000 riflemen was available, on paper at least, for operational use. Taking the figures for 1st October 1920, of 5,498,000 ‘mouths to be fed’ (ration strength), there were 2,587,000 men clustered in the reserve armies, which meant that half of the total strength lay immobilised in the interior. Putting 159,000 men into the line on two active fronts proved to be a task of almost overwhelming proportions for the multi-million army.” [222]
Yet the need to turn to the defensive was “obvious”:
“With the Soviet armies turning to the defensive in the face of the Polish successes in their counter-offensive, it was obvious that the main weight of the Soviet military effort would be switched to the south in order to accomplish the destruction of Wrangel. By examining the course of the efforts to contain and finally destroy Wrangel, it is possible to look a little more closely at the proofs of those arguments which saw in Wrangel that final straw which broke the back of the whole Red Army drive on Warsaw — a secondary yet urgent military commitment which could not be ignored. It helps to clarify the admittedly awkward predicament in which the South-western Front command found itself, faced with this considerable responsibility of holding Wrangel in check.” [223]
The Wrangel operations had such impact on the Polish war, that they were a “decisive factor in their own right”:
“The Wrangel operations, beginning with the June raid, his successful offensive and the July-August crises which he thrust upon the Southwestern Front command, would appear to have had such direct and indirect influence upon the formulation of Soviet strategic intentions that it would not be unjust to regard them as a decisive factor in their own right. Even when Wrangel’s troops were diluted with raw recruits, and the crack units were more thinly spread, the strain of containing him placed the Soviet command in an unenviable position regarding their own reserves. The South-western Front command was burdened with a divided strategic assignment, for sufficient troops were not available to set up the separate anti-Wrangel front which ultimately brought him to heel. Even that frenzied and savage phase, not without its moments of crisis, reflected on the reinforcement and equipment problems which plagued the Red Army Field Staff and front commands.” [224]
Wrangel was only defeated by October and aided considerably by the final peace settlement:
“Throughout September the Soviet forces were strengthened against Wrangel, while the issue of peace or further war between Poland and Soviet Russia hung in the balance. The provisional peace treaty which the Poles and Russians signed on 12th October marked the death of Wrangel’s hopes and signalled the beginning of the end.The Russo-Polish provisional agreement of 12th October had not been gained without heavy resistance to it by interested parties on both sides wishing for a renewal of war.” [225]
Trotsky’s attack on Stalin
Trotsky explained the military disaster by simply – if conveniently – ascribing it all to Stalin.
Apparently – by Trotsky’s account – Stalin just did not want to allow Tukhachevsky glory. Or if he were to have some by entering Warsaw, he (Stalin) would gain some by entering Lwów at the same time. Moreover it was not only Stalin, but also Voroshilov and the “illiterate Budyonny” – who did not want to:
“Watch Tukhachevsky’s triumph at Warsaw, not to be overshadowed by the success of Tukhachevsky’s political officer Smilga; Stalin wanted at any cost to enter Lwów at the same time that Smilga and Tukhachevsky were to enter Warsaw… Trotsky said:
“Stalin was waging his own war’: When the danger to Tukhachevsky’s army became clearly evident and the Commander-in-Chief ordered the South-Western Front to shift its direction towards Zamosc-Tomaszew.. The command of the South-western Front, encouraged by Stalin, continued to move to the west. For 3 or 4 days our General Staff could not secure the persecution of this order. Only after repeated demands reinforced by threats did the South-Western Command change direction, but by then the delay had already played its fatal role. On 16 August, the Poles took the counter-offensive and forced our troops to roll back… If Stalin and Voroshilov and the illiterate Budyenny had not had their war in Galicia and the Red Cavalry had been at Lublin in time, the Red Army would not have suffered the disaster.” [226]
Trotsky had long and unfairly – disparaged Budyenny:
“Trotsky, typically, was condescending: after visiting the cavalry force, the war commissar called it a “horde” with “an Ataman ringleader”, adding “where he leads his gang, they will go for the Reds today, tomorrow for the Whites”. But Budyenny and his army, formed to counter the Whites’ devastating Cossack cavalry, had pushed Denikin’s forces into the sea at Novorissiysk in the southeast in February 1920”. [227]
Davies’s own conclusion was that it was “unfortunate” that “Trotsky’s allegations can only be checked against the counter-allegations of the Stalinists”. Their “sole purpose was to shift the blame back on Trotsky.” [228]
But even while taking this somewhat agnostic position – Davies points out that “if one returns to the position as it stood in the second week of August, starting with the realities of the military situation”, [229] then the situation of Stalin is understandable.
Davies in fact lays primary responsibility for the debacle upon the Politburo, and on Kamenev’s “vacillations”. Davies also points out the background where the responsibility for stopping Wrangel was laid on Stalin and Yegorov – but without giving them adequate troops. Trotsky and his deputy Sklyanvsky had given “no response” to Stalin’s intercessions:
“The ‘separatism’ of the South Western Command is not hard to understand. It had emerged during the Civil War in the Ukraine and had little interest in an invasion of Poland. Its leaders, Yegorov and Stalin based at Alexandrovsk, were both of the opinion that the defence of Russia should have priority over an adventure into Europe. They were responsible for the operations against Wrangel in the Crimea and for defending the Rumanian border., They were increasingly embarrassed by the Galician campaign whose constant Western progress threatened their overall cohesion. They were busy enough elsewhere without having to join in the battle for Warsaw. They had received little consideration from the Supreme Command for months past, especially with regard to requests for reinforcement, all of which seems to be earmarked for Tukhachevsky. Stalin’s intercession at the highest level, with Trotsky and Sklyanvsky, aroused no response.” [230]
As for the Politburo and Kamenev – Davies is pretty scathing:
“The catastrophic attempt of the Bolshevik leadership to harmonize the conflicting interests of the Western and the South Western Front. On 2 September, the Politburo decided to divide the South Western Front in two. The XII Army and the Konarmiya were to pass under the orders of the Western Command, making a unified offensive front against Poland, while the XIII Army and the XIV Army were to pass under the orders of a new southern command, making a unified defensive front in the Ukraine. Stalin was to supervise the operation. The Politburo’s decision was prompted by an earlier undertaking to unify the Western Front… and was passed to … Kamenev on 5 August. No date was set for its execution. Kamenev’s vacillation during the next ten days turned a straight-forward problem into a major crisis.” [231]
The dates show Kamenev’s tortured “vacillations”.
In summary:
On 8 August Kamenev told Tukhachevsky his request was “out of the question”.
On 11 August he consulted the South Western Command about the feasibility of transfer.
On 12 August he ordered the transfer of the XII Army – but not the Konarmiya.
On 13 August he rejected Tukhachevsky ’s protests by saying on a direct line to him that “it just as important to liquidate Wrangel as to settle your problem”.
But the same day later he issued Order No. 4774/1052 to pass both the XII Army and the Konarmiya command to Tukhachevsky from the next day. [232]
Evan Mawdsley has a similar analysis – again an important stress is laid on the time factors”
“It is true that Stalin behaved high-handedly. … For this (refusal) he was recalled and apparently censured and it was the last act of his checkered front-line career. But the real blame lies elsewhere. By 13 August Ist Cavalry Army was already locked into an attack on Lwów and 150 miles from where it would have needed to be to influence the Polish counter-offensive that began 3 days later. The fatal decision had been made on 23 July when Main Commander-in-Chief Kamenev ordered South Western Army to thrust not Northwest to Brest but Southwest to Lwów. This made strategic sense; it would split the Poles, pushing their Southern forces towards the Carpathians. But enemy resistance made it impossible for the Reds to quickly achieve this goal.” [233]
Moreover Davies points out that the Order 4774/1052 was:
“issued as a precautionary measure, not as a matter of urgency. It was not issued as a countermove to Pilsudski’s concentration on the Wieprz, which at that time was not know either to Kamenev or to Tukhachevsky. It brought the disgruntlement of the South Western Command to boiling point. It was the 3rd cable which Yegorov and Stalin had received that day from Kamenev… Stalin sent an angry rebuff to Kamenev.. “your order needlessly frustrates the operations of the South Western Front, which has already commenced its advance. This order should have been issued 3 days ago when the Konarmiya was in reserve or else should have been postponed until Lwów had fallen.” Meanwhile Yegorov had to obey… By 14 August the XII Army and the Konarmiya were now Tukhachevsky’s concern… Yegorov and Stalin washed their hands and turned their thoughts to the Crimea.” [234]
But there is another very important reason for Stalin’s refusal to accept the orders as given. He had been instructed by Lenin to attend to Wrangel.
The real explanation for Stalin’s insubordination
We have seen Trotsky’s explanations, and the views of historians who counter Trotskys’ simplifications. We also saw that Davies expresses the quandry:
“The behaviour of the South-Western command has never been satisfactorily explained.” [235]
Other historians also paint the competing pictures of “speculation” underlying “Stalin’s insubordination”:
“There has been no shortage of speculation as to Stalin’s motives for his celebrated act of insubordination. Leon Trotsky, the Soviet government’s Commissar for War, took the view that Stalin was desperate to be credited with the capture of Lwów as a counter to the plaudits Tukhachevskii would receive for occupying Warsaw. Other commentators have pointed to the fact that the South-West Front was responsible not only for the attack on Lwów but for operations against Baron Wrangel’s White Army based in the Crimea. According to Semen Budennyi, commander of the Konarmiia, Stalin was determined to retain control of the Red cavalry to use it in the war against Wrangel.” [236]
Brown also points out that Lenin specifically – on the same day as Kamenev’s order to send the Konarmiia North – sent Stalin an order to take care of the Crimea and Wrangel:
“The most puzzling aspect of Stalin’s insubordination is the role played in it by Lenin, the Soviet leader. On 11 August 1920, the very day that Kamenev ordered the South-West Front to send the Konarmiia northwards towards Warsaw, Lenin dispatched a signal of his own to Stalin. Lenin reported that the Poles had been advised by Britain to accept Soviet peace terms and urged Stalin to focus his attention on the Crimea. According to Lenin:
“Our victory is great and will be greater still if we defeat Wrangel. Here we are taking every possible measure. Make every effort to take all of the Crimea with an immediate blow whatever the cost. Everything depends on this.” [237]
Brown argues that the “interference” of Lenin and “insubordination” of Stalin is explained by a determination to win against both Poland and Wrangel – but this proved impossible:
“If Lenin were committed to the invasion of Poland in the summer of 1920, his undermining of Kamenev’s orders to the South-West Front would suggest, at the very least, great confusion within Soviet leadership at the height of the Battle of Warsaw. How is the behaviour of Lenin to be explained? … The interference of Lenin and insubordination of Stalin in mid-August 1920 can only be explained once it is realised that Soviet leaders were hoping to achieve a more-or- less simultaneous victory over Poland and Wrangel. Fighting a war on two fronts proved beyond both the resources of the Red Army and the management abilities of the Red command and culminated in the debacle at Warsaw in mid-August 1920.”[238]
Meanwhile Brown argues that Stalin was adhering to Lenin’s telegram instructions to deal with Wrangel:
“Stalin’s act of insubordination is not difficult to explain. On 11 August Stalin received the crucial signal from Lenin which directly contradicted Kamenev’s latest instructions. Lenin proclaimed a great Soviet victory at Warsaw and urged Stalin to concentrate his efforts on Wrangel. If victory over the Poles were assured, as Lenin’s telegram claimed, what need did Tukhachevskii have for the Konarmiia at Warsaw? Meanwhile there were urgent tasks for the Red cavalry to perform elsewhere, at L’vov and in the Crimea.” [239]
Only one day later, on the 12th August did Lenin appreciate the true disaster unfolding in Warsaw. He “instructed Trotsky to take measures to compensate Tukhachevsky for the absence of the Konarmiia”:
“Lenin sent a terse message to Trotsky noting that ‘if Budennyi is going to the south, then it is necessary to reinforce the north’. In other words, if the Konarmiia were to be sent to the Crimea, more soldiers would have to be found to help out at Warsaw.” [240]
As Brown puts it:
“…there can be no doubt that, in Stalin’s mind, Lenin’s orders had to take precedence. Stalin had long distrusted Kamenev, not just because he was a former tsarist officer but as a consequence of earlier conflicts over strategy and resources. In July 1920, Stalin had called for the removal of Kamenev from the post of Commander-in-Chief on the grounds that he ‘fluctuates between extreme optimism and extreme pessimism, gets in everyone’s way and confuses the front commander’. Kamenev’s last minute change of mind on the matter of the Konarmiia’s deployment could only have confirmed Stalin in his view that the Commander-in-Chief was, at the very least, incompetent, and, quite possibly, disloyal. Stalin would continue to defy Kamenev until17 August 1920 when Lenin brought an end to the impasse by recalling his protege to Moscow for urgent talks.” [241]
“Stalin was plainly insubordinate but his actions were caused not by his vanity and ambition, as Trotsky once argued, but by contradictory instructions emanating from Moscow.” [242]
Brown’s conclusion is simple:
“In the summer of 1920 Soviet leaders committed one of the oldest mistakes in the book of military failure, choosing to fight an aggressive war on two fronts. It was not conflict between Soviet politicians and soldiers that lay behind the Red Army’s humiliation in the Battle of Warsaw but a flawed strategy to which both groups had agreed. Kamenev acknowledged the failure of Red military strategy when, on 12 October, he concluded that: simultaneous struggle with Poland and Wrangel has not given us success; what is needed is a decisive massing of men and material against one of these enemies, and it should be against Wrangel, in view of the general situation.” [243]
Another historian writes:
“A close analysis of the relevant documents, however, reveals that it was Tukhachevsky who first disobeyed directives, and his moving of troops deep into Polish territory was an “independent decision” on his part. Moreover… Stalin’s refusal to obey a Glavkom directive was not, at the same time, a violation of Party discipline, as has been assumed by Western and Soviet writers alike; on the contrary, his refusal to send the Cavalry Army to the north to aid Tukhachevsky was in conformity with the wishes of Lenin.” [244]
Summary of Part One
The export of revolution is an anti-Marxist-Leninist concept in general. As it played out in the Polish-Soviet war, it was not a theory, it was a wishful hope. The story of Polish-Soviet relations will be resumed in Part Two, leading up to the tragic story of the Warsaw Uprising. Part Three of this report will discuss the making of the post-Second World War People’s Democracy in Poland.
Endnotes
[1] Compiled by Michael Klein, “An essay and guide to a series of ten pictorial wall maps produced to illustrate the military successes of The Red Army in the Russian Civil War of 1917 to 1922”; Washington 2017; at https://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/pdf/ruscw/ruscwmaps.html
[2] Klein Ibid, at: https://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/pdf/ruscw/map00essay.pdf
[3] David M. Glantz; “The Red Army’s Lublin-Brest Offensive and Advance
on Warsaw (18 July–30 September 1944): An Overview and Documentary Survey”: Journal of Slavic Military Studies; 2006;19:2, 401-441
[4] This expands a prior article, “Trotsky, Stalin and The Red Army – Civil War In The USSR”; Alliance ML; 2004: Volume 2: Issue 1; at http://ml-review.ca/aml/PAPER/2004/REDARMY.html
[5] Norman Davies, “White Eagle, Red Star“ London 2003; p.29
[6] Editors of The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica; “Partitions of Poland – Polish history”; 2022 version; at: https://www.britannica.com/event/Partitions-of-Poland
[7] Engels, Frederick, “For Poland” Speech 24 March, 1875; at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/03/24.htm
[8] Friedrich Engels,”The Frankfurt Assembly Debates the Polish Question”;
7, 11 & 19 August 1848; Neue Rheinische Zeitung, No. 81, August 20, 1848 – III; at:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/08/09.htm
[9] Engels 1848 Ibid; https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/08/09.htm
[10] http://ml-review.ca/aml/CommunistLeague/RevinGermany-pt1.htm
[11] Norman Davies, “White Eagle, Red Star”; London; 2003; p.19.
[12] Davies, 2003 Ibid; p.19
[13] Davies, Ibid; p. 35
[14] Smele, Jonathan D, Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926, Rowman & Littlefield Lanham MD, 2015.; p.19
[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_Poland
[16] CPSU(B): History of the CPSU(B) – Short Course; New York 1939; Chapter Eight: 4. Polish Gentry Attack Soviet Russia.” Or at https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch08.htm#4.
[17] Evan Mawdsley, “The Russian Civil War”; New York; 2005; p.257
[18] Stephen Kotkin, “Paradoxes of Power; Volume 1 Stalin“; New York; 2014; p. 352.
[19] Smeme, J.D. “The “Russian” Civil Wars, 1916-1926: Ten Years That Shook the World”; 2016; p. 153; and M. K. Dziewanowski, “Joseph Piłsudski, The Bolshevik Revolution And Eastern Europe”; The Polish Review , Autumn, 1969, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Autumn, 1969), pp. 14-31
[20] “Short History of the CPSU(B)”: Ibid; p.215;
[21] “Short History of the CPSU(B)”: Ibid; p.215;
[22] “Short History of the CPSUB“; Ibid; p.216.
[23] “Short History of the CPSUB“; Ibid; p. 216.
[24] Short History of the CPSUB“; Ibid p. 217.
[25] “Short History of the CPSUB“; p. 217.
[26] “Short History of the CPSUB“; Ibid; p.218; citing Lenin, Collected Works, Russ. ed., Vol. XXII, p. 288.
[27] Smele, Jonathan D.. Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham MD, 2015; p. 13
[28] Smele JD 2015; Ibid; p.13
[29] “Short History of the CPSUB“; Ibid; p. 219
[30] https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch08.htm
[31]“Short history of the CPSU(B)”; “2. Defeat Of Germany In The War. Revolution In Germany. Founding Of The Third International. Eighth Party Congress”; at: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch08.htm
[32] M. K. Dziewanowski, “Joseph Piłsudski”; The Polish Review , Autumn, 1969
[33] Bland W.B. “The Hungarian “Soviet Republic” Of 1919“; London 1978 at: https://ml-review.ca/aml/CommunistLeague/hungary-CL78.htm
[34] Bland W.B. For Cl: “Revisionism In Germany Part One: To 1922“; London 1977; citing V. I. Lenin: “Left-wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder”, in: “Selected Works”., Volume 10; London; 1946; p. 98; at: http://ml-review.ca/aml/CommunistLeague/RevinGermany-pt1.htm
[35] D. Groener-Geyer: “General Groener: Soldat und Staatsmann”; Frankfurt; 195,5; p. 190-201; Cited Bland 1977; Ibid.
[36] J.P. Nettle: “Rosa Luxemburg”, Volume 2; London; 1966; p.780; cited Bland 1977; Ibid.
[37] Davies Ibid; p.25-28
[38] Davies Ibid p.47
[39] Davies Ibid; p.73
[40] Trotsky, as cited in M. K. Dziewanowski, The Polish Review 1969, Ibid;
quoting W. H. Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution, New York, 1935, II, p. 122.
[41] Borzecki, Jerzy. The Soviet-Polish Peace of 1921 and the Creation of Interwar Europe, Yale University Press, 2008. p. 48
[42] Norman Davies, “White Eagle”; p.69
[43] Norman Davies, “White Eagle”; p.69
[44] Borzecki Ibid; p. 48
[45] Norman Davis; Ibid; p.68, 70-71
[46] Davies; Ibid; p. 70
[47] History Of The Communist Party Of The Soviet Union (Bolsheviks); Chapter Eight “The Bolshevik Party In The Period Of Foreign Military Intervention And Civil War (1918 – 1920) 1. Beginning Of Foreign Military Intervention; at: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch08.htm
[48] J.V.Stalin, “The Entente’s new campaign against Russia”; May 25 and 26, 1920; Works, Vol. 4, FLPH 1953. At: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1920/05/25.htm
[49] Editors: A Commission of the CC of the CPSU(B); “A Short History of the Communist Party Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)”; Moscow; 1939; p.208.
[50] “Short History CPSU(B)”; Ibid; p. 209
[51] Footnote no.3; Ibid; Meijer; p. 7
[52] von Hagen, Mark: “Soldiers in the Proletarian Dictatorship. The Red Army & The Soviet socialist state 1917-1930”; Ithaca 1990; p.9.
[53] von Hagen; Ibid p.21-22
[54] von Hagen, Mark; Ibid 1990; p.52-3
[55] Von Hagen, Mark: “Soldiers in the Proletarian Dictatorship. The Red Army & The Soviet socialist state 1917-1930”; Ithaca 1990; p. 64.
[56] Smele, Jonathan D.. Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham MD, 2015; p. 36
[57] Matitiahu Mayzel; “The Formation of the Russian General Staff. 1880-1917. A Social; Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique, Vol. 16, No. 3/4; 1975; pp. 297-321
[58] Smele, Jonathan D; Ibid 2015; p. 37
[59] Smele, Jonathan D; Ibid 2015; p. 36
[60] Smele, Jonathan D; Ibid 2015; p. 37
[61] Von Hagen Ibid; p. 37
[62] Von Hagen; Ibid; p. 37.
[63] Von Hagen Ibid; p. 38
[64] Message Trotsky to Lenin; in Meijer J.M. Editor, “The Trotsky Papers 1917-1922”; Hague 1964; p. 81; Volume 1
[65] Meijer Ibid; p. 83
[66] Message Lenin to Trotsky; in Meijer Ibid; p. 91.
[67] Letter to the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party by Trotsky of December 25th 1918; in Meijer Volume 1 Ibid; Document 115; p. 205-209
[68] See Meijer Ibid; “Kamensky In 1920-1921 he was an adherent of “democratic centralizm” and subsequently of the Trotskyite opposition, which he left in 1926”; p.208
[69] Lenin V.I., “Theses On The Current Situation”, of 26 May 1918; Collected Works, Moscow, 1972 Vol 27, pages 406-407.
[70] Smele, Jonathan D; Ibid 2015; p. 38
[71] Smele, Jonathan D; Ibid 2015; p. 38-39
[72] Sayers M & Kahn AE; The Great Conspiracy”; Boston; 1946; p.79.
[73] Smele, Jonathan D; Ibid; 2015. p.26-27.
[74] Smele, Jonathan D; 2015 Ibid; p. 27
[75] Smele, Jonathan D.; Ibid 2015; p. 29
[76] Meijer J.M. Editor & Annotator, “The Trotsky Papers 1917-1922”; Hague 1964; p. 43
[77] von Hagen Ibid p. 39
[78] Meijer J.M; Ibid; footnote No 1 p. 49
[79] Alexandrov GF et al: “Joseph Stalin – A Short Biography”; Moscow 1952; pp. 60-61
[80] Short History CPSU(B) p.227-8
[81] “Short History CPSU(B)”; Ibid; p.227-8; 228-229
[82] Stalin JV: Telegram to V.I.Lenin; Dated June 7th, 1918; In “Works”; Volume 4; p. 118-119; Moscow 1953.
[83] Letter to Lenin dated August 4th 1918; Works Stalin; Ibid; p. 126.
[84] July 10th: Stalin JV: Letter to V.I.Lenin; in Works Volume 4; Ibid p. 123.
[85] Stalin ‘Works’; Volume 7 Telegram to Council of Peoples Commissars; Volume 4; p. 131
[86] Meijer Ibid footnote 6; p.49
[87] Message to Trotsky 7th June 1918; Meijer Ibid; p. 47
[88] Stalin JV: “The Southern Front. Izvestia Interview”; September 21 1918; Volume 4; Ibid; p. 133-5.
[89] Trotsky “My Life”; p.443; Note Trotsky to Lenin 4.10.1918; in Meijer Ibid; p. 135-137
[90] Alexandrov Ibid; p. 61
[91] Meijer Ibid; p. 48
[92] Attributed by different sources to either Lenin or Sverdlow: Communication to Trotsky 23.10.1918; In Meijer Ibid; p. 159-161
[93] Telegram to Trotsky from Lenin 24 October 1918
[94] See Telegram Trotsky to Lenin 25 October 1918; Meijer Ibid; p. 163
[95] Memorandum to Lenin; copied to Krasin and Serpuchov; November 29, 1918; In Meijer Ibid; p. 187-191; p. 193.
[96] Egorov A to Lenin, cc Trotsky: Meijer Ibid; p. 90-97.
[97] Lenin To Trotsky; in Meijer Ibid; 13th December 1918; 14th December 1918; Pages 195; 197
[98] Telegram to Trotsky & Kozlov; In Meijer Ibid; p. 229.
[99] Telegram Trotsky to Lenin: January 1, 1919; in Meijer Ibid; p. 229-31.
[100] Stalin JV & Dzerzhinsky F: Letter to V.I.Lenin From the Eastern Front”; January 5th 1919. Works; Volume 4; 190-193.
[101] Telegram Lenin to Trotsky; 3 January 191; in Meijer Ibid; p. 237
[102] January 11th 1919 Telegram to Lenin: In Meijer Ibid; p. 251
[103] Stalin, “Report to Lenin“; Works Volume 4; pp.194-199; & J.V.S. “Report to Comrade Lenin by the Commission of the party CC and the Council of Defence on the reasons for the fall of Perm”; December 1918; Works Vol 4 p 202-232.
[104] The Commission: Stalin & Dzerzhinsky; Report to Comrade Lenin by the Commission of the Party CC and the Council of defence “On the Reasons for the Fall of Perm’ December 1918; ibid Volume 4
[105] Lenin in Meijer Ibid: Volume 2: number 444 of documents; pp 21-22.
[106] Lenin, in Meijer, Ibid; Volume 2; Document 445; p. 23.
[107] Lenin and Trotsky; Document 446. Meijer Ibid; Volume 2; p. 26-27.
[108] Document 447; In Meijer Ibid; p, 27
[109] Document 448; Ibid; p.29
[110] Short History of the CPSU(B); Ibid; p. 234-5
[111] von Hagen Ibid; p. 55
[112] von Hagen Ibid; p. 65.
[113] von Hagen Ibid; p. 59
[114] J. V. Stalin, Excerpt From A Speech On The Military Question Delivered At The Eighth Congress Of The R.C.P.(B.). Works; Vol. 4, pp. 258-59. Moscow, 1953; or at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Stalin/SPQ19.html
[115] Short History of the CPSU(B); Ibid; p. 235
[116] “Minutes of Meeting of the CC, RCP (Bolsheviks); new convocation held on 25th March 1919: Present Comrades, Lenin, Zinoviev, Krestinskji, Bukharin, Stalin, Tomski, Kamenev, Dzerinskji, Beleborodov, Muranov, Evdokimo, Serebrjakov, Stasova”; In Meijer Ibid; p. 319-321.
[117] In Meijer Ibid; p. 325-335
[118] Stalin JV; “Short History of the CPSU(B)”; “3. Extension Of Intervention. Blockade Of The Soviet Country. Kolchak’s Campaign And Defeat. Denikin’s Campaign And Defeat. A Three-Months’ Respite. Ninth Party Congress”; at: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch08.htm
[119] Speech Delivered at the First All-Russia Congress of Working Cossacks[1] March 1, 1920; Lenin’s Collected Works, Moscow, 1965, Volume 30, page 380-400 https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/mar/01.htm
[120] Jane Degras “Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy” Selected & Edited; Volume 1, 1917-1924; London 1951
[121] Degras, J, “Soviet Documents” 1951; Ibid; p.184; 186; 189; 194
[122] Smeme JD 2016; Ibid; p. 155
[123] Richard Pipes, “The Unknown Lenin”; Yale 1996; Document 43, ‘Telegram to Stalin’; p.78
[124] James M. McCann Beyond the Bug: Soviet Historiography of the Soviet-Polish War of 1920”; Soviet Studies , Oct., 1984, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Oct., 1984), pp. 475-493
[125] Smeme, J.D. “The “Russian” Civil Wars, 1916-1926: Ten Years That Shook the World”; 2016; p. 154.
[126] Kotkin S, “Paradox of Power, Stalin Volume 1”; 2014; Ibid, p.354-355
[127] Kotkin S, “Volume 1”; Ibid, p.354; find also at The Trotsky Archive: “Death to the Polish Bourgeoisie”; https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/military/ch18.htm
[128] Borzecki, “The Soviet-Polish Peace of 1921 and the Creation of Interwar Europe”; Yale, 2008;. p.64
[129] Borzecki, Jerzy, Ibid p.66.
[130] Later Trotskyists forgot this event, castigating Stalin for this tactic during World War II.
[131] Borzecki, Jerzy, 2008; Ibid; p.75
[132] Borzecki, Jerzy, “The Soviet-Polish Peace of 1921 and the Creation of Interwar Europe”; Yale, 2008; p.69
[133] Borzecki, Jerzy; Ibid, p.75; citing Trotsky’s Theses 30 April, “The Polish Front and Our Tasks,” April, RGASPI 2/1/13774/2-5. The theses were accepted by Lenin and published on 23 May as the “Theses of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party.” (DiM, vol.3, doc.34, 65-68)
[134] Borzecki, Jerzy; Ibid, p.75
[135] Borzecki, Jerzy; Ibid, 2008; p.72
[136] Borzecki, Jerzy; Ibid, p.75 p. 70
[137] J. V. Stalin, “The Entente’s new campaign against Russia” May 25 and 26, 1920; In Works, Vol. 4, November, 1917 – 1920, Moscow, 1953
[138] Thomas Fiddick, “The “Miracle of the Vistula”: Soviet Policy versus Red Army Strategy” p.266; in Geoffrey Jensen (Ed), “Warfare in Europe 1919–1938” London 2008; Chapter 10; pp.264-280
[139] Fiddick T; Ibid, p. 266
[140] Fiddick Ibid p.273
[141] Stephen Brown, “Lenin, Stalin and the Failure of the Red Army in the Soviet-Polish War of 1920”; War & Society; October 1996, Volume14 (Issue2); p.35-47; Citing: Communist Party archive in Moscow, Rossiiskii tsentr khraneniia i izucheniia dokumentov noveishei istorii, f. 2, op. 1, d. 348
[142] V.I.Lenin, “Speech Delivered at the Ninth All-Russia Conference of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)”, September 22, 1920; Newspaper Report; at:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/sep/22.htm
[143] Pipes, S: “The Unknown Lenin”; Yale 1995; comments by Pipes p.95; and Lenin.V.I.’s Report – “Document 59”; “Political Report of the Central Committee to the 9th All-Russian Communist Party Conference”; 20 September 1920; 97-98
[144] Lenin V.I. in Richard Pipes, “The Unknown Lenin”; Yale 1996; Document 59, p.96-97
[145] Lenin V.I. in Richard Pipes, “The Unknown Lenin”; Yale 1996; Document 59, p.97-98
[146] Lenin in Pipes Ibid Document 59; p.100; 107
[147] Brown, Stephen, 1996 Ibid; citing unpublished parts of Lenin’s speech to the Ninth Party Conference found in /I’Ia proshu zapisyvat’ mensh’e: eto ne dolzhno podat’ v pechat”‘. Vystupleniia V. I. Lenina na XI konferentsii RKP(b) 22 sentiabria 1920g.’, Istoricheskii arkhiv 1, (1992):14-29; and Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, 188-92.
[148] Piotr S. Wandycz, “Soviet-Polish Relations, 1917-1921“;Harvard University Press 1969
Volume 59 of Russian Research Center Studies; Chapter 9
[149] Clara Zetkin, “The Polish War”: in “Reminiscences of Lenin”, January 1924; NYC, 1934; at:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/1924/reminiscences-of-lenin.htm#h04; also see Jane Degras (Ed) Volume 1; Editorial comment p.110
[150] Clara Zetkin, “Reminiscences of Lenin”; January 1924; International Publishers NYC 1934; at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/1924/reminiscences-of-lenin.htm#h04
[151] Lenin in Pipes Ibid Document 59; p.106-7
[152] Lenin in Pipes Ibid Document 59; p.107
[153] Davies, Norman Ibid; p. 141; On Radek; citing Lenin ‘Sochinenie’, XXV 298; 12 June 1920 cited by Wandycz p.205; On Unzslicht Undated telegram ts G.A.S.A. f 48/104
[154] Davies, Norman Ibid; p. 141; On Radek; citing Lenin ‘Sochinenie’, XXV 298; 12 June 1920 cited by Wandycz p.205; On Unzslicht Undated telegram ts G.A.S.A. f 48/104
[155] Norman Davies p.156
[156] Norman Davies, p.158
[157] Davies, Ibid; p. 177
[158] Evan Mawdsley, “The Russian Civil War”; New York; 2005; p.257
[159] Speech by Trotsky; August 1920; Extracts From The Manifesto Of The Second World Congress of The Communist International 8 August 1920; Protokoll, ii, p. 718
Jane Degras “Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy” Selected & Edited; Volume 1 1917-1924; London 1951; p.173 Degras Volume 1.
[160] Davies, Norman; “White Eagle Red Star”; London 2003; p.137-139; citing: Citing ‘Pol’skiy Front i nashi zadachi’, in ‘Kak vooruzhalas’ Revolyutsiya’ II/2, pp/93-97; Another version of essentially the same text with slightly differing language is at: “The Polish Front and our Tasks”; at https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/military/ch20.htm
[161] Stephen Kotkin; Vol 1 “Stalin, Paradox of Power” Ibid; p.354-5
[162] Jan M.Meijer; “Trotsky’s Papers”; Internationaal Instituut Voor Sociale Geschiedenis Amsterdam”: The Hague; Vol 1 1917-1922; Document 399; p.723-726
[163] Meijer; Ibid; Document 411; p.741.
[164] Trotsky, Aug 5, 1919 at Lubny to C.C., R.C.P; Meijer; Ibid; Document 347; pp.621; 625; 627;
[165] Trotsky, “The Polish Front – Talk with a Representative of the Soviet Press”; May 1920; at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/military/ch23.htm
[166] L.Trotsky, “To the Workers, Peasants and All Honourable Citizens of Soviet Russia
and the Soviet Ukraine”; July 20, 1920; https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/military/ch44.htm
[167] L.Trotsky, “By the Chairman of the Revolutionary War Council of the Republic to the Red Forces Fighting against White-Guard Poland, August 14, 1920, No.233”, Moscow; at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/military/ch47.htm
[168] at:https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/military/ch53.htm
[169] J.V.Stalin, “The Entente’s new campaign against Russia”, May 25 and 26, 1920; Works, Vol. 4; Moscow, 1953; at: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1920/05/25.htm
[170] Stalin to Pravda 25-26 May 1920; Vol 4 Ibid; https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1920/05/25.htm
[171] Stalin J.V., “The Situation on the South-Western Front, Ukrainian ROSTA Interview”; June 24, 1920; Works, Vol. 4, Moscow, 1953; at: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1920/06/24.htm
[172] John Erickson, “The Soviet High Command A Military Political History, 1918-1941”; London 2011; p. 99
[173] J.V. Stalin, interview with Roy Howard, March 1936,” Works, Vol. 14; London, 1978. At: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/03/01.htm
[174] Steven Kotkin; Stephen Kotkin, “Paradoxes of Power; Volume 1 Stalin“; New York; 2014; p.356
[175] Ericson 2011; Ibid p. 90
[176] Norman Davies,”White Eagle Red Star”; Ibid; p. 171-712
[177] Ericson 2011 Ibid; p.92
[178] Ericson Ibid p. 92
[179] Ericson Ibid p. 92-3
[180] John Erickson, “The Soviet High Command A Military Political History, 1918-1941”; London 2011; p. 93
[181] Davies Ibid; p. 186.
[182] Stephen Brown, “Lenin, Stalin and the Failure of the Red Army in the Soviet-Polish War of 1920”; Chapter 11; in Geoffrey Jensen (Ed), “Warfare in Europe 1919–1938” London 2008.
[183] Davies Ibid p.211
[184] Davies; Ibid p.211-21.
[185] Redrawn by author and radically simplified from John Erickson, “The Soviet High Command A Military Political History, 1918-1941”; London 2011; p.96).
[186] Ericson 2011, Ibid; p. 88
[187] John Erickson, “The Soviet High Command A Military Political History, 1918-1941”; London 2011; p. 87-88
[188] Davies Ibid; p;186
[189] Davies Ibid p. 209
[190] Mawdsley Ibid p. 258
[191] Ericson Ibid 2011, p. 96
[192] Davies; Ibid; p.209
[193] Ericson Ibid p. 89
[194] Erickson p. 88
[195] Erickson p. 93
[196] Davies; Ibid; p.210
[197] Davies Ibid; p;186
[198] Borzecki, Jerzy. The Soviet-Polish Peace of 1921 and the Creation of Interwar Europe, Yale University Press, 2008; p.81
[199] Borzecki, Jerzy. The Soviet-Polish Peace of 1921 and the Creation of Interwar Europe, Yale University Press, 2008; p.87-88
[200] Brown S, in Chapter 11 Ibid; p.288
[201] Cited by Erickson 2011; Ibid p.89
[202] Geoffrey Swain, “Trotsky”,1st Ed 2006 eBook-2014; London; Routledge, p.126-7
[203] Ericson 2011, Ibid; p. 91
[204] Ericson 2011, Ibid, p. 94
[205] Davies; Ibid p. 212
[206] Ericson 2011, Ibid, p. 94
[207] Ericson 2011, Ibid, p.93
[208] Brown S 2008 Ibid; Chapter 11 p. 290
[209] Ericson 2011; Ibid p.96-97
[210] Ericson 2011; Ibid pp. 96-97
[211] Ericson 2011; Ibid pp. 96-97
[212] Ericson 2011; Ibid pp. 94
[213] Ericson 2011 Ibid; p.99
[214] Borzecki, Jerzy; 2008 Ibid; p. 88
[215] “CPSU(B): History of the CPSU(B), Short Course”; New York 1939; “Chapter Eight: 4. Polish Gentry Attack Soviet Russia”; or at https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch08.htm#4.
[216] Brandenberger, David and Mikhail Zelenov. 2019. “Introduction.” In “Stalin’s Master Narrative: A Critical Edition of the History of the CPSU(B)—Short Course”; New Haven; Yale University Press.
[217] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Erickson_(historian)
[218] Ericson 2011, Ibid, p. 94
[219] Ericson 2011, Ibid, p.100; see also p.108
[220] Stephen Brown, “Lenin, Stalin and the Failure of the Red Army in the Soviet-Polish War of 1920”; Chapter 11; in Jensen (Ed), Ibid, 2008; p.283
[221] Ericson Ibid p. 100
[222] Erickson Ibid 2011; p. 101
[223] Erickson Ibid, p. 102
[224] Erickson Ibid 2011, Ibid, p.107
[225] Erickson Ibid, p.104
[226] Davies Ibid; p.211; citing Trotsky
[227] Steven Kotkin; “Volume 1 Paradoxes of Power”, New York 2014; p.356
[228] Davies Ibid; p.211;
[229] Davies Ibid p.211
[230] Davies; Ibid p. 212.
[231] Davies; Ibid p. 213
[232] Davies, Ibid p.213
[233] Evan Mawdsley, “The Russian Civil War”; New York; 2005; p.257-258
[234] Davies; Ibid; p. 214
[235] Davies; Ibid; p.210
[236] Stephen Brown, “Lenin, Stalin and the Failure of the Red Army in the Soviet-Polish War of 1920”; Chapter 11; in Geoffrey Jensen (Ed), “Warfare in Europe 1919–1938” London 2008; pp.281-293
[237] Brown Stephen 2008 Ibid p. 282; citing N. Azovtsev (ed.), Direktivy komandovaniia frontov krasnoi armii (1917-1922 gg.): Sbornik dokumentov, 4 vols (Moscow: Voennoe izdatel’stvo ministerstva oborony SSSR, 1971-72), 3: 251.
[238] Brown 2008 Ibid; p. 284-5
[239] Brown 2008 Ibid; p. 291
[240] Brown 2008 Ibid; p.291; citing Trotsky Papers, 2: 48
[241] Brown 2008 Ibid; p.292
[242] Brown 2008 Ibid; p.293
[243] Brown 2008 Ibid; p.293
[244] Thomas Fiddick, “The “Miracle of the Vistula”: Soviet Policy versus Red Army Strategy” p.265; in Geoffrey Jensen (Ed), “Warfare in Europe 1919–1938” London 2008; Chapter 10; pp.264-280;
