STALİN AND THE RED ARMY - TSARITSYN
FOREIGN LANGUAGES PUBLISHING HOUSE . MOSCOW 1939
THE period of peaceful construction in our history is replete with events of tremendous importance. Rivers and oceans of water have flown under the bridges in recent years. Great changes have taken place around us, our perspectives are different from what they were, and accepted ideas of scale and volume have been completely,upset. Inseparably linked with all these events is the teeming and manifold revolutionary activity of Comrade Stalin. During the last five or six years Comrade Stalin has been in the centre of the developing and surging struggle. Only these circumstances can explain why the role of Comrade Stalin as one of the most outstanding organizers of the victories of the Civil War has to some extent remained in the shade and has not yet received due appreciation.
Today, on our friend's fiftieth birthday, I should like partially, at least, to make good this omission
Needless to say, in a newspaper article I can hardly claim to give a full account of Comrnde Stalin's military work. I shall merely try to call to comrades' minds some facts from the recent past, and publish certain little-known documents, thus using the plain testimony of facts to show the truly remarkable role played hy Comrade Stalin at tense moments during the Civil War.
In the period from 1918 to 1920 Comrade Stalin was probably the only person whom the Central Committee shifted about from front to front, selecting the most vulnerable spots, the places where the threat to the revolution was most imminent. Stalin was never to be found where things were comparatively quiet and going smoothly, where success was attending our arms. But wherever, for various reasons, the Red Army su:ff ered reverses, wherever the counter-revolutionary forces, pressing their successes, threatened the very existence of Soviet power, wherever alarm and panic might at any moment develop into helplessness and catastrophethere Comrade Stalin was always sure to appear. During endless nights, foregoing sleep, he organized things, took the reins of leadership into his own firm hands, and ruthlessly broke down all obstructions. He was unsparing and achieved the necessary change and improvement in conditions. Comrade Stalin himself wrote of this in one of his letters to the Central Committee in 1919, saying that he was being "turned into a specialist for cleaning out the stables of the War Department."
TSARITSYN
COMRADE Stalin began his military activities on the Tsaritsyn front, rather by chance. At the beginning of June 1918 Comrade S'talin with a Red Army unit and two armoured cars left for Tsaritsyn in the capacity of Commissar-General of food supplies in South Russia. In Tsaritsyn he encountered incredible chaos in Soviet, trade union and Party organizations but the confusion and muddle in the various departments at military headquarters was even worse. At every step Comrade Stalin ran into obstacles, arising from the general situation, which interfered with the performance of his immediate task. These obstackles were mainly a result of the rapidly growing Cossack counter-revolution, extensively supported at that time by the German army of occupation which had invaded the Ukraine. Counter-revolutionary Cossack bands, soon seized a number of points near Tsaritsyn and thereby not only made it impossible to organize a systematic supply of grain for starving Moscow and Petrograd, but also placed Tsaritsyn in extreme danger.
Things, at the time, were equally bad in other places. In Moscow there was the uprising of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. In the East, Muravyov had turned traitor; in the Urals, the Czechoslovakian counterrevolutionary revolt was developing; in the far South the English were closing in on Baku. The whole country was encircled by a ring of fire. The revolution was experiencing its severest trials. Telegram after telegram flashed over the wires between Moscow and Tsaritsyn, between Lenin and Stalin. Lenin warned of dangers, offered encouragement, called for decisive measures. The fate of Tsaritsyn acquired paramount importance. An uprising on the Don and the loss of Tsaritsyn would involve the loss of the entire rich North Caucasian granary. Comrade Stalin throughly understood this. As an experienced revolutionary, he was soon convinced that his work would be of no avail unless he could influence the military command, which played the decisive role under these conditions.
"The line south of Tsaritsyn has not yet been restored," he wrote to Lenin im a memorandum of July 7, that was transmitted with the characteristic superscription: "I am rushing off to the fron, am writing only on business."
"I am driving and bawling out everyone who needs it. Am irn hopes that .we shall soon restore the line. You may be sure that we will spare nobody, neither ourselves nor others, and that we shall deliver the grain in spite of everything.
"If our military 'experts' (bunglers) had not been loafing on the job the line would not have been cut. And if the line is restored it will not be because of them but in spite of them."
And further on, replying to Lenin's apprehensions as to the possibility of a revolt by the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries in Tsaritsyn, he writes briefly, but forcefully and plainly:
"As regards the hysterical ones, you may be sure that our hand will not falter; with enemies we will deal as such."
The more he examined the military apparatus, the more Comrade Stalin became convinced of its complete helplessness and, in some sections, even of its direct reluctance to organize resistance to the counter-revolution that was raising iits insolent head.
"Matters are complicated by the fact that the Military Headquarters of the North Caucasus Area has proved to be utterly incapable of adapting itself to the requirements of combating counter-revolution. The fact is that our .'experts' are not only psychologically incapable of ruthlessly comlbating the counterrevolution, b.ut likewise, being 'staff' workers, who only know how to make 'field sketches' and draft plans for realignment, are absolutely indifferent to actual operations . . . and, in general, regard themselves as outsiders, as guests. The military commissars have been unable to fill the gap ...."
Comrade Stalin did not confine himself to this devastating characterization; in the same memorandum he drew his own practical conclusion:
"I consider that I have no right to regard matters with indifference when the front held by Kalnin is cut off from the supply base, and the North is cut off from the grain districts; I shall correct these and many other shortcomings on the spot; I am taking a pumber of measures-even to the point of removing the officials and commanders who ruin matters-and shall continue to do so, in spite of formal difficulties, which I shall brush aside when necessary. It is understood that I assume full responsibility before all higher bodies."
The situation became more and more critical. Comrade Stalin worked with tremendous energy, and 1n a short time from Commissar-General of food supplies he became the actual leader of all the Red forces on the Tsaritsyn front. This state of affairs received official recognition in Moscow, and Comrade Stalin was charged with
". . . establishing order, consolidating the detachments into regular units, establishing a proper command, after dismissing all insubordinates." (From the telegram of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, with the superscription: "The present telegram is sent with Lenin's approval.")
It was at thiis time that the remnants of the Ukrainian revolutionary army reached Tsaritsyn, having retreated across the Don steppe under pressure of the German forces.
A Revolutionary Military Council was formed, with Comrade Stalin at its head. which undertook the organization of a regular army. The dynamic spirit of Comrade Stalin, his energy and will, accomplished what had seemed impossible only yesterday. In a short time divisions, brigades and regiments sprang into being. The headquarters, the commissary and ordnance departments, and the entire rear were thoroughly purged of counter-revolutionary and hostile elements. The Soviet and Party apparatus was improved and began to function more efficiently. A group of old Bolsheviks and revolutionary workers rallied around Comrade Stalin, and in place of the helpless staff a Red, Bolshevik stronghold grew up in the South at the gates of the counter-revolutionary Don.
At that time Tsaritsyn was full of counter-revolutionaries of every possible hue, from Right Socialist-Revolutionaries and terrorists to rabid monarchists. Before the appearance of Comrade Stalin and the arrival of the revolutionary detachments from the Ukraine all these gentlemen had . felt practically at ease and lived in hopes of better days. The reorganization of the Red forces at the front necessitated a ruthless purge of the rear, administered with an iron hand. The Revolutionary Military Council headed by Comrade Stalin set up a special Cheka, and commissioned it to purge Tsaritsyn of counter-revolution.
The testimony of an enemy is sometimes valuable and interesting. This is how Colonel N osovich ( former Chief of Operations of the army), who had betrayed us and deserted to the Krassnov forces, describes this period and the part played by Comrade Stalin in the Whiteguard paper · Donskaya Volna of February 3, 1919:
"Stalin's chief commission was to furnish food supplies for the northern provinces, wielding unlimited authority in the performance of this task . . .
"The Gryazi-Tsaritsyn line had been completely .cut. In the North there was only one means of receiving supplies and maintaining communications: the Volga. In the South, after the Volunteer Army had occupied Tikhoretskaya, the situation also became extremely precarious. For Stalin, who obtained his supplies exclusively from the Stavropol province, this situation virtually spelled the end of his mission in the South. But evidently it goes against the grain of a man like Stalin to give up a job once he has undertaken it. In justice to him it must be admitted that any of the old administrators might well envy his energy, and his ability to adapt himself to circumstances and to the business in hand might well serve as a model to many.
"Gradually, as he was left with nothing to do, or rather, as his direct task diminished, Stalin began to go into all phases of the city's administration and into the extensive work of defending Tsaritsyn, in particular, and the whole Caucasian so-called revolutionary front in general."
Further on, desctibing the situation in Tsaritsyn, Nosbvich writes:
"By this time the .situation in Tsaritsyn, in general, had become very ominous. The Tsaritsyn Cheka worked full speed. Not a single day passed without various plots being discovered in what had seemed the most trustworthy and secret places. All the city prisons were overcrowded. . .
The fighting at the front became extremely intense . . . .
"The supreme force and supreme authority after July 20 was Stalin. A simple conversation with Moscow over the direct wire on the inconvenience and unsuitability of the existing system of administration of the district resulted in Moscow's issuing an order over the wire which placed Stalin in charge of all military . . . and civil affairs. . . ."
But Nosovich himself further acknowledges how well founded were the measures of repression. Here is what he writes regarding the counterrevolutionary organizations in Tsaritsyn:
"By this time the local counter-revolutionary organization, which supported the political platform of the Constituent Assembly, was also considerably strengthened, and, having received money from Moscow, was preparing to take active srteps in support of the Don Cossacks in the work of liberating Tsaritsyn.
"Most unfortunately, the head of this organization, the engineer Alexeyev, and his two sons, who came from Moscow, were ill-acquainted witli the actual situation, and the organization was discovered because of a fallacious plan which hinged on the active participation of a Ser:bian battalion which had been in the service of the Bolsheviks and attached to the Cheka. . ..
"Stalin's order was brief: 'Shoot them!' The engineer Alexeyev, his two sons, and together with them a goodly number of officers, some of whom 'belonged to the organization while others were merely suspected of being accomplices, were seized by the Cheka and immediately shot without trial."
Touching further on the subject of how the rear ( the military headqua1ters of the North Caucasus Area and its departments) was purged of Whiteguards, Nosovich writes:
"The characteristic feature of this drive was Stalin's attitude towards telegraphic orders from the centre. When Trotsky, disturbed at the destruction of the regional administrative departments which he had taken such pains to create, sent a telegram to the effect that the staff and commissariat must be le:ft as they were and that facilities, be given them to ,go on with their work, Stalin wrote a superscription on this telegram which was as categorical as it was significant:
" 'To be disregarded.'
"And so this telegram was disregarded, and the entire Ordnance Department and a section ,of the Headquarters staff remain under arrest on a barge in Tsaritsyn."
In a short while Tsaritsyn became utterly unrecognizable. A city where till recently music had played in the parks, where the fugitive bourgeoisie had openly thronged the streets in company with White officers, was transformed into a Red military camp, where the strictest order and military discipline prevailed. This strengthening of the rear immediate! y had a good effect on the morale of our regiments fighting at the front. The commanding and ,political personnel and ithe entire rank and file of the Red Army began to feel that they were being directed by a firm revolutionary hand which was fighting for the interests of the workers and peasants, meting out merciless retri1bution to all who stood in the way of this struggle.
Comrade Stalin's leadership was not confined to his office. When the necessary order had been established and organization restored on a revolutionary basis, he left for the front, which at the time was strung out for over six hundred kilometres. And only a man of Stalin's superb ability as an organizer could have grasped the special military problems of the extremely ,difficult situation at the time without having had any previous military training ( Comrade Stalin had never served in the army).
The Krassnov Cossack units were attacking Tsaritsyn, hoping by a .concentric blow to throw the Red regiments back to the Volga. For many days the .Red troops, headed by the Communist division, which was entirely composed of workers from the Donetz basin, withstood the powerful onslaught of the splendidly organized Cossack units. It was an extremely tense ,moment. 1 One should have seen Comrade Stalin then. He was as calm and self-possessed as ever. He went without sleep literally for days on end, his intense activi;ties divided between the theatres of operations and army headquarters. The situation at the front became almost catastrophic. By a well-planned manreuvre the Krassnov units under the command of Fitzkhalaurov, Mamontov and others· were pressing our harassed troops, which sustained terrific losses. Shaped like a horseshoe, the enemy's front, with its flanks reaching to the Volga, contracted from day to day. We had no means of retreat, but Stalin did not worry about that. He was filled with one concern, with one single thought-to achieve victory and destroy the enemy at .all costs. And Stalin's indomitable will to victory spread to all his closest comrades-in-arms, and in spite of the almost hopeless situation no one doubted that victory would be ours.
And we did achieve victory. The enemy was crushed and flung far hack towards the Don.
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