The creation and control of a huge militarist machine have hitherto afforded full and ample scope for the exercise of Trotsky’s superhuman energy and indomitable will. Regarding the Russian peasants and workers as cattle and treating them as such, he naturally strove at an early date, by coercion or by flattering and alluring offers, to persuade the trained Tsarist officer staff, with whose technical knowledge he could not dispense, to serve the Red flag. The ideas of a “democratic army” and “the arming of the entire proletariat,” the demand for which, together with that for the constituent assembly, had served to bring Trotsky and his associates to power, were discarded the moment they had served their purpose.
The same measures as were employed by the Tsarist army were introduced to combat wholesale robbery and pillage—an inevitable phenomenon resulting from Bolshevist agitation—and with even greater severity. Soldiers’ committees were soon suppressed. The “revolutionary” commanders of 1918, untrained and unqualified for leadership, were dismissed and supplanted by “specialists”—that is, officers of the Tsarist army, closely watched, however, by carefully selected Communists.
The strength of the Red army now undoubtedly lies in its staff of officers. As the indispensability of expert military knowledge became more and more apparent, the official attitude toward Tsarist officers, which was one of contempt and hostility as bourgeois, became tempered with an obvious desire to conciliate. The curious phenomenon was observable of a ribald Red Press, still pandering to mob-instincts, denouncing all Tsarist officers as “counterrevolutionary swine,” while at the same time Trotsky, in secret, was tentatively extending the olive branch to these same “swine,” and addressing them in tones of conciliation and even respect. Officers were told that it was fully understood that, belonging to “the old school,” they could not readily acquiesce in all the innovations of the “proletarian” regime, that it was hoped in course of time they would come to adapt themselves to it, and that if in the meantime they would “give their knowledge to the revolution” their services would be duly recognized.
“We found it difficult to believe it was Trotsky talking to us,” an officer said to me after the extraordinary meeting of commissars and naval specialists of the Baltic fleet, at which Trotsky abolished the committee system and restored the officers’ authority. My friend participated at the meeting, being a high official in the Admiralty. “We all sat round the table in expectation, officers at one end and the Communist commissars at the other. The officers were silent, for we did not know why we had been called, but the commissars, all dressed in leathern jerkins, sprawled in the best chairs, smoking and spitting, and laughing loudly. Suddenly the door opened and Trotsky entered. I had never seen him before and was quite taken aback. He was dressed in the full uniform of a Russian officer with the sole exception of epaulettes. The dress did not suit him, but he held himself erect and leader-like, and when we all stood to receive him the contrast between him and the commissars, whom he himself had appointed, was striking. When he spoke we were thunderstruck—and so were the commissars—for turning to our end of the table he addressed us not as ‘Comrades’ but as ‘Gentlemen,’ thanked us for our services, and assured us he understood the difficulties, both moral and physical, of our situation. Then he suddenly turned on the commissars and to our amazement poured forth a torrent of abuse just such as nowadays we are accustomed to hear directed against ourselves. He called them skulking slackers, demanded to know why they dared sit in his presence with their jerkins all unbuttoned, and made them all cringe like dogs. He told us that the ship committees were abolished; that thenceforward the commissars were to have powers only of political control, but none in purely naval matters. We were so dumbfounded that I believe, if Trotsky were not a Jew, the officers would follow him to a man!”
The position of officers was grievous indeed, especially of those who had wives and families. Flight with their families was difficult, while flight without their families led to the arrest of the latter the moment the officer’s absence was noted. Remaining in the country their position was no better. Evasion of mobilization or a default in service alike led to reprisals against their kith and kin. Trotsky’s approaches were not an effort to make them serve—that was unavoidable—but to induce them to serve well. Alone his persuasions might have availed little. But with the passage of time the bitter disappointment at continued White failures, and growing disgust at the effect of Allied intervention, coming on the top of constant terror, drove many to desperate and some to genuine service in the Red ranks, believing that only with the conclusion of war (irrespective of defeat or victory) could the existing regime be altered. I believe that the number of those who are genuinely serving, under a conviction that the present order of things is a mere passing phase, is considerably larger than is generally supposed outside Russia.
One of the most pitiable sights I have ever witnessed was the arrest of women as hostages because their menfolk were suspected of anti-Bolshevist activities. One party of such prisoners I remember particularly because I knew one or two of the people in it. They were all ladies, with the stamp of education and refinement—and untold suffering—on their faces, accompanied by three or four children, who I presume had refused to be torn away. In the hot summer sun they trudged through the streets, attired in the remnants of good clothing, with shoes out at heel, carrying bags or parcels of such belongings as they were permitted to take with them to prison. Suddenly one
