The means of producing terror in the army are Special Departments of the Extraordinary Commission, and Revolutionary Tribunals. The methods of the Extraordinary Commission have been described. In the army to which my regiment belonged the order for the formation of Revolutionary Tribunals stated that they “are to be established in each brigade area, to consist of three members, and to carry out on the spot investigations of insubordination, refusal to fight, flight or desertion by complete units, such as sections, platoons, companies, etc.” Sentences (including that of death) were to be executed immediately. Sentences might also be conditional, that is, guilty units might be granted an opportunity to restore confidence by heroic conduct and thus secure a reversal of the verdict. At the same time, “separate specially reliable units are to be formed of individuals selected from steady units, whose duty will be to suppress all insubordination. These selected units will also execute the sentences of death.”
Desertion from the Red army is not difficult, but if one lives in or near a town one’s relatives pay. Desertion, being what the Bolsheviks call a “mass-phenomenon,” is combated by special Commissions for Combating Desertion, established in every town and large village and at frontier points. The number of these commissions is indicative of the prevalence of desertion. Their agents hang about the outskirts of towns, at crossroads, frontier stations, etc., prodding truckloads of hay or looking under railroad cars. If a man is known to be a deserter but cannot be ferreted out, the property of his relatives is confiscated and they are liable to be arrested unless they inform against him or he returns voluntarily.
The peasantry sometimes try to organize desertion. Pickets are posted to give warning of the approach of punitive detachments. In Ukrainia, where the peasants show more vigour and capacity for self-defence against the Communists than in the north, villagers organize themselves into armed bands led by noncommissioned officers of the old army and effectively hold the punitive detachments at bay for considerable periods.
The calling up of peasants is at times so difficult a business that when a regiment has been mobilized it is often sent down to the front in sealed cars. Arms are rarely distributed until the moment of entering the fray, when a machine-gun is placed behind the raw troops, and they are warned that they have the option either of advancing or being fired on from the rear. Provincial districts are cautioned that every village in which a single deserter is discovered will be burned to the ground. But though several such orders have been published, I do not know of a case in which the threat has been put into execution.
Mobilization of town-workers is naturally easier, but here also subterfuge has sometimes to be resorted to. In Petrograd I witnessed what was announced to be a “trial” mobilization; that is, the workers were assured that they were not going to the front and that the trial was only to practise for an emergency. The result was that the prospective recruits, glad of an extra holiday plus the additional bread ration issued on such occasions, turned up in force (all, of course, in civilian clothes) and the trial mobilization was a great success. A portion of the recruits were taken to the Nicholas Station and told they were going out of town to manoeuvre. Imagine their feelings when they discovered that they were locked into the cars, promptly despatched to the front, and (still in civilian clothes) thrust straight into the firing line!
Every man of the Red army is supposed to have taken the following oath:
I, a member of a labouring people and citizen of the Soviet Republic, assume the name of warrior of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Army. Before the labouring classes of Russia and of the whole world I pledge myself to bear this title with honour, conscientiously to study the science of war, and as the apple of my eye to defend civil and military property from spoliation and pillage. I pledge myself strictly and unswervingly to observe revolutionary discipline and perform unhesitatingly all orders of the commanders appointed by the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government. I pledge myself to refrain and to restrain my comrades from any action that may stain and lower the dignity of a citizen of the Soviet Republic, and to direct my best efforts to its sole object, the emancipation of all workers. I pledge myself at the first call of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government to defend the Soviet Republic from all dangers and assault on the part of her foes, and to spare neither my energies nor life in the struggle for the Russian Soviet Republic, for the cause of Socialism and the fraternity of peoples. If with evil intent I infringe this my solemn oath may my lot be universal contempt and may I fall a victim to the ruthless arm of revolutionary law.
Very few Red army men have any recollection of having taken this oath, which is reserved for officers or for propagandist purposes. If it is taken by the common soldiers at all it is read out to whole battalions at a time and they are told when to raise their hands.
The method of administering justice followed by the Revolutionary Tribunals is primitive. The judges are guided by no rules, instructions, or laws, but solely by what is known as “revolutionary conscience.” The fact that the judges are often illiterate does not affect the performance of their functions, for since none but ardent Communists are admitted to these posts, their revolutionary consciences must ipso facto always be clear.
The malpractices of these courts reached such a pitch that late in 1920 the Bolsheviks, after abolishing all jurisprudence at the universities, were actually combing out from the ranks of the army all who had technical knowledge of Tsarist law, offering them posts as legal “specialists,” as had already been done with military, industrial, and agricultural experts.
The Bolsheviks discriminate minutely between regiments, which
