Feverishly though the formation of shock battalions proceeded, a few score reliable detachments were no longer enough to halt the swift march of revolution, all the more since the revolutionary spirit often found its way even into the most carefully picked White battalions. In the records of General Headquarters are to be found lists of units ordered to be excluded from the death battalions for having “disgraced themselves” by refusing to go into action at the front or to obey military orders. Even shock units are sometimes mentioned in these lists.
Large military forces were needed to combat the revolution. The reactionaries endeavoured to use the bourgeois national regiments for this purpose. However, the Great Russian reactionaries did not approve of all the regiments recruited from the formerly oppressed nationalities, but only of those which constituted no direct menace to the integrity of the colonial empire. Poland, for example, was occupied by the German armies. The formation of Polish regiments provided the Russian bourgeoisie with an additional weapon against Germany: by exploiting national sentiment, it might be possible to launch the Poles against the German invaders. The attitude to the various national regiments therefore differed: the Ukrainians were interfered with, especially at first, while the Poles were supported and encouraged in every way. But in both cases the reactionaries tried to retain control of the national regiments by carefully selecting the officers.
The Polish units operating at the front in July were:
1. A Polish Rifle Division consisting of four regiments of three battalions each.
2. A regiment of Uhlans consisting of four squadrons.
3. A Polish Reserve Infantry Regiment.
4. An Engineers’ Company.
All these formed part of the Seventh Army, with the exception of the Reserve Regiment, which was stationed at Belgorod in the Kursk Province. The Ministry of War proposed to recruit the Polish Division to normal strength, a second Polish division, to give them artillery and to form them into a Polish Corps. The formation of the corps encountered considerable difficulties. The proletarians and peasants of Poland proved to be no less affected by the revolutionary movement than the proletarians and peasants of Russia. The Polish bourgeois, who had seized control of the formation of these units, were opposed by the revolutionary elements. As early as April, when the Polish bourgeoisie had issued the slogan, “A Separate Polish Army in Russia!” the Petrograd group of Polish internationalists had declared that the slogan, “A Separate Polish Army in Russia!”(1) was one that could not be supported by the Polish workers and soldiers.
The Polish Bolsheviks led the fight against the bourgeois parties, endeavouring to dissipate the heady fumes of nationalism and to expose the class nature of the policy pursued by the leaders of the Polish Corps. Unrest broke out in the Polish Reserve Regiment, where on July 27 the revolutionary soldiers drove out Colonel Winicki and elected Sub-Lieutenant Jackiewicz commander. Kornilov ordered the immediate suppression of the movement and wired Kerensky:
“Relative to the measures to put a stop to the disorders in the Polish Reserve Regiment quartered in Belgorod, I consider it necessary to entrust them to the Polish Corps Commander, Lieutenant-General Dowbor-Musnicki and to place an armed force at his disposal.”(2)
The Commander of the Corps adopted vigorous measures to purge the regiment. Over 400 soldiers were dispatched to the front, ostensibly for having refused to serve in the Polish Corps. Soldiers sympathetic to the Bolsheviks were arrested and tried for “disobeying military orders.”
These tsarist punitive measures aroused indignation even in petty-bourgeois circles. Even Savinkov, who was at that time in charge of the Ministry of War, asked Kornilov whether it was wise to retain Dowbor-Musnicki as Commander of the Corps. But the vigour with which Dowbor-Musnicki acted was an excellent testimony to his political reliability. Kornilov replied to Savinkov:
“The Polish Corps is formed of volunteers, and can therefore consist only of officers and men who are prepared to carry out the demands made on them by General Dowbor-Musnicki. I highly esteem this general as a man of firm character and as an excellent military leader and consider him highly desirable as Commander of the Polish Volunteer Corps.”(3)
By October the corps consisted of 17,000 men, including 1,200 officers and officials. This number does not include the Reserve Regiment, which at times consisted of as many as 16,000 men.
The Polish Corps held an honourable place in the schemes of the counter-revolutionaries. “The Poles have promised to send their corps. It will most likely arrive,”(4) is what, according to Krasnov, Kerensky said, urging the counter-revolutionary detachments to move as soon as possible against revolutionary Petrograd when the latter was in the flames of revolt.
Of the other national units which the counter-revolutionaries counted among their forces, mention should be made of the “Savage Division,” which had been formed into a corps at the time of the Kornilov revolt. The division consisted of Caucasian Mountaineers to the number of approximately 1,500 men.
The revolution had hardly affected the national regiments that had existed under the tsarist government. There were either no regimental committees at all in the “Savage Division,” or, where they did exist, they confined themselves to keeping a check on the quarter-masters. The authority of the commanders was based on the law of the clan. Ruthless discipline was maintained, the officers often physically assaulting their men. A group of soldiers who had deserted from the “Savage Division” were interrogated by the Soviet and related a story of tyranny and tribal enmity such as was known only in the tsarist army.
The failure of the Kornilov revolt made the Caucasian regiments accessible to revolutionary ideas. The reactionaries decided to return them to their home territory, in the belief that the native bourgeoisie would be able to halt the spread of revolutionary ideas among the men.
The first Ukrainian—Haidamak—regiments began to form spontaneously at the time of the February Revolution. During March and April, in the rear of the South-Western Front, and in all the large garrison towns, such as Petrograd, Moscow and Kazan, Ukrainian regiments were spontaneously formed. They adopted the colours yellow and blue for their flag and cockade. A Ukrainian regiment known as the Bogdan Khmelnitsky Regiment was formed in Kiev and was joined by large numbers of soldiers from the army on active service.
Despite the fact that the first Ukrainian regiment—the Bogdan Khmelnitsky Regiment—had passed a vote of confidence in the Provisional Government, the latter nevertheless deemed it advisable to put a stop to the movement. General Brusilov, Commander of the South-Western Front, demanded by wire that the flood of Ukrainian soldiers from the front to Kiev should be stopped immediately, that “the regiment should be disbanded” in the event of disobedience, and that the “disorders” that had broken out should be suppressed even by force of arms.(5)
But the growth of the revolutionary movement in May and June compelled the Provisional Government to make a number of concessions to the Ukrainian bourgeoisie. When preparing the army for an offensive on the Galician Front, the Kerensky government made the first attempt to utilise the Ukrainian regiments to combat the revolutionary movement and Bolshevism.
The public prayers and religious processions of Ukrainian soldiers in Kiev, the great influence wielded over them by their officers, the close relations established between the Ukrainians and the Don Cossacks and, what was most important, the high percentage of kulaks in the first Ukrainian regiments, permitted the Provisional Government to hope that the Ukrainian regiments would prove obedient tools of the bourgeoisie.
On May 10 a Ukrainian delegation from the All-Russian Army Committee travelled in the same train as Kerensky to the South-Western Front to visit General Brusilov. Both the War Minister and the Commander-in-Chief of the South-Western Front were fully in favour of forming Ukrainian regiments. The War Minister gave his endorsement to the setting up of a Ukrainian Army Committee and sanctioned the formation of the 1st Bogdan Khmelnitsky Ukrainian Cossack Regiment. General Brusilov, for his part, promised to set up three special corps at the front and to replenish them exclusively with Ukrainians.
The wide offensive of the Russian bourgeoisie against the conquests of the February Revolution, the spread of Great Russian sentiments in the capital and the provinces—sentiments which were hostile even to the most moderate national demands—induced the Provisional Government to retard the formation of the Ukrainian regiments. In the new conflict that broke out between the Provisional Government and the Central Rada, the Ukrainian regiments became a dangerous force. Accordingly, in addition to refusing to sanction the formation of any new regiments, in August and September 1917 the military command attempted to dispatch the Ukrainian regiments already formed to the front. The Government hoped by this measure to disarm the Central Rada and to render its supporters impotent.
That is why neither Kornilov nor General Headquarters made any attempt to utilise the Ukrainian regiments to combat revolution, and relied mostly on the Cossacks and partly on the Poles, but most of all on the shock troops and junkers.
It was only on the eve of the October Revolution that, spurred by mortal danger, the Russian bourgeoisie sought the aid—although not very successfully—of those very Ukrainian regiments the creation of which the bourgeois government had so recently hampered in every way.
The reactionaries attached great importance to the Czecho-Slovakian regiments. Their formation from Austrian prisoners of war and deserters was begun by the tsarist government. But very little progress was made before the revolution. A decision of the Hague International Court forbade the recruiting of prisoners of war. But the Hague Court had also forbidden the use of poison gas, yet nobody paid any attention to the prohibition. In the case in question, the tsarist government feared that Germany might retaliate by forming an army from Polish prisoners of war. Furthermore, the British and French frowned on the formation of Czecho-Slovakian detachments. The “Allies,” having promised to establish an independent Czecho-Slovakian Republic, feared that the tsarist government might exercise too great an influence in the affairs of the new state.
The formation of Czecho-Slovakian units proceeded more rapidly after the February Revolution. The Entente generals hoped to use the Czecho-Slovakians to combat revolution in Russia.
The formation of Czecho-Slovakian detachments from Austrian prisoners of war was sanctioned by the Military Council on March 24, 1917.
The speed of formation of Czecho-Slovakian regiments varied directly with the speed of disintegration of the army: whereas only detachments were formed in April, whole corps began to be formed in August. Professor Masaryk, Chairman of the Czecho-Slovakian National Council, requested General Headquarters to expedite the formation of the regiments. Masaryk requested that permanent representatives of the Council should be attached for this purpose to General Headquarters and to the higher command of the Czecho-Slovakian Corps. With the active support of the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik compromisers and the financial assistance of the Entente, the National Council started an extensive recruiting campaign among the prisoners of war. By August 23 the corps, consisting of the First and Second Czecho-Slovakian Divisions, numbered 25,000 men, not counting artillery.
French military regulations were introduced in the Czecho-Slovakian Corps and the officers ranked with the officers of the Russian army.
The formation of the corps was greatly accelerated after the suppression of the Kornilov revolt. General Kornilov had planned to dispatch the Czecho-Slovakians against Petrograd and Moscow together with the Kornilov Regiment. Later it was attempted to use the Czecho-Slovakians against the Bolsheviks during the October Revolution. We know from a letter written by General Alexeyev that on November 8 (November 21, New Style)—two weeks after the outbreak of the October Revolution (November 7, New Style)—it was planned to bring the Czecho-Slovakian regiments nearer to the Don for a joint offensive with the Cossacks against the Bolsheviks.
What hopes were placed by the counter-revolutionaries in the Czecho-Slovakians may be judged from a letter written by General Kornilov which is quoted in General Denikin’s memoirs. On hearing of the revolution in Petrograd, General Kornilov, who was confined in the prison of Bykhovo at the time, sent the following “command” to Dukhonin at General Headquarters:
“Foreseeing the further course of events,” wrote Kornilov, setting forth his plan, “I think it necessary that you should urgently adopt such measures as would definitely ensure the safety of General Headquarters and at the same time create favourable conditions for the organisation of the fight against the approaching anarchy.
“I consider these measures to be the following:
“1. The immediate transfer of one of the Czecho-Slovakian regiments and the Polish Uhlan regiment to Moghilev.
“2. The occupation of Orsha, Smolensk, Zhlobin and Gomel by units of the Polish Corps, the divisions of the latter being reinforced by artillery taken from the Cossack batteries at the front.
“3. The concentration along the Orsha-Moghilev-Zhlobin line of all units of the Czecho-Slovakian Corps and the Kornilov Regiment, on the pretext of transferring them to Petrograd and Moscow, and one or two of the more reliable Cossack divisions.
“4. The concentration in the same area of all the British and Belgian armoured cars, their crews being replaced exclusively by officers.
“5. The concentration, under reliable guard, in Moghilev and at one of adjacent points of a stock of rifles, cartridges, machine-guns, automatic rifles and hand grenades, for distribution among the officers and volunteers who undoubtedly will assemble in the area mentioned.
“6. The establishment of close contact and a precise agreement with the Atamans of the Don, Terek and Kuban Cossacks and with the Polish and Czecho-Slovakian Committees. . . .
“Such are the considerations which I deemed it necessary to lay before you, adding that a decision must be arrived at without delay.”(6)
As we see, from the very outbreak of the Civil War, the counter-revolutionaries placed great hopes in the bourgeois national regiments. It was intended that the first blow should be struck by them.
Incidentally, the tsarist generals at once resorted to foreign intervention against the revolution, seeking the support of foreign troops—Entente armoured cars and the Czecho-Slovakian Corps. This was only the germ—the civil war was still in its inception. Foreign intervention was later to play a prominent part in the Civil War in Russia.
[1] Central Archives of the October Revolution, Records—1235, The All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Series D/1, File No. 76, folio 28.
[2] Central Archives of Military History, Records of General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander—Adjutant-General’s Office, File No. 80-242, folio 74.
[3] Ibid., folio 87.
[4] P. N. Krasnov, “On the Home Front,” Archives of the Russian Revolution, Vol. I, Berlin, p. 170.
[5] “Brusilov’s Telegram,” Kievskaya Mysl, No. 101, April 21, 1917.
[6] A. I. Denikin, Sketches of the Russian Revolt, Vol. II, Paris, pp. 137-38.
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