fn17 A government inspection of Moscow jails in March 1920 found that children under the age of seventeen comprised 5 per cent of the prison population (Izvestiia gosudarstvennogo kontrolia, 4, 1920: 7–10).
fn18 Brusilov’s brother, Boris, was also arrested at this time, along with three other members of his family. They were ‘hostages’ and were ordered to be executed if Brusilov joined the antiBolsheviks. Boris was ill with influenza and had been literally taken from his sick-bed. He died in prison a few days after his arrest. Whilst in jail he received no medical treatment.
fn19 During the 1980s the KGB still trained its recruits with Okhrana manuals (see Kalugin, Vid s Lubianki, 35).
fn20 She had been on her way to England, where she had good contacts with the Trade Union movement, in order to campaign for food aid to the hungry children of Russia, when she was arrested in Yamburg (GARF, f. 4390, op. 14, d. 57, l. 7).
Chapter 14
fn1 The other delegates were V. A. Maklakov (Kerensky’s Ambassador in Paris), Sazonov (Kolchak’s — and Nicholas II’s — Foreign Minister) and the veteran Populist N. V. Chaikovsky (head of the Northern Region government based in Arkhangelsk). The Russian Political Conference was a government in exile made up of former diplomats and other public men in Paris. Savinkov, Nabokov, Struve and Konovalov were among its members.
fn2 There is an order from Lenin to Smirnov, Chairman of the Siberian MRC, instructing him to explain Kolchak’s execution as a response to the threat of the Whites (RTsKhIDNI, f. 2, op. 1, d. 24362). But the date of this order is unclear. Richard Pipes believes it was written before 7 February, thus suggesting a plot by Lenin to camouflage the reasons for the execution (Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, 117–18). But there is no corroboration of this.
fn3 This was the first major strategic disagreement among the Bolshevik leadership. Trotsky and Vatsetis, his Commander-in-Chief, argued against pursuing Kolchak beyond the Urals so that troops could be withdrawn to the Southern Front. But Kamenev, the Eastern Front Commander, backed up by Lenin and Stalin, insisted on the need to pursue Kolchak to the end. The conflict went on through the summer, weakening the Red Army leadership at this critical moment of the civil war. It showed, above all, that Trotsky’s authority was in decline. His strategy, both on the Eastern and the Southern Fronts, was rejected in favour of Kamenev’s, who replaced Vatsetis on 3 July. Trotsky was furious, suspecting that Stalin and the Military Opposition were trying to oust him from the leadership. He wrote a letter of resignation, which was rejected by the Central Committee on 5 July. Trotsky’s authority was further weakened by the reconstitution of the RVSR with four new members (Kamenev, Gusev, Smilga and Rykov) who all had differences with its Chairman.
fn4 It is true that Makhno’s partisans often broke down under pressure from the Whites. But given how poorly they were supplied by the Reds, this was hardly surprising. They certainly did not deserve the vilification they received from Trotsky. This in fact had less to do with Makhno than it did with Stalin. By laying the blame for the Red defeats on the guerrilla methods of Makhno’s partisans, Trotsky could attack the ‘guerrilla-ism’ of the Military Opposition and thus reinforce his argument for military discipline and centralization.
fn5 The original Red strategy, set in July, had been to attack from the Volga to the Don; but this was changed on 15 October, the day after Orel fell, when the Politburo resolved to concentrate all the Red forces around Tula. Kamenev, the Commander-in-Chief, was not even consulted on the change.
fn6 And his opponents, notably Stalin, warned for the first time of the dangers of Bonapartism.
fn7 The myth gained currency in Western circles. General Holman, for example, the head of the British military mission to Denikin, told a Jewish delegation that of the thirty-six Commissars in Moscow, only Lenin was not a Jew (Shekhtman, Pogromy, 298).
fn8 From 1918 to 1922 the ban on the Mensheviks and the SRs would be briefly lifted from time to time. But even during these periods the Bolsheviks would persecute their activists.
fn9 Brusilov tried to make the release of the officers a condition of his service for the Reds. Trotsky agreed to do what he could but admitted that he himself was ‘not on good terms with the Cheka and that Dzerzhinsky could even arrest him’. Brusilov later set up a special office to appeal for the release of the officers — and as a result of its efforts several hundred officers were released (RGVIA, f. 162, op. 2, d. 18).
fn10 The twelve changes of regime in Kiev were as follows: (1) 3 March–9 Nov 1917: Provisional Government; (2) 9 Nov 1917–9 Feb 1918: Ukrainian National Republic (UNR); (3) 9–29 Feb 1918: First Ukrainian Soviet Republic; (4) 1 March 1918: occupation by the army of the UNR; (5) 2 March–12 Dec 1918: German occupation; (6) 14 Dec 1918–4 Feb 1919: Directory of the UNR; (7) 5 Feb–29 Aug 1919: Second Ukrainian Soviet Republic; (8) 30 Aug 1919: occupation by forces of Directory of the UNR; (9) 31 Aug–15 Dec 1919: occupation by White forces; (10) 15 Dec 1919–5 May 1920: Third Ukrainian Soviet Republic; (11) 6 May–11 June 1920: Polish occupation; (12) 2 June 1920–: final Ukrainian Soviet Republic.
fn11 Apart from Brusilov the conference included his two closest friends from the tsarist army, Generals Klembovsky and Zaionchkovsky, as well as his old ally Polivanov, the former Minister of War.
fn12 By which he meant workers and peasants not yet advanced enough for Bolshevism.
fn13 The Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is still the subject of disputes today, was a summer-pasture ground for the Azeri nomads. Armenia claimed the region in 1918. There were Armenian settlements there, from which many of the nation’s leading intellectuals had come, and so, like Mount Ararat, the region became a symbol of Armenia. The Armenian government tried to stop the Azeris from coming into the region by setting up border guards. This resulted in bitter local fighting. Both the Soviets and the British favoured giving Karabakh to the Azeris.
Chapter 15
fn1 The same idea was expressed at this same time by Gastev and the other pioneers of the Taylor movement in Soviet Russia (see here).
fn2 Trotsky did put forward tentative proposals for an NEP-like market reform in February 1920, but these were turned down by the Central Committee. He swung back at once to the policy of militarization: radical reforms, whether by free trade or coercion, were needed to restore the economy.
fn3 It is tempting to conclude that Pavlov was the target of Bulgakov’s satire, The Heart of a Dog (1925), in which a world-famous experimental scientist, who despises the Bolsheviks but accepts their patronage, transplants the brain and sexual organs of a dog into a human being.
fn4 The Socialist Realism of the 1930s, with its obvious iconic qualities, was much more effective as propaganda.
fn5 Stalin often referred to the people as ‘cogs’ (vintiki) in the vast machinery of the state.
fn6 The term had originally been used by the liberal press to describe Kerensky in 1917.
Chapter 16
fn1 It also excludes the reduced life expectancy of those who survived due to malnutrition and disease. Children born and brought up in these years were markedly smaller than older cohorts, and 5 per cent of all newborns had syphilis (Sorokin, Sovremennoe, 16, 67).