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Defending Soviet Power and Unions in the Civil War

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Defending Soviet Power and Unions in the Civil War CHAPTER 5 Defending Soviet Power and Unions in the Civil War During the Russian Civil War, millions died from violence, disease and fam- ine. Not only was combat brutal, but both sides perpetrated atrocities upon the civilian population. Organised, armed hostilities began in May 1918 when the Czech Legion, attempting to leave Russia via the Far East in order to join forces fighting Germany on the Western front, began an uprising on the Trans- Siberian Railway. In summer, former tsarist officers formed counterrevolution- ary (White) armies along the periphery of the Russian Empire and Right srs created governments in Siberia. Allied governments introduced troops into Russian ports and directed aid to White armies, hoping that a Bolshevik col- lapse would bring Russia back into the war against Germany. In organising a ‘Red’ Army, Communists faced the dilemma of attempting to create a new type of revolutionary military force while depending on former tsarist officers for expertise, since the Bolsheviks had little experience as military commanders. Improvising policies to cope with a whirlwind of crises, they were forced to utilise inherited tsarist structures and personnel.1 Suffused with militarism during the Civil War, the coercive and central- ising variant of Bolshevism achieved ascendancy. Only later called ‘War Communism,’ Bolshevik economic policies in 1918–21 were often inconsistent and based on contingency, but usually entailed food requisitions, rationing, forced labour and state control of the economy and transport. Effective lead- ership became synonymous with being ‘firm’ [tverdyi], yet this result was not preordained. Bolsheviks could have chosen from divergent paths in laying the foundation of their rule. Russian Communists felt they were fighting for the survival of their regime and of the socialist dream, the unfolding and expan- sion of which they believed hinged on their success. Preferring negotiation and persuasion, Shlyapnikov selectively authorised force to achieve Bolshevik goals, but was unwilling to apply indiscriminate violence. When workers were 1 Rabinowitch 2007 examined how objective circumstances shaped Bolshevik decision- making, while Raleigh 2002 showed how the Civil War set the stage for Stalinism to prevail over Bolshevik alternatives to it. For a survey of Civil War military operations, see Mawdsley 1987, who argues that the Russian Civil War began upon the Bolshevik usurpation of power in October 1917. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004�48540_007 Defending Soviet Power and Unions in Civil War 123 massacred in Astrakhan, a troubled Shlyapnikov demanded investigations. His experiences on the front increased his frustration with the Soviet state’s poli- cies towards workers and more sharply defined his conception of the role of the trade unions vis-à-vis the Communist Party. When he returned from the front in 1919, he promoted unions as natural organisers of the economy. Many other Bolsheviks, especially those in unions, had similar ideas; the Workers’ Opposition would emerge from their criticisms. ‘For Bread and Oil’ Anxious to feed hungry urban residents in the north and thus stave off poten- tial uprisings in cities, the Communists directed loyal personnel to obtain food from fertile agricultural zones in the south; Stalin and Shlyapnikov were assigned to the important transportation hub, Tsaritsyn (renamed Stalingrad in 1925 and Volgograd in 1961), on the Volga River. While Stalin remained in Tsaritsyn, he agreed that Shlyapnikov should venture into the dangerous North Caucasus region. Shlyapnikov’s original mission naturally evolved into different military assignments, for obstacles to the transport of food and fuel included not only White General Anton Denikin’s control of railways in south- ern Ukraine, but also violent conflicts between Cossacks and mountaineers over land redistribution in the North Caucasus. His most perilous assignments included procuring supplies for the Eleventh Army, tightening its discipline and implementing Sovnarkom’s order to destroy the Black Sea Fleet.2 Intense battles were fought in the territory where he and his personnel travelled. Cossacks clashed with Soviet forces; Chechen and Ingush mountain peoples attacked Cossacks. While Baku changed hands between the British and the Turks, battles raged around Grozny and Vladikavkaz. Because loyal Soviet forces were few in number, isolation often bred desperation and arbitrariness. Stalin-era historians and memoirists were under exceptional pressure to elevate Stalin’s role and omit or denigrate those like Shlyapnikov, who became his opponents, but Shlyapnikov defended his July–August 1918 food-requisition work in a manuscript, ‘For Bread and Oil’. Unfashionably for the early 1930s, when he wrote it, his manuscript did not slander Trotsky, but only criticised some of his decisions as Red Army commander. While condemning Left sr views, he incorporated in his manuscript entire texts of documents originat- ing from them, violating the standards of the time by conveying their views 2 Naumov 1991, pp. 20–1; Lenin 1958–65, vol. 50, p. 82; rgaspi, f. 2, op. 1, d. 6287, d. 7584; f. 5, op. 1, d. 1470 and Svechnikov 1926, Appendix..
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