POLITICA CONOZCA A SU EMPLEADO 1. OBJETIVO

Trotsky once boasted that during the Civil War, “even” traveling in his special

Revvoyensovet’s *Revolutionary Military Council+ railroad coach, he was able to find time to acquaint himself with the latest works of French literature.

Not that he realized exactly what he said. He acknowledged that he was able to find not just time, but room in his heart between appeals to the “revolutionary sailors,” forcibly

mobilized units of Red Army, and a thrown order to execute every tenth soldier in a unit that wavered in battle. Well, he usually did not stay around to supervise carrying out such orders.

Orchestrating a bloody war on the vast plains of Russia, he was absolutely untouched by the unprecedented sufferings of her inhabitants, by her pain. He soared aloft, above it all, on the wings of the international intoxication of the Revolution.

The February Revolution was a Russian revolution: no matter how headlong, erroneous and pernicious it was, it did not aspire to burn down the entire pre-existing life, to annihilate the whole pre-revolutionary Russia. Yet immediately after the October [Bolshevik revolution], the Revolution spilled abroad and became an international and devastating plague, feeding itself by devouring and destroying social order wherever it spread — everything built was to be annihilated; everything cultivated — to be confiscated; whoever resisted — to be shot. The Reds were exclusively preoccupied with their grand social experiment, predestined to be repeated, expanded and implemented all over the world.

From an easy, quick blow, the October coup snowballed into a fierce three-year-long Civil War, which brought countless bloody calamities to all the peoples of Russia.

The multinationality of the former Empire and the cannon recoil from the Great War complicated both the inhumane Bolshevik plot and its implementation. Unlike the French Revolution, which unfolded on the territory of mono-national France and did not see much foreign intervention apart from a short incursion of hostile troops, and with all its horrors being a national affair from beginning to end, the Russian Revolution was horribly

aggravated by its multinational madness. It saw the strong participation of Red Latvians (then Russian subjects), former German and Austrian prisoners of war (organized into full - blown regiments like the Hungarians), and even large numbers of Chinese. No doubt the brunt of the fighting for the Reds was carried out by Russians; some of them were drafted on pain of death while others volunteered in a mad belief they would be fighting for a happy future for themselves. Yet the Russian Jews were not lost in all that diversity.

The politically active part of Russian Jewry, which backed the Bolshevik civic regime in 1917, now just as boldly stepped into the military structures of Bolsheviks. During the first years after the October Revolution in the midst of the internationalist frenzy, the power over this enormous land was effortlessly slipping into the hands of those clinging to the Bolsheviks. And they were overwhelmed by the newfound immensity of that power. They immediately began using it without a backward glance or any fear of control — some, without doubt, in the name of higher ideals, while others — in the name of lower ones (“obstinacy of

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the Civil War would ignite enormous Jewish pogroms, unprecedented in their atrocity and bloodshed, all over the South of Russia.

We can judge the true nature of the multi-ethnic war from the Red pogrom during the suppression of the Kronstadt Uprising in March 1921. A well-known socialist-revolutionary and sociologist Pitrim Sorokin writes: “For three days, Latvian, Bashkir, Hungarian, Tatar, Russian, Jewish and international rabble, crazed by alcohol and the smell of blood, raped and killed without restraint.”2

Or here is another recollection from ordinary witnesses. During the feast of the Epiphany in 1918, an Orthodox Sacred Procession stirred forth from the gates of the Kremlin in Tula – and an “international squad” gunned it down.

Even with the ruthless international squads, the force of the “Red Guard” alone was no longer sufficient. The Bolshevik regime needed a regular army. In 1918, “Lev Trotsky, with the help of Sklyansky and Jacov Sverdlov, created the Red Army.” “Many Jews were fighting in its ranks. Some units were entirely Jewish, like, for example, the brigade of Josef

Furman.”3 The Jewish share in the command corps the Red Army become large and

influential and this trend continued for many years even after the end of the Civil War. This Jewish involvement has been researched by several Jewish authors and encyclopedias.

In the 1980s, Israeli scholar Aaron Abramovich used many Soviet sources (including The Fifty-

Year Anniversary of the Soviet Armed Forces, The Soviet Historical Encyclopedia, volumes of Directives of the Front Command of the Red Army) to compile detailed nominal rosters of

highly ranked Jewish commanders (exclusively Jewish ones) in the Red Army during the period from the Civil War up to the aftermath of Second World War.

Let’s skim through the pages allocated to the Civil War.4 This is a very extensive roster; it begins with the Revvoyensoviet, where Abramovich lists L. Trotsky, E. Sklyansky, A. Rosengoltz, and Y. Drabkin-Gusev. Trotsky ordered the “establishment of fronts with headquarters, and formation of new armies,” and “Jews were present in almost all the revvoyensoviets of the fronts and armies.” (Abramovich lists the most prominent individuals: D. Vayman, E. Pyatnitsky, L. Glezarov, L. Pechyorsky, I. Slavin, M. Lisovsky, G. Bitker, Bela Kun, Brilliant-Sokolnikov, I. Khodorovsky). Earlier, at the onset of the Civil War, the Extraordinary Command Staff of the Petrograd Military District was headed by Uritsky, and among the members of the Petrograd Committee of Revolutionary Defense were Sverdlov (the

chairman), Volodarsky, Drabkin-Gusev, Ya. Fishman (a leftist Socialist Revolutionary) and G. Chudnovsky. In May 1918 there were two Jews among the eleven commissars of military districts: E. Yaroslavsky-Gubelman (Moscow District) and S. Nakhimson (Yaroslavsky District). During the war, several Jews were in charge of armies: M. Lashevich was in charge of the 3rd — and later, of the 7th Army of Eastern Front; V. Lazarevich was in charge of the 3rd Army of the Western Front, G. Sokolnikov led the 8th Army of the Southern Front, N. Sorkin – the 9th, and I. Yakir – the 14th Army. Abramovich painstakingly lists numerous Jewish heads of staff and members of the revvoyensoviets in each of the twenty armies; then the commanders, heads of staff and military commissars of divisions (the list of the latter, i.e., those in charge of the ideological branch of command, was three-times longer than the list of Jewish commanders of divisions). In this manner Abramovich describes brigades, regiments and separate detachments. He lists Jewish heads of political administrations and revolutionary

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military tribunals at all levels, noting that “especially large percentage of Jews can be found among political officers at all levels of the Red Army….” “Jews played an important role in the provision and supply services. Let’s name some of them….” “Jews occupied important positions in military medicine as well: heads of sanitary administrations of the fronts and armies, senior doctors of units and bodies of troops….” “Many Jews — commanders of large units and detachments — were distinguished for their courage, heroism and generalship” but “due to the synoptic character of this chapter we cannot provide detailed descriptions of the accomplishments of Jewish Red Army soldiers, commanders and political officers.” (Meticulously listing the commanders of armies, the researcher misses another Jew, Tikhon Khvesin, who happened to be in charge of the 4th Army of the Eastern Front, then — of the 8th Army of the Southern Front, and later of the 1st Army of the Turkestan Front.5)

The Russian Jewish Encyclopedia provides additional information about some commanders. (Here I would like to commend this encyclopedia (1994), for in our new free times its authors performed an honest choice — writing frankly about everything, including less than

honorable things.)

Drabkin-Gusev became the Head of Political Administration of the Red Army and the Chief of the entire Red Army in 1921. Later he was the head of IstPart (Commission on the History of October Revolution and Bolshevist Party) and a big figure in the Comintern, and was buried in the Kremlin wall [in Moscow].

Mikhail Gaskovich-Lashkevich was a member of many revvoyensoviets, and later he was in charge of the Siberian Military District, and even later — the First Deputy Chairman of the Revvoyensoviet of the USSR (yet he was buried merely on the Field of Mars [in St.

Petersburg]).

Israel Razgon was the military commissar of the Headquarters of Petrograd Military District and participated in the suppression of the Kronstadt Uprising; later, he was in charge of the Red Army of Bukhara, suppressing the uprising in Central Asia; still later he worked in the Headquarters of the Black See Fleet.

Boris Goldberg was Military Commissar of the Tomskaya Guberniya, later of the Permskaya Guberniya, still later of the Privolzhskiy Military District, and even later he was in charge of the Reserve Army and was acknowledged as one of the founders of Soviet Civil Aviation.

Modest Rubenstein was Deputy Head of the Revvoyensoviet of the Special Army, and later he was head of political administration of an army group.

Boris Hippo was the Head of Political Administration of the Black Sea Fleet. (Later he worked in the political administrations of the Baltic Sea Fleet, the Turkestan Front, was the Head of Political Administration of the Central-Asian Military District, and later of the Caucasian Army.)

Michail Landa was a head of the political division of an army, later — Deputy Head of Political Administration of the entire Red Army, and still later Head of Political

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Lev Berlin was Commissar of the Volga Military Flotilla and later worked in the Political Administration of the Crimean Army and still later in that of the Baltic Fleet.6

Yet how many outstanding characters acted at lower levels?

Boris Skundin, previously a lowly apprentice of clockmaker Sverdlov, Sr., successively evolved into the military commissar of a division, commissar of army headquarters, political inspector of front, and, finally, into Deputy Head of Political Administration of the 1st Cavalry Army.

Avenir Khanukaev was commander of a guerilla band who later was tried before the revolutionary tribunal for crimes during the capture of Ashgabat and acquitted, and in the same year of 1919 was made into political plenipotentiary of the TurkCommission of the All- Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviet of People’s Commissars on Kashgar, Bukhara and Khiva.

Moses Vinnitsky (“Mishka-Yaponchik”) was a member of the Jewish militia squad in Odessa 1905, and later a gang-leader; he was freed from a hard labor camp by the February

Revolution and became a commander of a Jewish fighting brigade in Odessa, simultaneously managing the entire criminal underworld of Odessa. In 1919 he was a commander of a special battalion and later he was in charge of an infantry regiment in the Red Army. His unit was “composed of anarchists and criminals.” In the end he was shot by his own side.

Military commissar Isaiah Tzalkovich was in command of a composite company of the [Red] cadets during the suppression of the Kronstadt Uprising.7

We can see extraordinary Jewish women in the higher Bolshevik ranks as well.

Nadezda Ostrovskaya rose from the Head of Gubkom [Party Committee of a Guberniya, the highest executive authority in a guberniya] of Vladimir Guberniya to the post of the Head of Political Administration of the entire 10th Army.

Revekka Plastinina headed Gubrevkom and later the Gubkom of Archangel Guberniya.

Is it proper to mention here Cecilia Zelikson-Bobrovskaya, who was a seamstress in her youth, and became the Head of the Military Department of the Moscow Committee of the All-Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks?8 Or take one of the Furies of the Revolution Eugenia Bosh (or her sister Elena Rozmirovich)?

Or another thing — the Soviets used the phrase “Corps of Red Cossacks.” Yet those were not Cossacks who embraced communist ideology but plain bandits (who occasionally disguised themselves as Whites for deception). Those “Cossack Corps” were made of all nationa lities from Romanians to Chinese with a full-blown Latvian cavalry regiment. A Russian, Vitaly Primakov, was in command and its Political Department was headed by I. I. Minz (by Isaac Greenberg in the Second Division) and S. Turovskiy was head of the Headquarters. A. Shilman was the head of operative section of the staff, S. Davidson managed the division newspaper, and Ya. Rubinov was in charge of the administrative section of the staff.9

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Since we began particularizing let’s look at the famous leaders of the Red Army, at those never-fading names: Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko, Vasily Blucher, Semyon Budyonny, Klim Voroshilov, Boris Dumenko, Pavel Dybenko, Aleksa Dundich, Dmitry Zhloba, Vasily Kikvidze, Epifan Kovtukh, Grigory Kotovsky, Philip Mironov, Mikhail Muravyov, Vitaly Primakov, Ivan Sorokin, Semyon Timoshenko, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Ieronim Uborevich, Mikhail Frunze, Vasily Chapaev, Yefim Shchadenko, Nikolay Shchors. Why, couldn’t they pull it off without Jews?

Or take hundreds and thousands of Russian generals and officers of the former Imperial Army, who served in the Red Army, though not in the political sections (they were not invited there), but in other significant posts. True, they had a commissar with a gun behind them, and many served on pain of execution of their hostage families especially in case of military failures. Yet they gave an invaluable advantage to the Reds, which actually might have been crucial for the eventual victory of Bolsheviks. Why, “just about half of the officers of the General Staff worked for the Bolsheviks.”10

And we should not forget that initial and fatal susceptibility of many Russian peasants (by no means all of them, of course) to Bolshevik propaganda. Shulgin flatly noted: “Death to the Bourgeois” was so successful in Russia because the smell of blood inebriates, alas, so many Russians; and they get into a frenzy like wild beasts.”11

Yet let’s avoid going into another unreasonable extreme, such as the following: “The most zealous executioners in Cheka were not at all the `notorious Jews,´ but the recent minions of the throne, generals and officers.”12 As though they would be tolerated in there, in the Cheka! They were invited there with the only one purpose — to be executed. Yet why such a quick-temper? Those Jews, who worked in the Cheka, were, of course, not the “notorious Jews,” but quite young and “committed” ones, with revolutionary garbage filling their heads. And I deem that they served not as executioners but mostly as interrogators.

The Cheka (“Extraordinary Commission,” Che-Ka) was established in December 1917. It instantly gained strength and by the beginning of 1918 it was already filling the entire

populace with mortal fear. In fact, it was the Cheka that started the “Red Terror” long before its beginning was officially announced on September 5, 1918. The Cheka practiced terror from the moment of its inception and continued it long after the end of the Civil War. By January of 1918, the Cheka was “enforcing the death penalty on the spot without

investigation and trial.” Then the country saw the snatching of hundreds and later thousands of absolutely innocent hostages, their mass executions at night or mass drowning in whole barges. Historian S. P. Melgunov, who himself happened to experience perilous incarceration in Cheka prisons, unforgettably reflected upon the whole epic story of the “Red Terror” in his famous book “Red Terror” in Russia 1918-1923.

“There was not a single town or a district without an office of the omnipotent All-Russian Extraordinary Commission [that is, the Cheka], which from now on becomes the main nerve of state governance and absorbs the last vestiges of law”; “there was not a single place (in the RSFSR *Russian Federation+) without ongoing executions”; “a single verbal order of one man (Dzerzhinsky) doomed to immediate death many thousand people.” And even when investigation took place, the Chekists [members of the Cheka] followed their official instructions: “Do not look for evidence incriminating a suspect in hostile speech or action

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against Soviet power. The very first question you should ask him is about the social class he belongs to, and what is his descent, upbringing, education and profession. It is these

questions that should determine the suspect’s fate (the words of M. Latsis in the bulletin Red

Terror on November 1, 1918 and in Pravda on December 25, 1918).” Melgunov notes: “Latsis

was not original here, he simply rephrased the words of Robespierre in Convent about the mass terror: `To execute the enemies of the Fatherland, it is sufficient to establish their identities. Not punishment but elimination is required´.” Directives from the center are picked up and distributed all over Russia by the Cheka Weekly and Melgunov cites the periodical profusely: “Red Sword is published in Kiev … in an editorial by Lev Krainy we read: `Old foundations of morality and humanity invented by the bourgeoisie do not and cannot exist for us´…. A. certain Schwartz follows: `The proclaimed Red Terror should be

implemented in a proletarian way… If physical extermination of all servants of Tsarism and capitalism is the prerequisite for the establishment of the worldwide dictatorship of proletariat, then it wouldn’t stop us.´”13

It was a targeted, pre-designed and long-term Terror. Melgunov also provides estimates of the body count of that “unheard-of swing of murders” (precise numbers were practically not available then). “Yet, I suppose these horrors … pale into insignificance with respect to the number of victims if compared to what happened in the South after the end of the Civil War. Denikin’s *the general of the White army in command of the South Russian front+ rule was crumbling. New power was ascending, accompanied by a bloody reign of vengeful terror, of mere retaliation. At this point it was not a civil war, it was physical liquidation of a former adversary.” There were waves and waves of raids, searches, new raids and arrests. “Entire wards of prisoners are escorted out and every last man is executed. Because of the large number of victims, a machine-gun is used”; “they execute 15-16-years-old children and 60- years-old elders.” The following is a quote from a Cheka announcement in the Kuban region: “Cossack villages and settlements, which give shelter to Whites and Greens *Ukrainian nationalists], will be destroyed, the entire adult population — executed, and all property — confiscated.” After Wrangel *another White general+ left, “Crimea was dubbed the `All- Russian Cemetery´” (different estimates suggest the number of murdered as between 120,000 and 150,000). “In Sevastopol people were not just shot but hanged, hanged by dozens and even by hundreds,” Nakhimov Prospect *a major street+ was lined with the corpses of the hanged … people arrested on the streets and hastily executed without trial.” Terror in the Crimea continued through 1921.14

But no matter how deep we dig into the history of Cheka, special departments, special