Trotskiy had told Lenin on 23 August that he proposed to appoint Vatsetis ‘after the first victory, when arguments for it can produced’.4 On 6 September, at Headquarters, East Front in Arzamas, Trotskiy issued Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic (RMCR) Order No. 1 announcing the council’s activation as of that date with himself as chairman, Vatsetis as ‘Commander in Chief of All Armed Forces of the Republic’, and five ‘members’. Three of the members, K. Kh. Danishevskiy, P. A. Kobozev, and K. A. Mekhonoshin, were the commissars at East Front, and two, A. P. Rozengolts and I. N. Smirnov were commissars with Fifth Army. The order also named the former general N. I. Rattel chief of staff and directed him to convert the staff of the Supreme Military Council into a staff for the RMCR. Two days later, Sverdlov reminded Trotskiy that he had not provided the RMCR with regulations defining its powers and relationships to the existing military agencies.5 Having by then launched East Front in pursuit of its first victory, Trotskiy was content to leave the RMCR in administrative limbo for the time being. East Front went over to the offensive at Kazan on 5 September, throwing in the first wave 11,000 Fifth and Second Army troops against, at the most, 6,000 Czechs and White Guards in and around the city. From the river, some two dozen vessels of the Volga flotilla, minesweepers, floating batteries, steamers, and torpedo boats 64 an armed camp mounting guns in calibers up to 8-inch, shelled Kazan while 16 airplanes dropped improvised dynamite bombs. In a note to Trotskiy, Lenin expressed confidence that the Kazan Czechs and White Guards ‘and the kulak leeches supporting them’ would be ‘suppressed … in an exemplary and implacable’ manner. Tukhachevskiy’s First Army joined in with an attack toward Simbirsk on the 9th; Kazan fell on the 10th; and Gay’s Simbirsk Iron Division drove into Simbirsk two days later as Fourth Army at the southern end of the bridgehead was taking Volsk. On the night of the 12th, Vatsetis ordered an East Front general offensive. On the left, Third Army was to take Ekatrinburg and Second Army to clear the line of the Kama River; and on the right, Fifth, First, and Fourth Armies were to drive the enemy away from the Volga, taking Syzran and Samara. But the Czechs and White Guards, although their respect for the Soviet numbers and determination had grown, retained sufficient superiority in tactical skill not to allow themselves to be routed. In the Ekatrinburg sector, which was strategically important to them, they did not give any ground at all. Syzran they held until 3 October, Samara until the 10th. Second Army had two bridgeheads on the Kama by mid-October but would be tied down at Votkinskiy and Izhevsk until well into November.6 Nevertheless, in September, the Red Army passed major military and psychological milestones in its development. It conducted its first cohesive offensive operations and secured its first victories against regular army forces. Trotskiy, writing to Lenin on 11 September (with copies to the press), asserted that in capturing Kazan the Red Army men had proved themselves to be ‘in their overwhelming majority superb combat material’ and their past failures resulted entirely from lack of proper organization.7 On 16 September, the All-Russia Central Executive Committee overcame its distaste for military decorations, which had been abolished in November 1917 as marks of class discrimination, and authorized the Order of the Red Banner to be awarded for courage and valor in combat. Vasiliy Blyukher was the first to receive it. He had led the southern Urals detachments, calling themselves ‘the partisan army’, on an 800-mile march behind the enemy front. On the way, he had temporarily cut the Czechs’ line of communications between Ufa and Chelyabinsk and enhanced the feeling of isolation already gripping their units on the Volga; and on 13 September, when the East Front offensive was at its height, he had brought 6,000 experienced fighters through the front to Third Army. He, Chapayev, Gay, Budennyy, and others who received the Order of the Red Banner would soon constitute a new elite, a class of so-called ‘legendary’ figures separate both from the military specialists and from the Red Army rank and file. On 30 September, the All-Russia Central Executive Committee confirmed regulations for the RMCR, establishing it as the ‘organ’ of supreme national military authority, placing all of the ‘people’s strength and means’ at its disposal, and obligating all state institutions to satisfy its requirements as matters of highest priority. Within the military affairs commissariat the RMCR superseded the collegium of the commissariat as the executive body and absorbed the collegium’s members.
Trotskiy had told Lenin on 23 August that he proposed to appoint Vatsetis ‘after the first victory, when arguments for it can produced’.4 On 6 September, at Headquarters, East Front in Arzamas, Trotskiy issued Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic (RMCR) Order No. 1 announcing the council’s activation as of that date with himself as chairman, Vatsetis as ‘Commander in Chief of All Armed Forces of the Republic’, and five ‘members’. Three of the members, K. Kh. Danishevskiy, P. A. Kobozev, and K. A. Mekhonoshin, were the commissars at East Front, and two, A. P. Rozengolts and I. N. Smirnov were commissars with Fifth Army. The order also named the former general N. I. Rattel chief of staff and directed him to convert the staff of the Supreme Military Council into a staff for the RMCR. Two days later, Sverdlov reminded Trotskiy that he had not provided the RMCR with regulations defining its powers and relationships to the existing military agencies.5 Having by then launched East Front in pursuit of its first victory, Trotskiy was content to leave the RMCR in administrative limbo for the time being. East Front went over to the offensive at Kazan on 5 September, throwing in the first wave 11,000 Fifth and Second Army troops against, at the most, 6,000 Czechs and White Guards in and around the city. From the river, some two dozen vessels of the Volga flotilla, minesweepers, floating batteries, steamers, and torpedo boats 64 an armed camp mounting guns in calibers up to 8-inch, shelled Kazan while 16 airplanes dropped improvised dynamite bombs. In a note to Trotskiy, Lenin expressed confidence that the Kazan Czechs and White Guards ‘and the kulak leeches supporting them’ would be ‘suppressed … in an exemplary and implacable’ manner. Tukhachevskiy’s First Army joined in with an attack toward Simbirsk on the 9th; Kazan fell on the 10th; and Gay’s Simbirsk Iron Division drove into Simbirsk two days later as Fourth Army at the southern end of the bridgehead was taking Volsk. On the night of the 12th, Vatsetis ordered an East Front general offensive. On the left, Third Army was to take Ekatrinburg and Second Army to clear the line of the Kama River; and on the right, Fifth, First, and Fourth Armies were to drive the enemy away from the Volga, taking Syzran and Samara. But the Czechs and White Guards, although their respect for the Soviet numbers and determination had grown, retained sufficient superiority in tactical skill not to allow themselves to be routed. In the Ekatrinburg sector, which was strategically important to them, they did not give any ground at all. Syzran they held until 3 October, Samara until the 10th. Second Army had two bridgeheads on the Kama by mid-October but would be tied down at Votkinskiy and Izhevsk until well into November.6 Nevertheless, in September, the Red Army passed major military and psychological milestones in its development. It conducted its first cohesive offensive operations and secured its first victories against regular army forces. Trotskiy, writing to Lenin on 11 September (with copies to the press), asserted that in capturing Kazan the Red Army men had proved themselves to be ‘in their overwhelming majority superb combat material’ and their past failures resulted entirely from lack of proper organization.7 On 16 September, the All-Russia Central Executive Committee overcame its distaste for military decorations, which had been abolished in November 1917 as marks of class discrimination, and authorized the Order of the Red Banner to be awarded for courage and valor in combat. Vasiliy Blyukher was the first to receive it. He had led the southern Urals detachments, calling themselves ‘the partisan army’, on an 800-mile march behind the enemy front. On the way, he had temporarily cut the Czechs’ line of communications between Ufa and Chelyabinsk and enhanced the feeling of isolation already gripping their units on the Volga; and on 13 September, when the East Front offensive was at its height, he had brought 6,000 experienced fighters through the front to Third Army. He, Chapayev, Gay, Budennyy, and others who received the Order of the Red Banner would soon constitute a new elite, a class of so-called ‘legendary’ figures separate both from the military specialists and from the Red Army rank and file. On 30 September, the All-Russia Central Executive Committee confirmed regulations for the RMCR, establishing it as the ‘organ’ of supreme national military authority, placing all of the ‘people’s strength and means’ at its disposal, and obligating all state institutions to satisfy its requirements as matters of highest priority. Within the military affairs commissariat the RMCR superseded the collegium of the commissariat as the executive body and absorbed the collegium’s members.