The regulations anticipated that RMCR members would serve with the 65 the red army 1918–1941 Map 1: The Ring of Fronts 66 an armed camp field commands as observers and instructors and in critical situations as temporary members of front and army revolutionary military councils. From his experience at East Front, Trotskiy had come to conceive the RMCR as the central military authority and himself and the members as the means by which its decisions would be brought directly to bear. When he wrote the regulations, Trotskiy had already been away from Moscow for nearly two months and was leaving the coordination of RMCR affairs to Ya. M. Sklyanskiy, whom he appointed deputy chairman. The regulations gave the commander in chief RMCR ‘full independence in all strategic-operational questions’ and the full rights of a RMCR member. On the other hand, all orders he issued had to be countersigned by one other member. The aim, as Trotskiy had explained in a letter written to Lenin in late August, was to institute ‘strict separation of operational-command functions from political functions’ but to ensure as well that the political members in military councils ‘enjoy equal authority and bear equal responsibility’.8 Vatsetis turned the East Front command over to S. S. Kamenev, an ex-colonel and general staff academy graduate who had been assistant commander of the Western Screen. As Commander in Chief, Vatsetis was subordinate to the RMCR and superior to the front commands. The reorganized Supreme Military Council, a substantial number of whose members had outranked him in the old army and with which he had had less than cordial relations during his tenure at East Front, became the Field Staff of the RMCR. The Field Staff prepared plans, directives, and reports in accordance with the Commander in Chief ’s requirements but it was not his staff. He and it were headquartered in Serpukhov, a small provincial city 50 miles south of Moscow, where, presumably, they could give their undivided attention to operational matters. One of the first RMCR directives to be issued, No. 3/2 of 12 September, terminated the screens. The Northern Screen became North Front with an allotment of two armies, Sixth and Seventh, and a 700-mile sector extending from Petrograd to Vyatka. Ex-tsarist general D. P. Parskiy became the front commander and set up his headquarters in Yaroslavl. The Southern Screen became South Front, receiving an allotment of five armies, Eighth through Twelfth, to cover a 1,100-mile sector from Bryansk east to Astrakhan and including the North Caucasus. The front commander P. P. Sytin, another ex-general, had his headquarters in Kozlov, 240 miles due south of Moscow. The Western Screen, reduced to about 12,000 men, became the Western Defense Area under A. E. Snesarev, who was headquartered in Moscow.9 The front headquarters’ deployment in a tight arc around Moscow indicated a continuing strong defensive orientation and an almost total shift in the strategic emphasis from the west to the north, east, and south, most particularly the south. In the RMCR regulations Trotskiy established the conventionally organized, centralized command structure that had been the core of his resolution in the Fifth All-Russia Congress of Soviets. Unity of command as it existed in other military forces was far from being achieved. The highest authority at all levels was vested in the military revolutionary councils, in which the Commander in Chief and the front and army commanders had ‘the right of a deciding vote’ but were 67 the red army 1918–1941 clearly not superior to the other members or to the chairman. Front and army commanders, like the Commander in Chief, possessed ‘full independence in all strategic-operational questions’, subject only to directives from and answerability to the higher headquarters. While their orders were not valid without a council member’s countersignature, members could not refuse to sign unless they suspected a counterrevolutionary intent. However, if they disagreed with an order on any other grounds, they could report their objections to the next higher headquarters.10 Centralization was going to require skills in military management, planning, and command that had always been in short supply in Russia and were virtually monopolized by men many of whom,as Trotskiy put it,‘only two years before had thought of moderate liberals as revolutionaries, while the Bolsheviks, in their eyes, belonged to the fourth dimension’.11 After the wave of military specialist defections at Kazan Lenin had proposed it was time the party trained its own instructors ‘for a workers’ army’ and prepared Bolsheviks for assignments to senior commands.
The regulations anticipated that RMCR members would serve with the 65 the red army 1918–1941 Map 1: The Ring of Fronts 66 an armed camp field commands as observers and instructors and in critical situations as temporary members of front and army revolutionary military councils. From his experience at East Front, Trotskiy had come to conceive the RMCR as the central military authority and himself and the members as the means by which its decisions would be brought directly to bear. When he wrote the regulations, Trotskiy had already been away from Moscow for nearly two months and was leaving the coordination of RMCR affairs to Ya. M. Sklyanskiy, whom he appointed deputy chairman. The regulations gave the commander in chief RMCR ‘full independence in all strategic-operational questions’ and the full rights of a RMCR member. On the other hand, all orders he issued had to be countersigned by one other member. The aim, as Trotskiy had explained in a letter written to Lenin in late August, was to institute ‘strict separation of operational-command functions from political functions’ but to ensure as well that the political members in military councils ‘enjoy equal authority and bear equal responsibility’.8 Vatsetis turned the East Front command over to S. S. Kamenev, an ex-colonel and general staff academy graduate who had been assistant commander of the Western Screen. As Commander in Chief, Vatsetis was subordinate to the RMCR and superior to the front commands. The reorganized Supreme Military Council, a substantial number of whose members had outranked him in the old army and with which he had had less than cordial relations during his tenure at East Front, became the Field Staff of the RMCR. The Field Staff prepared plans, directives, and reports in accordance with the Commander in Chief ’s requirements but it was not his staff. He and it were headquartered in Serpukhov, a small provincial city 50 miles south of Moscow, where, presumably, they could give their undivided attention to operational matters. One of the first RMCR directives to be issued, No. 3/2 of 12 September, terminated the screens. The Northern Screen became North Front with an allotment of two armies, Sixth and Seventh, and a 700-mile sector extending from Petrograd to Vyatka. Ex-tsarist general D. P. Parskiy became the front commander and set up his headquarters in Yaroslavl. The Southern Screen became South Front, receiving an allotment of five armies, Eighth through Twelfth, to cover a 1,100-mile sector from Bryansk east to Astrakhan and including the North Caucasus. The front commander P. P. Sytin, another ex-general, had his headquarters in Kozlov, 240 miles due south of Moscow. The Western Screen, reduced to about 12,000 men, became the Western Defense Area under A. E. Snesarev, who was headquartered in Moscow.9 The front headquarters’ deployment in a tight arc around Moscow indicated a continuing strong defensive orientation and an almost total shift in the strategic emphasis from the west to the north, east, and south, most particularly the south. In the RMCR regulations Trotskiy established the conventionally organized, centralized command structure that had been the core of his resolution in the Fifth All-Russia Congress of Soviets. Unity of command as it existed in other military forces was far from being achieved. The highest authority at all levels was vested in the military revolutionary councils, in which the Commander in Chief and the front and army commanders had ‘the right of a deciding vote’ but were 67 the red army 1918–1941 clearly not superior to the other members or to the chairman. Front and army commanders, like the Commander in Chief, possessed ‘full independence in all strategic-operational questions’, subject only to directives from and answerability to the higher headquarters. While their orders were not valid without a council member’s countersignature, members could not refuse to sign unless they suspected a counterrevolutionary intent. However, if they disagreed with an order on any other grounds, they could report their objections to the next higher headquarters.10 Centralization was going to require skills in military management, planning, and command that had always been in short supply in Russia and were virtually monopolized by men many of whom,as Trotskiy put it,‘only two years before had thought of moderate liberals as revolutionaries, while the Bolsheviks, in their eyes, belonged to the fourth dimension’.11 After the wave of military specialist defections at Kazan Lenin had proposed it was time the party trained its own instructors ‘for a workers’ army’ and prepared Bolsheviks for assignments to senior commands.