The Defense Council’s function was to outfit a mass army and sustain it at war by imposing an iron-hard economic dictatorship, what was later known as war communism. The fundamental principles applied were ‘surplus appropriation’ and the ‘dictatorship of food’. Under those, all the products of labor became the property of the state, which determined according to its own requirements how much was surplus and how much could be allotted to the workers and peasants for their subsistence. The council’s goals were to increase the Red Army quickly to 1.5 million men and eventually to 3 million. Through the Defense Council, Lenin and Trotskiy brought food, transportation and war industry directly under their control and made the people’s commissariats their executive agencies. Stalin was a supernumerary member. As one of some 260 delegates in the Central Executive Committee he had no personal power base. Lenin wanted to compensate him for having been removed from Tsaritsyn, and 75 the red army 1918–1941 Trotskiy thought taking him into the council would be a way to end his random sniping at the military organizations. For Stalin, the appointment provided what he had so far lacked, a confirmed place in the war establishment and that at the very top in a body technically superior even to the RMCR. On the other hand, the 30 November decree specifically exempted the armed forces from the kind of collegiality Stalin had advocated. Trotskiy, who most likely drafted the decree, not only saw to it that command and administration of the armed forces were reserved to the RMCR ‘as before’ but ‘to achieve greater centralization in the leadership’ included a clause creating a ‘bureau’ within the RMCR consisting of himself, Vatsetis and S. I. Aralov, the chief of intelligence in the Field Staff.26 Trotskiy therewith secured himself the personal authority – thinly veiled in collegiality – that Stalin and Voroshilov had accused him of exercising illegally. Additional decrees issued in early December gave statutory force to the RMCR regulations pertaining to the Commander in Chief, the front commanders and the army commanders.27 Although he had certainly not meant to do so, Trotskiy had also centralized the opposition. Stalin had been dislodged from Tsaritsyn but was in no wise disposed either to terminate his military involvement or to bring it into conformity with Trotskiy’s program. He told Voroshilov in early November that he was relying on him and all of his comrades ‘from Astrakhan to Voronezh’ (i.e., the whole South Front zone) to keep him informed; and he reminded Voroshilov that as Tenth Army commander, he was ‘the boss of a front’ and possessed means for ‘arranging matters’ to suit himself.28 Voroshilov was in fact the ‘boss’ of over 70,000 troops. Trotskiy, after his inspection, described those as constituting ‘a vast army, peculiar in its make-up … with ill-disciplined commanders’, low operational effectiveness, and units unqualified for the divisional designations they bore. Nevertheless the Soviet strategic position in the south depended absolutely on Tenth Army.29 It comprised over two-thirds of South Front’s total complement, had more than half of the front’s machine guns and two-thirds of its artillery and alone outnumbered Krasnov’s forces by nearly two to one.30 Lenin’s desire to placate Stalin and his and the Central Committee’s reluctance to permit repressions against party members, moreover, gave the Tsaritsyn group a sense of immunity to Trotskiy’s authority. While Trotskiy was in Tsaritsyn, Voroshilov joked with Stalin over the teletype about having to exercise the troops in ‘marching and parading’ in order to persuade Trotskiy that they were not a batch of detachments but a ‘real revolutionary army’. Minin’s removal from the army RMC (and from Tsaritsyn) did not disturb the Tsaritsyn group, which had merely used him. Its members, chief among them M. L. Rukhimovich, Ye. A. Shchadenko, A. Ya. Parkhomenko, and V. I. Mezhlauk, were Voroshilov’s party cronies from the Ukraine, and they stayed on as ‘special representatives’ of the RMCR. They did not openly challenge Trotskiy’s appointee, Okulov, but since their Bolshevik credentials were as good as his, Stalin could make effective use in Moscow of evidence they concocted against him. 76 an armed camp on the offensive in the south The approaching end to the World War, which the Soviet leadership had tardily recognized owing to its doctrinal requirement for a revolution as the first stage, had made the destruction of Krasnov’s and Denikin’s forces before the Allies could intervene Trotskiy’s paramount strategic objective.
The Defense Council’s function was to outfit a mass army and sustain it at war by imposing an iron-hard economic dictatorship, what was later known as war communism. The fundamental principles applied were ‘surplus appropriation’ and the ‘dictatorship of food’. Under those, all the products of labor became the property of the state, which determined according to its own requirements how much was surplus and how much could be allotted to the workers and peasants for their subsistence. The council’s goals were to increase the Red Army quickly to 1.5 million men and eventually to 3 million. Through the Defense Council, Lenin and Trotskiy brought food, transportation and war industry directly under their control and made the people’s commissariats their executive agencies. Stalin was a supernumerary member. As one of some 260 delegates in the Central Executive Committee he had no personal power base. Lenin wanted to compensate him for having been removed from Tsaritsyn, and 75 the red army 1918–1941 Trotskiy thought taking him into the council would be a way to end his random sniping at the military organizations. For Stalin, the appointment provided what he had so far lacked, a confirmed place in the war establishment and that at the very top in a body technically superior even to the RMCR. On the other hand, the 30 November decree specifically exempted the armed forces from the kind of collegiality Stalin had advocated. Trotskiy, who most likely drafted the decree, not only saw to it that command and administration of the armed forces were reserved to the RMCR ‘as before’ but ‘to achieve greater centralization in the leadership’ included a clause creating a ‘bureau’ within the RMCR consisting of himself, Vatsetis and S. I. Aralov, the chief of intelligence in the Field Staff.26 Trotskiy therewith secured himself the personal authority – thinly veiled in collegiality – that Stalin and Voroshilov had accused him of exercising illegally. Additional decrees issued in early December gave statutory force to the RMCR regulations pertaining to the Commander in Chief, the front commanders and the army commanders.27 Although he had certainly not meant to do so, Trotskiy had also centralized the opposition. Stalin had been dislodged from Tsaritsyn but was in no wise disposed either to terminate his military involvement or to bring it into conformity with Trotskiy’s program. He told Voroshilov in early November that he was relying on him and all of his comrades ‘from Astrakhan to Voronezh’ (i.e., the whole South Front zone) to keep him informed; and he reminded Voroshilov that as Tenth Army commander, he was ‘the boss of a front’ and possessed means for ‘arranging matters’ to suit himself.28 Voroshilov was in fact the ‘boss’ of over 70,000 troops. Trotskiy, after his inspection, described those as constituting ‘a vast army, peculiar in its make-up … with ill-disciplined commanders’, low operational effectiveness, and units unqualified for the divisional designations they bore. Nevertheless the Soviet strategic position in the south depended absolutely on Tenth Army.29 It comprised over two-thirds of South Front’s total complement, had more than half of the front’s machine guns and two-thirds of its artillery and alone outnumbered Krasnov’s forces by nearly two to one.30 Lenin’s desire to placate Stalin and his and the Central Committee’s reluctance to permit repressions against party members, moreover, gave the Tsaritsyn group a sense of immunity to Trotskiy’s authority. While Trotskiy was in Tsaritsyn, Voroshilov joked with Stalin over the teletype about having to exercise the troops in ‘marching and parading’ in order to persuade Trotskiy that they were not a batch of detachments but a ‘real revolutionary army’. Minin’s removal from the army RMC (and from Tsaritsyn) did not disturb the Tsaritsyn group, which had merely used him. Its members, chief among them M. L. Rukhimovich, Ye. A. Shchadenko, A. Ya. Parkhomenko, and V. I. Mezhlauk, were Voroshilov’s party cronies from the Ukraine, and they stayed on as ‘special representatives’ of the RMCR. They did not openly challenge Trotskiy’s appointee, Okulov, but since their Bolshevik credentials were as good as his, Stalin could make effective use in Moscow of evidence they concocted against him. 76 an armed camp on the offensive in the south The approaching end to the World War, which the Soviet leadership had tardily recognized owing to its doctrinal requirement for a revolution as the first stage, had made the destruction of Krasnov’s and Denikin’s forces before the Allies could intervene Trotskiy’s paramount strategic objective.