Classics and war
Rereading again
I think I will not be mistaken, noting that many in the "Voennoye Obozreniye" once went through the school of taking notes of the classics of Marxism-Leninism. Among the first - from the collection "On War, Army and Military Science."
This is how at the end of the 50s the textbook Leninist two-volume edition from the Officer's Library was named, which supplemented the Selected Military Works by F. Engels, as well as the volume of the first Marshal Voroshilov, Stalin and the Red Army, which was soon pushed into distant shelves.
And I certainly won't be mistaken if I say that the works of the classics are again in demand not only by the older generation. They again disagree on quotes, no worse than Soviet films. And a lot has become even more relevant now than at the time when it was written.
With the exception of the economist Marx, the classics considered themselves mainly politicians and appreciated Clausewitz, who was the first to call war the continuation of politics by other means. This is what allowed them with good reason to regularly refer to the military topic.
We must not forget Marx's front-line reports and analysts, as well as capacious and vivid articles for the New American Encyclopedia. Most of these works were included in the 14th volume of the second edition of the "Works" by Marx and Engels, loved by everyone who is fond of military history,. The same one with an article about Blucher, which gives almost the best descriptions of the campaigns of 1813 and 1814.
And someone also had the 11th volume of the first edition with biographies of Barclay and Bennigsen, several Napoleonic marshals and whole series of articles in the American New York Daily Tribune and the German Das Volk, published by Karl Marx. And with excellent maps of battles and operations of the Napoleonic era.
I especially remember the lapidary biting "Invasion" written by Marx, which was in no way inferior to Engels's "Aspern" and "Austerlitz" from the encyclopedia. However, the authorship of Engels was later questioned, but it was Engels, not only a colleague of the author of Capital, who was forever included in the list of the best military theorists.
Well, obviously, by right, especially considering the real combat experience of Engels, the son of the owner of a cotton-spinning mill and a successful entrepreneur. Young Friedrich Engels, unlike Marx and Lenin, who did not fight, personally participated in the revolutionary battles in Germany.
When civil war broke out in the west and southwest of the then divided country in May 1849, Engels joined the People's Army of Baden and the Palatinate. Engels wanted to attack from Elberfeld, where the uprising united workers and small shopkeepers.
He offered to join the rebels in other towns, including the nearby Wuppertal, of which Elberfeld now became a part, but they did not understand him. Later, Engels would even be expelled from the town, but during the days of the uprising it was he who led the erection of the barricades and was on them in several violent clashes with the Prussians.
Strange, but this did not prevent both founders from subsequently admiring the Prussian military machine. However, why be surprised? According to the postulates of Marxism, the then unification of Germany must be considered as progress, and, therefore, the Kaiser's army was progressive!
Almost all other armies of the mid-XNUMXth century, even the army of the northerners in the American Civil War, got very hard from the classics. Although, for example, the French soldiers, who would later be called "poilu", and their emperor Napoleon III, seemed to be also progressively fighting for the freedom and unification of Italy.
The founders against the Russian tsars
Both Engels and Marx were especially fond of the tsarist - Russian army, although the classics in their works still had to pay tribute to the great Suvorov and even Peter the Great several times, but he was regularly reminded of the notorious testament.
The very same Russian army of the era when Karl and Friedrich lived, it seems, did not deserve a single kind word from them. And even more so, its supreme leaders - the Russian tsars - did not deserve kind words from the classics.
And it would be understandable if Marx and Engels blamed Nicholas I for all their sins, who considered himself a “guardian of the foundations,” in Marxist terms, a reactionary. The characterization of the Russian infantry, made by Engels many years later, is addressed as if personally to Nicholas I:
“The Russians are most proud of their infantry. It is extremely stable and, being in a line formation, or columns, as well as being behind parapet, causes a lot of trouble to the enemy. But this is what its positive qualities are limited to. It is totally unsuitable for light infantry service; the so-called Jaegers are light infantry in name only, and in fact the only light infantry in the army are eight battalions of riflemen attached to the light corps; Russian infantrymen are usually bad shooters, they walk well, but slowly; their columns are usually so poorly built that they can always be destroyed by artillery fire before they go on the attack. "
What does Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich have to do with it? And despite the fact that in confirmation of his words, Engels leads the battle on the river. Alma, in which the British and French had not only an almost two-fold superiority in forces, but also a much more important advantage. They had more modern weapons: both guns and rifles.
Russian bullets simply did not reach the enemy from that lethal distance that snipers in red and blue uniforms chose to shoot our officers and gun servants. Well, after Nicholas I and the Crimean disaster, the Russian army had to be reformed, but this did not change the attitude of the classics towards it at all.
It was the reformer Alexander II, under whom the Suvorov traditions were revived in the Russian army, that seems to have disappointed Marx and Engels the most. However, the tsar-liberator also clearly did not suit the domestic revolutionaries together with the Polish terrorists. And they still finished him off on the seventh attempt.
But the grandson of Nikolai Pavlovich, Alexander III the Peacemaker, was already getting pretty much from Engels. And not only because he was ready to put pressure on the nihilists, while hiding in Gatchina. The expansion of Russia in Central Asia, which was no less civilizational in nature than the colonial conquests of the British and French, - this is what most resented the classic.
What is the fault of the Russian soldier?
Even the Russian soldier, who was respected by everyone who happened to have an affair with him, on one side of the front, receives only condescension or, at best, sympathy and pity from the founders. You will only occasionally find in the writings of Engels and Marx recognition of his steadfastness, for example, in the following passage from the article "Campaign in Crimea":
“As in Zorndorf, Eylau, Borodin, the Russian infantry, although defeated, lived up to the characterization given to it by General Katkart, who commanded a division against it and declared it“ incapable of panic ”.
In his last detailed article on the Russian army, Engels not only repeated this characterization, but also admitted:
Russian soldiers are among the bravest in Europe. Their tenacity is equal to the tenacity of the British and some Austrian battalions. They are characterized by what John Bull boastfully attributes to himself: they do not feel when they are beaten. "
But even this recognition was made only as a supplement to the description of a purely Russian, in the opinion of the authors, system of command and control of troops:
“The mania to make abstract prescriptions for all sorts of cases leaves so little freedom of action for the commander and so much prevents him from using the advantages of the terrain that one Prussian general, criticizing this system, put it this way:“ Such a system of prescriptions can only be tolerated in the army, most generals which are so stupid that the government cannot safely give them unconditional command or leave them to their own reasoning. "
It is interesting that we did not include this article by Engels in collections, confining ourselves to publication in the "Works". And it was written after Milyutin's big reform and after the brilliant victories of Skobelev, Gurko and Dragomirov during the war with the Turks for the freedom of Bulgaria.
And it is in this article that Engels gives a very good description of the Russian soldier who
"Well built, healthy, excellent walker, extremely undemanding in food and drink, eating something, and more obedient to his officers than any other soldier in the world."
But the classic is relentless, and nullifies it in just a few lines:
“And yet the Russian army doesn't have much to brag about. During the entire existence of Russia, the Russians have not yet won a single battle against the Germans, French, Poles or British, without significantly outnumbering them. Even with the superiority of forces, they were always beaten by other armies, excluding the Prussians and Turks, but under Chetati and Silistria, the Turks beat the Russians, although they were numerically weaker.
Apart from any other shortcomings, Russian soldiers are the most awkward in the whole world. They are not suitable for light infantry or light cavalry. "
Apart from any other shortcomings, Russian soldiers are the most awkward in the whole world. They are not suitable for light infantry or light cavalry. "
The last passage is simply touching, especially given this addition:
“It would be in vain to expect from a Russian soldier that he, in his actions at outposts or in light combat battles, showed the quick wit of the French or just the common sense of the Germans. What he needs is a command, a clear, distinct command, and if he does not receive it, then although, perhaps, he will not flee, he will not go forward, will not be able to act with his own mind.
And this is written about the soldiers who not only crossed the Danube, took Plevna and defended Shipka! ..
instead of an epilogue
That is why a modern reader of the classics may not look to Marx and Engels for the realization of the fact that even then in the XNUMXth century, and earlier, under any commanders, the legendary "Russians do not surrender" and "Russians do not abandon their own." And it is no coincidence that they regarded the Russian army as the main nucleus of the united armed force of European reaction:
“Finally, the Russians, by the very nature of their army, are forced to adhere to a military system very close to the modern one. Their army in its main part consists of large masses of semi-barbaric and therefore heavy infantry on the rise and numerous, semi-barbaric, light irregular cavalry (Cossacks).
In decisive battles, in major battles, the Russians never acted except in large masses. Suvorov understood the need for this already during the storming of Izmail and Ochakov. The lack of mobility in this army is partly compensated for by the irregular cavalry, which maneuvers around it in all directions and thus disguises all its movements.
But it is precisely this massiveness and sluggishness of the Russian army that makes it very suitable for forming the core and main support, the backbone of the coalition army, whose operations are always somewhat slower in comparison with the actions of the national army. The Russians performed this role superbly in 1813 and 1814, and it is difficult to name the disposition of the battle over these years, in which the density of the Russian columns, which significantly surpassed all other troops in their depth and density, would not be striking. "
In decisive battles, in major battles, the Russians never acted except in large masses. Suvorov understood the need for this already during the storming of Izmail and Ochakov. The lack of mobility in this army is partly compensated for by the irregular cavalry, which maneuvers around it in all directions and thus disguises all its movements.
But it is precisely this massiveness and sluggishness of the Russian army that makes it very suitable for forming the core and main support, the backbone of the coalition army, whose operations are always somewhat slower in comparison with the actions of the national army. The Russians performed this role superbly in 1813 and 1814, and it is difficult to name the disposition of the battle over these years, in which the density of the Russian columns, which significantly surpassed all other troops in their depth and density, would not be striking. "
Concluding my first note, or rather, nothing more than a detailed quotation book, let me remind you that all followers of Marx and Engels wrote about the war and the army. At the same time, Lenin, at the head of the government, actually supervised the construction of the workers 'and peasants' army, and Trotsky and Stalin themselves were the real commanders in chief.
They knew the subject brilliantly. Is this why the works of the classics are now in demand again, at a time when the very essence of war is changing? More precisely, they simply return to those readers who are not ready to fully trust Western theorists and home-grown history rewriters.
The author has the right to hope that the readers will give the go-ahead to continue the topic.
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