The collapse of the Russian Imperial Army in 1917 and the signing of the shameful Treaty of Brest by the Bolsheviks
After the February Revolution, Russia tried to fight more energetically than before, but after the collapse of the summer offensive and the Bolsheviks came to power, the army turned into an uncontrollable crowd in soldiers' overcoats. Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev noted that the October Revolution
“had, first of all, one sad and humiliating meaning for the Russian people: the Russian people could not stand the great test of the war. All peoples took part in the world war with the spiritual and material baggage that they had accumulated over a long period of time. history. The Russian people turned out to be bankrupt. He had an underdeveloped sense of honor."
[quote from: Nikolai Berdyaev: The Philosophy of Inequality].
[quote from: Nikolai Berdyaev: The Philosophy of Inequality].
In this material, we will try to answer the questions - what led to the collapse of the Russian Imperial Army and what role did the Bolsheviks play in this? Why did the illogical position of the Bolsheviks at the negotiations in Brest-Litovsk worsen their negotiating positions?
The collapse of the Russian Imperial Army after the February Revolution and the role of the Bolsheviks in the process of its destruction
Candidate of Philosophical Sciences Elena Besschetnova in her scientific article “The Collapse of the Russian Imperial Army in 1917” notes that since its inception, the regular army of the Russian Empire has been the most reliable and flexible instrument of the autocracy, a special organism with a tough corporate spirit. In Europe, the symbol of Russian military power was popular - "the image of a large brown bear, which aroused respect even from the enemy" [1].
But in just a few months in 1917, one of the most powerful armies in Europe turned into an uncontrollable crowd in soldiers' overcoats. The army not only lost, it was practically destroyed. Desertion, robbery, drunkenness and murder became mass phenomena of that period. This was not a typical soldier's rebellion, it was an unconscious refusal of public service. The collapse of the army of the Great War is associated with the rejection of this war by the entire people [1].
The Russian Minister of War V. A. Sukhomlinov, in an article published in February 1914 under the heading “Russia wants peace, but is ready for war” in the Birzhevye Vedomosti newspaper, noted that the Russian army had restored its combat capability after the Russo-Japanese War and was ready for war with a strong opponent [2]. However, the reality turned out to be different. However, the First World War made its own adjustments to the state of the armies of all the warring countries, no one was ready for protracted hostilities, even Germany, whose troops were best prepared.
By the time the war began, the personnel of the Russian army totaled 1,4 million people. Between 1914 and 1917, 15,5 million people were called up for military service, of which 4,5 million were recruits, of which 3 million had never been trained in military affairs. Huge losses and mass mobilization led to a radical change in the composition of the troops. Personnel problems made themselves felt by January 1915, after four months of bloody offensive war. General A. Brusilov believed that there was no longer a regular army, instead of it "an army of ignoramuses" [1].
The army on the Austro-German front, stretching for hundreds of kilometers, by 1917 consisted mainly of conscripts prepared for war already in the process of the war itself, and was a poorly knit mass of peasants in soldiers' overcoats. At the same time, the issue of its leadership was acute in a situation of a catastrophic shortage of qualified officers, which was never resolved. But the most dangerous thing is that for the most part this multi-million army was indifferent to the war [1].
After the February Revolution and the coming to power of the Provisional Government, it became obvious that systematic work was needed to strengthen and expand patriotic sentiment at the front and in the rear. But instead, on March 27, 1917, the Provisional Government published an imperious and vague "Declaration on the Tasks of the War", which supported a completely different slogan in meaning "Peace without annexations and indemnities." It was the proposal of A.F. Kerensky. General M. Alekseev wrote about this:
“The slogan – without annexations and indemnities – leads the crowd to the conclusion: why sacrifice your life now? The army is on the brink of destruction.
In fact, this slogan could be supported only by those who hated the war and longed for peace, by all means. The Bolsheviks were not slow to take advantage of this.
After the February Revolution, they had equal access to agitation work among the troops with other parties and began to conduct active and effective defeatist propaganda in the army. In many letters from officers from the front there are references to the fact that Bolshevik agitation on the front lines has a corrupting effect on the soldiers. They sensitively caught the hidden mood of the masses and directed it in the direction they needed. If even in March the slogans of the Bolsheviks seemed "wild" and marginal, by October 1917 they had become one "of the leading army parties, their support in the troops reached, according to various sources, from 40 to 60%".
The Bolsheviks in their anti-government agitation relied on inciting "class hatred" between officers and soldiers, which made the unconditional execution of commanders' orders impossible.
A vivid example of successful propaganda can be considered the call of the Bolsheviks to fraternization. Lenin wrote in April 1917:
“It’s good that the soldiers curse the war ... It’s good that they break the hard labor discipline, they themselves begin fraternization on all fronts. All this is good! It is necessary that the soldiers now pass over to such a fraternization during which a clear political program would be discussed. We are not anarchists. We do not think that the war can be ended by a simple refusal, it must be ended and will be ended by the revolution [3].
After the February Revolution, these fraternizations with the soldiers of the army of opponents of Russia, which manifested themselves, among other things, in joint drinking, took on a massive character.
The reforms of the Provisional Government, carried out in the army with a constant eye on the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, transformed the army from an institution closed from any ideological propaganda into a political battlefield. The Bolsheviks, taking advantage of the proclamation of freedom of speech, including at the front, actively began to conduct their own propaganda, setting the soldiers against their commanders, urging them not to obey their orders. Thus, in essence, destroying the traditional idea of the army as a special organism with a rigid hierarchy. Desertion, robbery, drunkenness and murder were mass phenomena of that period. All the initiatives of the revolutionary period led Russia to the collapse of the Russian army and statehood [1].
Brest-Litovsk negotiations: the illogical position of the Bolshevik delegation
Soviet delegation in Brest-Litovsk
One of the main slogans of the Bolsheviks was Russia's withdrawal from the war, and its practical implementation began immediately after the Bolsheviks came to power. On November 8, 1917, the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopted the Decree on Peace, drawn up by V. I. Lenin (Ulyanov). The Soviet government offered all the warring peoples and their governments to conclude a truce and start negotiations on a "just, democratic peace without annexations and indemnities." The Decree contained an appeal to the workers of England, France and Germany "to actively intervene in the solution of questions of war and peace, to achieve the liberation of mankind from the horrors of war and its consequences."
On November 21, Russian People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Lev Trotsky (Leiba Bronstein) sent diplomatic notes to the ambassadors of the Entente countries with a proposal for an "immediate cessation of hostilities on all fronts and an urgent start of peace negotiations." On November 27, 1917, the German government agreed to start peace negotiations. The Soviet delegation headed by A. A. Ioffe arrived in Brest-Litovsk on December 7, 1917 (L. Trotsky arrived there a little later).
The recent underground revolutionaries and political émigrés who represented Soviet Russia at the negotiations in Brest did not possess the elementary skills of office work and diplomacy. In particular, one of the members of the delegation, historian Mikhail Pokrovsky, drew attention to the fact that the members of the Soviet delegation did not have written authority to conclude a peace treaty on behalf of the Soviet state, and those papers that the members of the Soviet delegation received in the office of Smolny certified only their identities. . It turned out that the delegates and those who sent them either did not know the basics of diplomacy, or were not going to make peace at all. After this remark by M.N. Pokrovsky in Petrograd, documents were urgently drawn up and transferred to Brest-Litovsk, in which it was noted that the members of the delegation (by name) were authorized by the Council of People's Commissars to conclude peace with other states [4].
The delegation of the German Empire was headed by the State Secretary of the German Foreign Ministry, Richard von Kühlmann. However, in reality, the chief of staff of the German armies on the Eastern Front, General Max Hoffmann, played a dominant role. Differences emerged between the German military and diplomats from the very beginning - Kuhlmann advocated soft peace conditions, arguing that it was necessary to end the war on one of the fronts as soon as possible. Hoffmann, on the other hand, sought to fully exploit the enemy's weakness. In this, he was supported by a significant part of the German public, who longed for a convincing victory [5].
On December 15, an armistice was signed, and on December 22, negotiations began on a peace treaty. Germany's conditions were harsh enough that the Bolsheviks caused intra-party disagreements. Part of the party workers, regardless of objective factors, counted on a pan-European socialist revolution and therefore did not understand the need to sign peace with Germany. No less adventurous and demagogic was the position of L. D. Trotsky (at that time People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR), who proposed: declare the war ended, demobilize the army, but do not sign peace.
The head of the Soviet government, V. I. Lenin, advocated the acceptance of the German peace conditions, who believed that the Red Army, which had just begun to form, would not be able to resist enemy troops, and proceeded, first of all, from the need to maintain power at any cost, even by ceding part of the territory former empire. As a result, the Bolsheviks began to drag out peace negotiations.
It is worth noting that L. Trotsky's insistence on inviting a delegation of the Polish government to participate in the negotiations forced the German side to use the Bolshevik principle of "self-determination of peoples" against Russia itself and, in turn, offer the Ukrainian delegation. It should be noted that L. Trotsky without hesitation recognized the independence of the UNR delegation, thereby creating a certain confusion and violating the established principles of international relations [6].
Trotsky generally had certain sympathies for "Ukrainianism". Even during the years of the Civil War, Trotsky drew attention to the national characteristics of the Ukrainian people. He discovered in the Ukrainians the awakened "free spirit of the Zaporizhzhya Cossacks and Haidamaks", which "gave the Ukrainians superhuman strength to fight against the oppressors for hundreds of years" [7].
To put pressure on the intractable Bolshevik government, which was dragging out negotiations in anticipation of a revolution in Germany, on the night of January 27 (February 9), 1918, the Central Powers signed a separate peace with the UNR. In response, the Soviet delegation headed by L. Trotsky made a kind of "knight's move": she declared that the Central Rada had been deposed, therefore her delegation did not represent Ukraine.
In turn, there have been changes in the composition of the Russian delegation: it includes representatives of the Soviet Ukraine, who refuse to recognize the agreement concluded by the UNR delegation. Bolshevism apparently could not construct a situation more stupid from a legal point of view. First, recognize the independence of the UNR delegation, then declare a change of power in Ukraine, while the new government, which is formally independent, enters into negotiations as an integral part of the Russian Soviet delegation [6].
The negotiations thus stalled. On January 28 (February 10), at an evening meeting of the political commission chaired by R. von Kühlmann, the Soviet delegation headed by L. D. Trotsky finally refused to accept the German terms of the peace treaty. After an emotional speech, Trotsky read out his famous statement, based on the highly controversial formula "no peace, no war." In response, the German troops launched an offensive and occupation of Ukraine, virtually without encountering resistance.
L. D. Trotsky writes in his memoirs that he counted on the fact that if the Germans found 2-3 combat-ready divisions, they would need at least 12 days to reach Petrograd, and during this time the Soviet government could well move to Moscow , and if necessary - to Yekaterinburg [8]. It is hard to imagine a more adventurous position.
As a result, on March 3, the Bolsheviks signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on even more humiliating terms. Russia has lost the Baltic States, Finland, Ukraine, part of Belarus. From the point of view of Russia's interests, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a disaster.
In pursuit of the illusion of world revolution (as an afterword)
After the Bolsheviks came to power, it was the illusion of world revolution that determined the content of their political practice. The reference point for the Bolshevik party was the future and the whole world, and not the present and Russia. The fate of the homeland of the doctrinaires of communism was of little interest, for it was entirely determined by the Western revolutions. Hence the reckless demagogy and populism, with the help of which a group of charismatics, rallied around a strong leader, destroyed the Russian army, pushed opponents out of power, and eliminated the foundations of the “old” statehood. And all this is for the communist reconstruction of the world community [9].
Russia was seen as a platform from which the Bolsheviks were to start the world revolution. It was an absolute priority [9]. The territorial losses of Russia for the Bolsheviks, who at that time were guided by the policy of "war communism" and expected a "world revolution", frankly, meant little. In his speech, the founder of the party, V. I. Lenin, directly said that he had already
“In the era of the Brest peace, the Soviet government placed the world dictatorship of the proletariat and the world revolution above all national sacrifices, no matter how hard they were” [9].
Moreover, some Bolsheviks, such as Leon Trotsky, the ideologue of Trotskyism, showed an openly hostile attitude towards Russian culture, and believed that the history of Russia was “poor”, and the people were “spiritually poor”.
“Poor country Russia, our poor history, if you look back. The Slavophiles wanted to perpetuate social impersonality, the slavery of a spirit that did not rise above the herd, as "meekness" and "humility", the best flowers of the Slavic soul. The populists wanted to make the economic primitiveness of the country a source of social miracles.
[quote from: L. Trotsky. Problems of culture. Culture of the old world. L. Trotsky. Works. Volume 20. Moscow - Leningrad, 1926].
[quote from: L. Trotsky. Problems of culture. Culture of the old world. L. Trotsky. Works. Volume 20. Moscow - Leningrad, 1926].
Bowing before the West, Trotsky fully connected the entire progressive development of Russia with Western influences, seeing in them not only the basis, but also the accelerator of the state organization in Russia [7].
As a conclusion, it should be noted that it cannot be said that only the Bolsheviks destroyed the Russian army and led the country to disaster, it would be wrong, but the Bolsheviks played a significant role in this. They were ready to sacrifice the national interests of Russia to the idea of a ghostly world revolution.
Использованная литература:
[1] Beschetnova E. V. The collapse of the Russian Imperial Army in 1917. Sociological review. 2018. V. 17. No. 2. S. 299–316.
[2] Pirogov D.V. Assessment of the readiness of the Russian Empire for the European war through the eyes of military publicists (1905–1914) // Bulletin of the Moscow University. Series 8. History. M., 2017. No. 1. S. 90–97.
[3] V. I. Lenin (1969). The meaning of fraternization // Lenin V. I. Complete Works. T. 31. M.: Politizdat. pp. 459–461.
[4] Brest peace: prologue, conclusion, results: Collection of documents / otv. comp. A. V. Repnikov; comp. A. V. Borisov, with the participation of B. S. Kotov and L. V. Lannik. – M.: Political Encyclopedia, 2022.
[5] Nikolai Vlasov. Road to disaster. Foreign policy of the German Empire. 1871–1918 – M.: Eurasia, 2021.
[6] Bondarenko D. Ya. On the question of the legitimacy of Ukraine's participation in the Brest-Litovsk negotiations / D. Ya. Bondarenko. Moscow State Pedagogical University // Scientific Bulletin of BelSU. Ser. Story. Political science. Economy. Informatics. - 2010. - No. 1 (72), issue 13. – P. 45–48.
[7] Shepelev M. A. Trotskyism and the Ukrainian question // Uchenye zapiski Crimean Federal University named after V. I. Vernadsky. Philosophy. Political science. Culturology. 2016. Volume 2 (68).
[8] Peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk from December 22 (December 9), 1917 to March 3 (February 18), 1918, Vol. 1: Plenary sessions; Meetings of the political commission / Full text of transcripts, ed. and with note. A. A. Ioffe (V. Krymsky), with preface. L. D. Trotsky. – M.: Nar. com. foreign affairs, 1920.
[9] Davydov, A. Yu. War communism: people and power in revolutionary Russia, late 1917 - early 1921 / A. Yu. Davydov. - St. Petersburg: Eurasia, 2020.
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