Resolution on the report on creating the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army

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1. The Russian Soviet Republic is like a fortress which is besieged on every side by imperialist forces. Inside the Soviet fortress counter-revolution is raising its head, having found temporary support from the Czechoslovak hirelings of the Anglo-French bourgeoisie.

The Soviet Republic needs a strong revolutionary army, capable of crushing the bourgeois-landlord counter-revolution and giving a rebuff to the onslaught of the imperialist predators.

2. The old Tsarist army, which was created by coercion and in order to maintain the rule of the propertied upper circles over the working lower orders, suffered a terrible debacle in the imperialist slaughtering of the peoples. It was dealt the final blow by the lying policy of the Cadets and the compromisers, the criminal offensive of June 18, the Kerensky episode and the Korniloviad.

The old apparatus of military administration, at the center and in the localities, crashed and was dispersed along with the old order and the old army.

3. Under these conditions there was, at the beginning, no way open to the workers’ and peasants’ power, for creating an army, other than the enlistment of volunteers prepared to take their places under the flag of the Red Army.

4. At the same time the Soviet power always recognised (and the Fifth All-Russia Congress of Soviets again solemnly confirms this) that every honest and healthy citizen aged between 18 and 40 has the duty to answer the first call of the Soviet Republic to come forward to defend it against internal and external enemies.

5. With a view to introducing compulsory military training and compulsory military service, the Council of People’s Commissars has set up Soviet organs of local military administration, in the form of district, province, uyezd and volost military commissariats. Approving this reform, the All-Russia Congress of Soviets imposes on all local soviets the duty of implementing it with all strictness in the localities. It is a condition for the success of all measures for creating an army that there shall be consistent centralism in the sphere of military administration – that is, strict and unconditional subordination of volost commissariats to uyezd commissariats, of uyezd commissariats to province commissariats, of province commissariats to district commissariats, and of district commissariats to the People’s Commissariat for Military Affairs.

6. The Fifth Congress of Soviets requires of all local institutions a strict accounting of military property, and its conscientious distribution and expenditure in conformity with the establishments and regulations laid down by the central organs of Soviet power. Arbitrary seizure of military property, its concealment, unlawful appropriation or careless expenditure must henceforth be treated as equivalent to the worst of crimes against the state.

7. The period of casual formations, arbitrary detachments and amateurish structures must be put behind us. All formations must be effected in strict conformity with the institutional establishments and according to the assessments of the All-Russia General Staff. The Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army must be built in such a way that the minimum expenditure of forces and resources gives the maximum result, and this will be possible only provided there is planned application of all the conclusions of military science emerging from the experience of the present war.

8. In order to create a centralized, well-trained and well-equipped army we need to make extensive use of the experience and knowledge of many military specialists from among the officers of the former army. These must all be registered and obliged to take up the posts assigned to them by the Soviet power. Every military specialist who works honestly and conscientiously to develop and strengthen the military might of the Soviet Republic has the right to respect from the workers’ and peasants’ army and to support from the Soviet power. The military specialist who tries perfidiously to utilise his responsible post for counter-revolutionary conspiracy or treason on behalf of foreign imperialists must be punished with death.

9. The military commissars are the guardians of the close and inviolable internal bond between the Red Army and the workers’ and peasants’ regime as a whole. Only irreproachable revolutionaries, staunch champions of the cause of the proletariat and the village poor, must be appointed to the posts of military commissars, to whom is entrusted the fate of the army.

10. A most important task in connection with the creation of the army is the education of new commanding personnel thoroughly filled with the ideas of the workers’ and peasants’ revolution. The Congress imposes upon the People’s Commissar for Military Affairs the duty to redouble his efforts in this direction, by creating an extensive network of schools for instructors and bringing into them able, energetic and courageous soldiers of the Red Army.

11. The Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army must be built on a basis of iron revolutionary discipline. A citizen who has been given by the Soviet power a weapon with which to defend the interests of the working masses is obliged to submit unquestioningly to the demands and orders of the commanders appointed by the Soviet power. Hooligan elements who plunder and coerce the local population or raise revolts, together with self-seekers, cowards and deserters who quit their battle-positions, must be punished without mercy. The All-Russia Congress imposes on the Commissariat for Military Affairs the duty of calling to account, first and foremost, those commissars and commanders who connive at excesses or shut their eyes to violations of military duty.

12. Until the bourgeoisie has been finally expropriated and subjected to universal labor service, so long as the bourgeoisie is still striving to restore its former domination, arming the bourgeoisie would mean arming an enemy who is ready at any moment to betray the Soviet republic to foreign imperialism. The Congress confirms the decree of the Council of People’s Commissars on forming, from the age-groups of the bourgeoisie which have been called up, rear levies to make up the strength of non-combatant units serving as fatigue squads. Only such bourgeois elements can be allowed to transfer to combatant units who have shown in practice their loyalty to the working classes.

13. The Congress imposes on all Soviet institutions and on all trade-union and factory-committee organizations the duty of assisting the War Department in every way in the matter of implementing compulsory military training of workers and peasants who do not exploit the labor of others. Shooting clubs and rifle ranges must be established everywhere, manoeuvres and revolutionary-military festivals organized and agitation extensively carried on with the aim of heightening interest in military matters among the working class and the peasantry.

14. Hailing the call-up of two age-groups of workers in Moscow and Petrograd, and also the approach to mobilization on the Volga and in the Urals, and taking account of the endeavour by the world-predators to involve Russia once more in the imperialist slaughter, the Congress considers it necessary to proceed as soon as possible with the mobilizing of several age-groups of workers and working peasants throughout the country. The Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars are made responsible for issuing a decree defining the number of age-groups subject to immediate call- up, together with the times and conditions for reception of these age-groups.

15. Surrounded on all sides by enemies, face to face with counter-revolution, which relies on support from foreign mercenaries, Soviet Russia is creating a strong army to defend the workers’ and peasants’ power until such time as the working class of Europe and the world, rising in revolt, shall strike a mortal blow at militarism and create the conditions for peaceful and fraternal collaboration between all peoples.