The Situation at the Fronts

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Speech at the meeting of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee, September 30, 1918

The general situation on our fronts can be regarded as quite satisfactory. If we view it with a degree of historical perspective and look forward over the next two or three months, this situation can be considered more than satisfactory.

Undoubtedly, our army has been created. We have an army. And a good one. Though not yet so large as to correspond in numbers to the enemy, it is growing. We have formed strong, reliable cadres on every front. We shall reinforce these cadres and in a very short time develop a good, strong, united army that will Show our enemies that Russia does not lie at their mercy.

If we turn now to consider the fronts taken separately, we see that, on the Northern Front, we can note a stable situation, with its disadvantageous side turned towards our enemies.

We lost Archangel, but the Allies’ initial successes were not followed up. Their expeditionary force was to have constituted the axe from which the soldier cooked his soup, [In Russian folklore there is a story about a soldier who knocked at an old peasant woman’s hut and asked for food. When she said she had none, he suggested that he boil an axe to make some soup. The idea intrigued the old woman, and she let him have an axe, which he put in a pot, filling this with water. As the water heated, he asked the old woman for ‘a bit of turnip’, ‘some carrots’, and so on, and in the end had all the ingredients needed for some real soup.] but the Anglo-French soup has cooked much more slowly than the Allies had expected. The cold season is coming on. The White Sea will freeze over, and if the Anglo-French expeditionary force has not linked up with the Czechoslovaks before the beginning of winter, and it will not link up with them, then the position of that expeditionary force will become extremely difficult, and all we shall need to do is to chuck it out on to the ice of the White Sea – or under that ice.

On the Eastern Front the situation is completely favorable. The initiative is held by our forces. On the Volga, two important places are still in the enemy’s hands: Syzran and Samara. Operations on a wide scale are now being carried on against these two strong points. I can say that they will be taken in the very near future. That will mean that we have cleared the entire Volga, that the Volga has become what it ought to be, an honest Soviet river.

As you know, extensive operations are also taking place in the Urals, and after the liberation of the Volga these operations will, of course, proceed with much greater success, but it is difficult to foresee and estimate in advance the pace at which these operations will develop. It can, however, be said wtth confidence that the zone occupied at present by the forces supporting the Constituent Assembly will be cleared, and soon there will be nothing that is only half-and-half separating the area of the Soviet dictatorship from that held by the Black Hundreds.

On the Southern Front the battle has been proceeding until recently with varying success. There are grounds for thinking that here too we are on the eve of a decisive turn in our favor, that Krasnov’s successes will soon come to an end and that Northern Caucasia will be liberated for Soviet Russia.

Trotsky’s point is that the Anglo-French expeditionary force, which was in itself too small to have much significance, was intended to attract to itself counter-revolutionary elements from all over Russia, whose adhesion would make it a serious threat to the Soviets.

I must say that our successes have been due to the rapid tempering that our army has received, and I cannot refrain from mentioning the regiment which is named after the institution in which I am now speaking – the regiment which was raised in Tula province, under Comrade Panyushkin’s leadership [V.L. Panyushkin (1888-1960), a Party member since 1907, led a force of workers and sailors from Tula to the Eastern Front], and whose actions decided the fate of Kazan. Our enemies’ abandonment of Kazan was catastrophic for them, as can be seen by the fact that they left there more guns than they had captured from us. They also left behind quartermaster’s stores which had not been touched. We recovered everything that had been stored there, and, as regards artillery, even something extra.

We have also had success in the matter of commanding personnel. I have spoken about how, on the one hand, some capable commanders have emerged from among our soldiers and officers, while, on the other, we now have from the ranks of the old officer corps dozens of commanders who have linked their fate with that of the Red Army, not to mention Comrade Vatsetis, to whom belongs the honour of our successes before Kazan.

The Czechoslovaks did us a splendid service in the areas they occupied. The volosts they occupied are welcoming the Red Army as deliverers.

Our successes are also having another important result: they are intensifying conflict among our enemies. We are now happy to tell each other that not only our Party but also the entire Soviet system has never been so unanimous as at present, while the camp of our enemies is splitting at every seam.

There can be no question now, in the weeks that lie immediately ahead of any sort of catastrophe suddenly descending on us. The eyes of the White Guards are fixed on Japan and America, who do undoubtedly represent a real danger, but this is thousands of versts away from us, and we have the possibility of using the whole winter to strengthen our forces.

There is now some sort of agreement in being between Japan and the United States: what its scope is and what the relation is between the parties to it we do not know. But during this war we have seen too many examples of allies becoming trans-formed into sworn enemies, and the nearer we draw to the end of the world-wide slaughter the sharper will become the world-wide contradictions through which the friends of yesterday will become enemies.

Germany is now, in the period that lies immediately ahead, ceasing to be a force that is dangerous to us. Bulgaria is pulling out. She will be followed by Turkey, Romania and Austria- Hungary, and the rulers of present-day Germany will hardly possess either the material means or the incentive to continue with their policy in relation to the East.

Bulgaria’s departure from the war weakens Germany, reduces to the minimum the political terror she can exercise against us. In answer to the weakening of Germany will come the revolt of the French proletariat.

These are the prospects before us. Two months ago our position was very difficult. But we did not give up, and if we have lasted till now, no power exists that will overthrow us. We must make use of the next few months to strengthen and develop our army.

Basing ourselves on the authority of the CEC and the sympathy of the worker and peasant masses, we shall within a short time turn Russia, not in words but in deeds, into an armed camp, and we shall overcome the conservatism of the Soviet people in the provinces who do not always appreciate this.

Comrade Krasin has now been given charge of providing supplies for the army. He will push this work ahead, and the survey which he produced recently shows that the work of supply is going by no means badly.

The new call-up of young men will give us several first-class divisions to constitute reserves for the army. You will back with your authority the work of forming the army. We must convince the British and French that their enterprise is not merely a dishonourable crime but also a very shameful folly. Our resistance on the Eastern Front will produce a powerful jolt on the other side of the ocean, and we shall show to all our enemies, and likewise to all our friends, that we are a power, that we want to live, and that we shall live.