isaac-deutscher-the-prophet-armed-trotsky-1879-1921

THE PROPHET ARMED
At this moment Kerensky might have re-entered Petrograd if
he had mustered a few reliable and disciplined detachments,
though it is doubtful whether he would have been able to reassert
his authority. But, like the troops which Trotsky sent
against him, his Cossacks were by no means prepared to shed
their blood. They had been told that their job was to suppress
a revolt staged by a handful of German spies; and they were
surprised to find the regiments of the capital and the Red
Guards arrayed against them. For a moment the fate of a great
country, indeed the fate of the world, depended on the encounter
of a few small dispirited brigades. That side which could evoke
a flicker of spirit in its troops and act with the more purpose and
speed was bound to win. Victory lay in a very narrow margin of
superiority, as it sometimes does even when numerous, wellequipped,
tenaciously fighting but equally strong armies are
locked in battle.
Trotsky was confident that words of persuasion rather than
bullets would disperse Krasnov's Cossacks.• But, before Bolshevik
propagandists could approach the Cossacks, guns had
to shake their self-assurance. At this stage already Trotsky had
to look round for experienced and skilled commanders. On
the day after the insurrection, he and Lenin turned for help to the
regular officers, hitherto the target of Bolshevik attacks. But the
officers who were persuaded to appear at the Smolny cautiously
refused co-operation. Only a few desperados and careerists were
ready to serve under the 'illegitimate' government. One of these,
Colonel Muraviev, was chosen to command in the battle on the
Pulkovo Heights; and subsequently he played a conspicuous
part in the first phase of the civil war. A braggart, posing as a
Left Social Revolutionary, he seems to have been moved less by
sympathy with the Bolsheviks than by a grudge against Kerensky.
Trotsky first received him with suspicion. But the Colonel
was mettlesome, resourceful, and eager to win a prize in a seemingly
hopeless assignment; and so Trotsky was captivated by his
initiative and courage. Colonel Vaiden, another officer of this
small group, commanded the artillery, which decided the outcome
of the Pulkovo battle in favour of the Bolsheviks.
The employment of these officers aroused much indignation
in the Soviet. Bolsheviks and Left Social Revolutionaries were
1
Sadoul, op. cit., pp. 68-6g.