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

THE PROPHET ARMED
enthusiasm, and readiness for sacrifice were not enough. 'As
industry needs engineers, as farming needs qualified agronomists,
so military specialists are indispensable to defence.''
While those who had made the revolution were utterly reluctant
to take orders from the generals and colonels of the old
regime, the generals and colonels were not less reluctant to
place their skill and experience at the disposal of the Bolsheviks.
There were only a frw exceptions. The first military man of
stature who volunteered for service was General Bonch­
Bruevich, former commander of the northern front, who was
won over by his brother, a well-known Bolshevik writer.
Trotsky entrusted the general with organizing the General
Staff, a task which had been quite beyond the ensign Krylenko,
the Commander-in-Chief appointed in the first days of the
revolution. But very few officers followed Bonch-Bruevich.
Those who did so approached their task with all the mental
habits of the regular soldier, accustomed to work within the
rigid and well-ordered framework of a normal army and ill
at ease in the climate of revolution. Radck describes Trotsky's
first conferences with these officers in April 1918. In the course
of many days the officers put forward and discussed their ideas,
while Trotsky listened in silence. All sorts of schemes for galvanizing
the old army were advanced; and none took account
of the recent psychological upheavals. Then Trotsky outlined
his scheme for recruiting volunteers. The only answer he obtained
was an embarrassed silence and a shrugging of shoulders.
The officers attributed the collapse of the old army to lack of
discipline, and they were sure that there would be no discipline
in an army of volunteers. Trotsky's project struck them as the
fancy of a revolutionary dilettante. 2
But in Trotsky's scheme of things politics dictated the military
course of action. He had to enlist the enthusiasts of the revolution
first, for only they would serve with complete self-discipline
and could be counted upon later to impose discipline upon
others. Even the drafting of volunteers was no easy matter.
Adventurers and pot-hunters flocked to the recruiting centres,
and they had to be carefully eliminated. Only in the late
summer of 1918 did Trotsky proceed to experiment with conscription;
he called up a small number of industrial workers in
'Kak Vooru;:halas Rtvolutria, vol. i., p. 29.
1
K. Radek, Porlrtlyi Pamjlety, pp. 31-32.