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

ARMING THE REPUBLIC 439
until late in the Stalin era. His arrest in r9I9 was therefore
intended to add humiliation to the setbacks Trotsky had already
suffered.
These \yere weeks of exceptional tension between Trotsky and
Lenin, as their correspondence testifies. In part this was due to
the disagreement over strategy and in part to the fact, connected
with it, that Trotsky's assignment to hold the Ukraine against
Denikin was a Sisyphean labour. Lenin also suspected that
Trotsky was seeking to discredit the new Commander-in-Chief
in the eyes of the officers on the southern front. From the south
Trotsky reported that Yegoriev, the commander of the front,
took a highly critical view of Kamenev's plan for the offensive;
and that he carried out Kamenev's orders without conviction.
Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the issue, Trotsky wrote,
this was an abnormal state of affairs; and he proposed the
appointment of a new commander of the front who would share
the views of the Commander-in-Chief. This proposal, which
actually testified to Trotsky's loyalty, stirred suspicion in the
Kremlin. The Politbureau changed the commander of the
front, but also detailed to the Ukraine Smilga and Lashevich,
who were at loggerheads with Trotsky; and, further, it meaningfully
reminded Trotsky that he ought to do all he could to
strengthen the authority of the new Commander-in-Chief.
Against the insinuation Trqtsky vigorously protested. Repeatedly
he expostulated with Lenin and the Politbureau for their
'unbusinesslike' replies to his messages. Lenin, in his turn,
showered upon him admonitions and reproaches: why had he
so little achievement to report? Where were the offensives that
were to be mounted in the Ukraine?
In truth the unscttlement prevalent in the Ukraine afforded
Trotsky little or no scope for military action. The Red Army
had invested its main strength in the eastern sector of the front;
and the Ukraine, which formed the central and western sectors,
was left to fend for itself. Trotsky ceaselessly alarmed Moscow
about the insufficiency of the Ukrainian forces, still utterly
disorganized; and he demanded reinforcements and supplies.
The Politbureau almost certainly suspected that Trotsky made
these demands in order to achieve by a roundabout way a
revision of Kamenev's operational plan and a different distribution
of the troops.