What did Trotsky do for Soviet Russia. Trotsky in the Russian Revolution Lenin and Trotsky are Doctors of Sick Russia
Leon Trotsky can be called one of the most controversial figures in the history of the 20th century. He was the ideologist of the revolution, created the Red Army and the Comintern, dreamed of a world revolution, but became a victim of his own ideas...
"Demon of the Revolution"
Trotsky's role in the 1917 revolution was pivotal. You can even say that without his participation, it would have collapsed. According to the American historian Richard Pipes, Trotsky actually led the Bolsheviks in Petrograd during the absence of Vladimir Lenin, when he was hiding in Finland.
The importance of Trotsky for the revolution is difficult to overestimate. On October 12, 1917, as chairman of the Petrosoviet, he formed the Military Revolutionary Committee. Joseph Stalin, who would become Trotsky's main enemy in the future, wrote in 1918:
"All work on the practical organization of the uprising took place under the direct supervision of the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, Comrade Trotsky." 
During the attack on Petrograd by the troops of General Pyotr Krasnov in October (November) 1917, Trotsky personally organized the defense of the city. Trotsky was called the "demon of the revolution", but he was also one of its economists.
Trotsky came to Petrograd from New York. In the book of the American historian Anthony Sutton "Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution" about Trotsky, it is written that he was closely associated with the Wall Street bigwigs and went to Russia with the generous financial support of the then American President Woodrow Wilson. According to Sutton, Wilson personally issued Trotsky a passport and allocated $10,000 to the "demon of the revolution" (over $200,000 in today's money).
This information, however, is controversial. Lev Davidovich himself commented in the New Life newspaper on rumors about dollars from bankers:
“Regarding the story with 10 thousand marks or dollars, neither
government, nor I knew anything about it before the appearance of information about her already here, in Russian circles and the Russian press. 
Trotsky further wrote:
“Two days before my departure from New York for Europe, my German associates arranged for me” a farewell meeting. At this rally, a meeting was held for the Russian revolution. The collection gave $310”.
However, another historian, again an American, Sam Landers, in the 90s found evidence in the archives that Trotsky did bring money to Russia. In the amount of $32,000 from the Swedish socialist Karl Moor.
Creation of the Red Army
Trotsky also has the merit of creating the Red Army. He headed for the construction of the army on traditional principles: unity of command, the restoration of the death penalty, mobilization, the restoration of insignia, uniform uniforms and even military parades, the first of which took place on May 1, 1918 in Moscow, on the Khodynka field.
An important step in the creation of the Red Army was the fight against the "military anarchism" of the first months of the existence of the new army. Trotsky restored executions for desertion. By the end of 1918, the power of the military committees was reduced to nothing. People's Commissar Trotsky, by his personal example, showed the red commanders how to restore discipline. 
On August 10, 1918, he arrived in Sviyazhsk to take part in the battles for Kazan. When the 2nd Petrograd Regiment arbitrarily fled from the battlefield, Trotsky applied the ancient Roman ritual of decimation to deserters (execution of every tenth by lot).
On August 31, Trotsky personally shot 20 people from among the unauthorized retreating units of the 5th Army. With the filing of Trotsky, by a decree of July 29, the entire population of the country liable for military service aged 18 to 40 years was registered, military horse service was established. This made it possible to sharply increase the size of the armed forces.
In September 1918, about half a million people were already in the ranks of the Red Army - more than two times more than 5 months ago. By 1920, the number of the Red Army was already more than 5.5 million people.
detachments
When it comes to barrage detachments, they usually remember Stalin and his famous order number 227 “Not a step back”, however, in creating barrage detachments, Leon Trotsky was ahead of his opponent.
It was he who was the first ideologist of the punitive barrage detachments of the Red Army. In his memoirs Around October, he wrote that he himself justified to Lenin the need to create detachments: 
“In order to overcome this disastrous instability, we need strong defensive detachments made up of communists and militants in general. Must be forced to fight. If you wait until the man is out of his senses, perhaps it will be too late.
Trotsky was generally sharp in his judgments: “As long as, proud of their technology, evil tailless monkeys called people build armies and fight, the command will put the soldiers between possible death ahead and inevitable death behind.”
Over-industrialization
Leon Trotsky was the author of the concept of super-industrialization. The industrialization of the young Soviet state could be carried out in two ways. The first way, which was supported by Nikolai Bukharin, involved the development of private entrepreneurship by attracting foreign loans.
Trotsky, on the other hand, insisted on his concept of super-industrialization, which consisted in growth with the help of domestic resources, using the means of agriculture and light industry to develop heavy industry. 
The pace of industrialization was accelerated. Everything took 5 to 10 years. In this situation, the peasantry had to "pay" for the costs of rapid industrial growth. If the directives drawn up in 1927 for the first five-year plan were guided by the "Bukharin approach", then by the beginning of 1928 Stalin decided to revise them and gave the green light to forced industrialization.
In order to catch up with the developed countries of the West, it was necessary to “run a distance of 50-100 years” in 10 years. The first (1928-1932) and second (1933-1937) five-year plans were subordinated to this task. That is, Stalin followed the path proposed by Trotsky.
red five pointed star
Leon Trotsky can be called one of the most influential "art directors" of Soviet Russia. It was thanks to him that the five-pointed star became the symbol of the USSR.
With its official approval by order of the People's Commissar of the Republic of Leon Trotsky No. 321 dated May 7, 1918, the five-pointed star received the name "Mars star with a plow and a hammer." The order also stated that this sign "is the property of persons serving in the Red Army."
Seriously fond of esotericism, Trotsky knew that the five-pointed pentagram has a very powerful energy potential and is one of the most powerful symbols. 
The swastika, the cult of which was very strong in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, could also become a symbol of Soviet Russia. She was depicted on the "kerenki", swastikas were painted on the wall of the Ipatiev House by Empress Alexandra Fedorovna before being shot, but by the sole decision of Trotsky, the Bolsheviks settled on a five-pointed star.
The history of the 20th century has shown that the "star" is stronger than the "swastika". Later, the stars shone over the Kremlin, replacing the double-headed eagles.
Alexey Rudevich
Plan:
- Introduction
- 1 End of the second emigration (1914-1917)
- 2 Internment in Canada
- 3 Arrival in Petrograd
- 4 July-September 1917
- 5 July events
- 6 October Revolution Literature
Introduction
The February Revolution of 1917 found Leon Trotsky in exile. In early May 1917, Trotsky arrived in Petrograd, where he became the informal leader of the "mezhraiontsy", who took a critical position in relation to the Provisional Government. After the failure of the July uprising, he was arrested. In July, at the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b), the “mezhraiontsy” united with the Bolsheviks, and Trotsky himself became a member of the Central Committee of the party. After the failure of the Kornilov speech in September, Trotsky was released, along with other Bolsheviks arrested in July.
Trotsky became the head of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and, according to Richard Pipes, in Lenin's absence effectively led the Bolshevik activities in Petrograd until his return. It was on his initiative that the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee (VRC) was formed, which became the main body for the preparation of an armed uprising in Petrograd.
1. The end of the second emigration (1914-1917)
At the beginning of World War I, Trotsky was in Vienna. Fearing that he, as a Russian subject, could be interned (although he was deprived of civil rights by a court in 1907), Trotsky left for Zurich on August 3, 1914. In 1914-1916 he lived in Paris, where he worked in the socialist newspaper Nashe Slovo, from which he ousted Martov. On September 14, 1916, the newspaper was banned, and Trotsky was expelled from France for anti-war propaganda. After Great Britain, Italy and Switzerland refused to accept him, Trotsky went to Spain.
Shortly after arriving in Madrid, Trotsky was arrested and a few days later exiled to Cadiz as a "dangerous anarchist." From Cadiz they were going to send him to Havana, but after violent protests this decision was canceled. On December 25, 1916, under the supervision of the Spanish police, Trotsky left Barcelona for New York on the steamer Montserrat and arrived in New York on January 13, 1917.
The February Revolution found Trotsky in New York, and he was unable to directly participate in the revolutionary events. Just as for Lenin, the revolution in Russia came as a surprise to Trotsky. As early as January 16, in an article accompanying Trotsky's interview with the New York Jewish Vorverts, the correspondent stated that "Comrade Trotsky will remain with us ... at least until the end of the war."
2. Internment in Canada
On March 27, 1917, Trotsky headed for Russia on the Norwegian steamship Christianiafjord via the Canadian port of Halifax.
In Halifax, however, he was interned by the British authorities - according to one version, the reason for the detention was the lack of Russian documents (according to Anthony Sutton, Trotsky had an American passport issued personally by President Woodrow Wilson, with attached visas for entry into Russia and British transit). In addition, the authorities feared that Trotsky's actions could undermine stability in Russia. Formally, the British acted on the basis of "black lists" of unreliable persons compiled by the tsarist government. Trotsky stayed in the British concentration camp for interned sailors of the German merchant fleet (Amherst, Nova Scotia) for about a month. His wife, two sons and five more Russian socialists were interned with him, whose names were recorded as Nikita Mukhin, Leiba Fishelev, Konstantin Romanchenko, Grigory Chudnovsky and Gershon Melnichansky. According to some sources, Trotsky tried to conduct socialist agitation in a Canadian concentration camp, after which the interned German officers protested to the British authorities. According to the commandant of the concentration camp, “this man has incredible charisma. In just a few days, he became the most popular person in the camp.
Trotsky refused to leave the ship voluntarily, so he had to be carried out by force, in his arms, and the head of the concentration camp, Colonel Morris, who fought in the Boer War, told him: "If you had caught me on the South African coast ...". Trotsky himself describes his stay in the concentration camp as follows:
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At the request of the Petrograd Soviet and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Government, Milyukov, the British authorities release Trotsky. On April 29, he leaves the concentration camp and goes to Russia on a Danish steamer through Sweden.
Trotsky's journey from New York to Petrograd through British territory gave rise to a conspiracy theory according to which he was supposedly a British (or British-American) agent, and allegedly "received his final instructions" in Halifax. In July 1917, Trotsky had to face accusations of allegedly receiving ten thousand dollars in New York from an unknown source, to which he ironically remarked that he was "cheaply appreciated." This theory was much less widespread than the theory of "Lenin's German gold", due to its obvious senselessness - Britain at that time was at war with Germany and was not interested in Russia getting out of the war. In addition, if Germany gave Lenin the opportunity to transit to Russia through its territory, Britain interned Trotsky. As for the United States, in 1917 they did not participate in the war at all and adhered to neutrality. There are also several conflicting conspiracy theories that declare all the passengers on the Christianiafjord to be socialist agitators, armed militants and at the same time rich financiers. In fact, the authorities interned only six people from the passengers of the steamer along with Trotsky, not counting his wife and children.
3. Arrival in Petrograd
May 4, 1917 Trotsky arrives in Petrograd. He was met by several socialists, but on the whole this meeting had nothing in common with the pomp with which Lenin was greeted at the Finland Station in April. Directly from the station, Trotsky goes to a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet. In recognition of previous merits (during the revolution of 1905, Trotsky was the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet), he is given a seat on the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet with an advisory vote.
John Reed on the Modern Circus
The dilapidated gloomy amphitheater, lit by five faintly flickering bulbs hanging from a thin wire, was packed from top to bottom, to the ceiling: soldiers, sailors, workers, women, and everyone listened with such tension, as if their lives depended on it. A soldier from some 548th division said:
“Comrades! he shouted, and in his emaciated face and gestures of despair, real anguish was felt ... Show me what I am fighting for. For Constantinople or free Russia? For democracy or for capitalist conquests? If they prove to me that I am defending the revolution, then I will go and fight, and I will not have to be urged on by executions!
After returning, Trotsky becomes the leader of the faction of "mezhrayontsy" who demanded the restoration of the unity of the RSDLP. There were no significant ideological differences between the factions of the “mezhraiontsy” and the Bolsheviks: both of them supported the slogans of the dissolution of the Provisional Government (“the development of the bourgeois revolution into a socialist one”) and immediate peace (“democratic peace without annexations and indemnities”). The Mezhrayonka included a number of capable agitators, headed by Trotsky, but in itself this organization was too weak and small in number to act as an independent party; by the time Trotsky arrived from exile, the faction was just considering its possible merger with the Bolsheviks or some other left group.
Trotsky's oratorical abilities attracted the attention of Lenin, and in July the faction of "mezhraiontsy" in full force joins the Bolsheviks; in the words of Lunacharsky (who was also a “mezhrayontsy”), Trotsky came to Bolshevism “somewhat unexpectedly and immediately with brilliance”. Among other significant figures of Mezhrayonka, V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko, M. S. Uritsky, V. Volodarsky, A. A. Ioffe also join the Bolsheviks. The first meeting between Lenin and Trotsky, at which a possible merger was discussed, took place already on May 10. Both sides come to the conclusion that their programs of action, in relation to the situation that existed then in Russia, completely coincide. Already at this meeting, Lenin invites Trotsky to join the ranks of the Bolsheviks, but he postpones the decision, waiting for the opinion of his comrades-in-arms - "mezhraiontsy". Lenin himself, commenting on these negotiations, notes that "ambitions, ambitions, ambitions" prevent both of them from immediately uniting with Trotsky.
According to the memoirs of V. S. Voitinsky, Lenin repeatedly stated that “the party is not a boarding school for noble maidens. It is impossible to approach the evaluation of party workers with the narrow yardstick of petty-bourgeois morality. Some bastard can be useful to us precisely because he is a bastard ... We have a large economy, and in a large economy, all sorts of rubbish will come in handy. According to V. M. Molotov, "Lenin ... knew how to use everyone - a Bolshevik, a half-Bolshevik, and a quarter-Bolshevik, but only a literate one." Lunacharsky notes that “tremendous authority and some inability or unwillingness to be in any way affectionate and attentive to people, the absence of that charm that always surrounded Lenin, condemned Trotsky to some loneliness. Just think, even a few of his personal friends (I'm talking, of course, about the political sphere) turned into his sworn enemies.
On May 16, 1917, the Kronstadt Soviet declared itself the only authority in the city, and demanded the recall of the Commissioner of the Provisional Government V. N. Pepelyaev. The current situation was considered by the executive committee of the Petrosoviet on May 22. At the meeting, the representatives of the Kronstadters, Raskolnikov and Roshal, had to justify themselves before the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik majority of the Petrosoviet on charges of forming the "Kronstadt Republic", which decided to "depart from Russia." Trotsky became one of the few orators of the Soviet who spoke on the side of the Kronstadters.
Trotsky and Lunacharsky, as is well known, were not at that time [May 1917] members of the Bolshevik Party. But these first-class speakers have already managed to become the most popular agitators within two or three weeks. Their success began, perhaps, with Kronstadt, where they toured very often. In Kronstadt already in the middle of May, Kerensky, who was preparing the offensive, figured with the epithets: "socialist robber and bloodsucker."
In June 1917, Trotsky calls the existing system of "dual power" - "dual anarchy" and characterizes the "agreement" of the Menshevik-SR Soviets with the Provisional Government as follows:
The petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, raised to a height unexpected for itself by the formation of the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, was most afraid of responsibility, and therefore respectfully handed over power to the capitalist-landlord government, which emerged from the depths of the June 3rd Duma. The organic fear of the petty philistine before the shrine of state power, which was very openly seen among the Narodniks, was covered up by the Menshevik-defencists with doctrinaire arguments about the inadmissibility for socialists to take on the burden of power in a bourgeois revolution.
Trotsky L. D. Dual power.
At the time of the convening of the First Congress of Soviets, Trotsky had not yet joined the Bolsheviks. The Social Democratic faction of the Mezhrayontsy, headed by him, appears at this congress as part of the Social Democratic faction of the "United Internationalists", created on the basis of the "Menshevik-Internationalists" who advocated an end to the war.
4. July-September 1917
The VI Congress of the RSDLP (b) accepts the “Mezhraiontsy” as part of the Bolshevik Party, and elects their leaders Trotsky and Uritsky to the Central Committee. At the same time, Lenin's proposal to introduce Trotsky to the editorial board of Pravda was rejected by 11 votes to 10.
In July-September, Trotsky, thanks to his ability as an orator, plays a key role in "disagitating" the Petrograd soldiers and Kronstadt sailors and their going over to the side of the Bolsheviks. His favorite arena for performances is the circus "Modern". This circus was located near the Kshesinskaya mansion, at the corner of Kronverksky and Kamennoostrovsky prospects. By 1917, the circus building was badly dilapidated, and in January 1917, firefighters forbade circus performances to be held in it.
I found in Petersburg all the orators of the revolution with hoarse voices or no voice at all. The Revolution of 1905 taught me to be careful with my own throat. Meetings were held at factories, educational institutions, theaters, circuses, on the streets and squares. I returned exhausted after midnight, discovered in an anxious half-sleep the best arguments against political opponents, and at seven o'clock in the morning, sometimes earlier, I was pulled out of sleep by a hated, unbearable knock on the door: I was summoned to a meeting in Peterhof or the Kronstadters sent a boat for me. Each time it seemed that I would not be able to raise this new rally. But some kind of nervous reserve opened up, I spoke for an hour, sometimes two, and during the speech I was surrounded by a dense ring of delegations from other factories or regions. It turned out that thousands of workers were waiting in three or five places, waiting for an hour, two, three. How patiently the awakened mass waited in those days for a new word.
By the autumn of 1917, the old disagreements between Lenin and Trotsky were a thing of the past. November 1, 1917 Lenin calls Trotsky “the best Bolshevik” (“Trotsky said a long time ago that unification [between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks] is impossible. Trotsky understood this, and since then there has not been a better Bolshevik”), although back in April he called Trotsky in his notes "petty bourgeois".
5. July events
6. October Revolution
Sukhanov N. N., Notes on the Revolution
Lenin, "immediately providing" the land to the peasants and preaching the seizure, in fact subscribed to the anarchist tactics and the Socialist-Revolutionary program. Both were courteous and understandable to a peasant who was by no means a fanatical supporter of Marxism. But both, for at least 15 years, were eaten by the Marxist Lenin. Now it has been abandoned. For the sake of courtesy and understandability to the peasant, Lenin became both an anarchist and a Socialist-Revolutionary.
Trotsky, on the other hand, resolved all the food difficulties in one breath that the sky became hot ... In every village the Soviet government will send a soldier, a sailor and a worker (at dozens of rallies, Trotsky, for some reason, said precisely a worker); they will inspect the stocks of the wealthy, leave them as much as they need, and the rest free of charge - to the city or to the front ... The St. Petersburg working masses met these promises and prospects with enthusiasm.
It is clear that any "confiscation" and any "free of charge", scattered right and left with royal generosity, were captivating and irresistible in the mouths of the friends of the people. Nothing could stand before it. And this was the source of the spontaneous and uncontrollable development of this method of agitation... Rich and poor; The rich have a lot of everything, the poor have nothing; everything will belong to the poor, everything will be divided among the poor. This is telling you your own workers' party, followed by millions of the poor in town and country, is the only party that fights against the rich and their government for land, peace and bread.
All this has been spreading in endless waves all over Russia in recent weeks... Hundreds of thousands of hungry, tired and embittered people heard all this every day... It was an integral element of the Bolshevik agitation, although it was not their official program.
But a delicate question arises: was there socialism in this "platform"? Did I miss socialism? Did I see an elephant?...
The movement of the masses was clearly overflowing. The working-class districts of St. Petersburg were seething before everyone's eyes. They listened only to the Bolsheviks and only believed in them. At the famous circus "Modern", where Trotsky, Lunacharsky, Volodarsky performed, everyone saw endless tails and crowds of people who were no longer accommodated by the overcrowded huge circus. The agitators called from words to deeds and promised the very near conquest of Soviet power. And finally, in Smolny, they started working on the creation of a new, more than suspicious body of "defense" ...
The true role of Trotsky in the preparation and conduct of the October Revolution is still debatable. According to Richard Pipes, in the absence of Lenin, who fled to Finland in July 1917, Trotsky leads the Bolsheviks until his return. Curzio Malaparte, in his 1931 work The Technique of the Coup d'Etat, calls Lenin the main strategist of the "proletarian revolution", and Trotsky the main tactician of the October uprising. According to Lenin, "After the Petersburg Soviet passed into the hands of the Bolsheviks, Trotsky was elected its chairman, in which capacity he organized and led the October 25 uprising." Trotsky himself in 1935 assessed his role in the October events as follows:
Stalin, in the issue of the newspaper Pravda No. 241 of November 6, 1918, wrote that “All work on the practical organization of the uprising took place under the direct supervision of the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, comrade. Trotsky. It can be said with certainty that the party owes the rapid transfer of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the skillful organization of the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee, first of all, and mainly, to Comrade. Trotsky. Comrades Antonov and Podvoisky were Trotsky's chief aides."
Analyzing all these and other similar statements, historians Yu. G. Felshtinsky and G. I. Chernyavsky write that “The Military Revolutionary Committee (Voenrevkom) of the Petrograd Soviet was created on October 12 (25), 1917 formally to organize the defense of the city in in the event of the approach of German troops, in fact, to carry out the Bolshevik coup. The Military Revolutionary Committee was directly led by the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, L. D. Trotsky.
At the same time, the direct role of Trotsky in the activities of the Military Revolutionary Committee, as the main organ of the uprising, still needs to be studied. Until the beginning of the October Revolution, the leaders of the MRC, and Trotsky himself personally in their public speeches, denied allegations that they were preparing an uprising, and the first chairman of the MRC was the Left Social Revolutionary Lazimir P. Ye, appointed, according to Trotsky himself, to divert eyes. In addition, Trotsky in October 1917 remained chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, and in this capacity had many duties that, to some extent, distracted him from leading the revolution.
According to the researcher Sergei Shramko, the direct plan of the uprising was developed under the leadership of Lenin by N. I. Podvoisky, and approved by the Military Revolutionary Committee, which entrusted its execution to N. I. Podvoisky, V. A. Antonov-Ovseenko and G. I. Chudnovsky. All three accepted participation in the storming of the Winter Palace, Antonov-Ovseenko signed an ultimatum to the Provisional Government, and arrested its ministers. According to the plan of the uprising, the revolutionary sailors of Helsingfors and Kronstadt also provided assistance to the rebels. The corresponding telegram was sent to Helsingforgs Smilga I.T. from Sverdlov Ya.M., who was also a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee.
The first chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee, the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Lazimir, resigned on October 22, instead of him at the beginning of the October Revolution, another person was already the chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee. There are conflicting data on who exactly was the chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee at the time the uprising began and immediately after it. According to Soviet historiography, he was Podvoisky. According to other sources, one of Trotsky's closest supporters, Ioffe A. A. Researcher Alexander Rabinovich believes that in the period October 21-25, 1917, Podvoisky, Antonov-Ovseenko, Trotsky and Lazimir equally performed the duties of chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee.
At the same time, there is a document dated October 30, 1917, in which Lenin signed as "Chairman of the All-Russian Revolutionary Committee." There are also documents dated November 1917 and signed by Trotsky also as "Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee." Already in March 1918, Trotsky signed an appeal to the population to transfer the capital to Moscow, also on behalf of the chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee, although in fact the Military Revolutionary Committee dissolved itself in December 1917.
Lenin appears in Smolny, which has become the residence of the Military Revolutionary Committee, only on the eve of the uprising, on October 24, when preparations were already in full swing. Directly directing the fighting, Lenin began only with the beginning of the speech of Kerensky-Krasnov.
Summarizing all the available evidence, researcher Sergei Shramko notes:
... who really led the uprising, if all headquarters, party centers, troikas, bureaus were not involved in this? Stand, shifting, in the ranks of candidates for the role of chairman of the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee, Podvoisky, Uritsky, Stalin, Trotsky, Lenin and Antonov-Ovseenko. On the side of the stump, he settled down - legs crossed - who refused to chair, having written the Regulations on the Military Revolutionary Committee, Lazimir ... Well, why not admit that October had collective leadership and all the people listed equally commanded a hundred thousandth army of the revolution?
At the same time, there is no doubt the role of a number of Bolshevik rally speakers: Trotsky, Volodarsky, Lashevich, Kollontai, Raskolnikov and Krylenko, in the "agitation" of the vacillating units of the Petrograd garrison in the period of October 21-25. On October 23, Trotsky personally "agitated" the last wavering unit - the garrison of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The historian of the revolution Sukhanov N. N. also left a vivid record of Trotsky's speech at the People's House on October 22:
Around me there was a mood close to ecstasy, it seemed that the crowd would sing now without any collusion and indication of any religious hymn ... Trotsky formulated some kind of general brief resolution ... Who is for? A crowd of thousands raised their hands as one man... Trotsky continued to speak. The vast crowd continued to hold hands. Trotsky minted the words: “Let this vote of yours be your oath to support the Soviet with all your strength, by any means, which has taken upon itself the great burden of bringing the victory of the revolution to the end and giving land, bread and peace!
The vast crowd held their hands. She is agree. She swears.
With the beginning of a fierce struggle for power in the CPSU (b), Trotsky, starting at least with the "literary discussion" in the autumn of 1924, began to widely appeal to his "services to the party." As a counterbalance, Stalin put forward the theory that the governing body of the October Revolution was supposedly the "Military Revolutionary Center" ("Party Center"), appointed to strengthen the MRC as its "leading core", and which, according to Stalin's historiography, became "combat headquarters of the October armed uprising. Stalin was a member of the "military revolutionary center", while Trotsky was not a member of this body.
Such an organization of the leading organs of the uprising was considered obvious already in the 1920s - 1930s, under the conditions of one-party rule, which was increasingly centralized in the hands of one leader. However, in reality, in 1917, the VRK was not an organ of the RSDLP (b), but a non-party organ of the Petrosoviet, which also included the Left SRs on an equal footing with the Bolsheviks. Apparently, the party "Military Revolutionary Center" during the October Revolution never even met.
With the beginning of de-Stalinization after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, the role of the “party center” in the revolution was again reduced to zero, and Stalin was no longer credited with the leadership of this body. According to the TSB, the composition of the Military Revolutionary Center began to look like this: A. S. Bubnov, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, Ya. M. Sverdlov, I. V. Stalin, M. S. Uritsky.
Literature
- Alexander Rabinovich. Unrest in the garrison and the Military Revolutionary Committee
- Sukhanov N. N. Notes on the Revolution
This abstract is based on an article from the Russian Wikipedia. Synchronization completed on 07/09/11 12:36:38 PM
Related essays: Political parties in Russia in 1917, .
The text is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.
Trotsky's role in the 1917 revolution was pivotal. You can even say that without his participation, it would have collapsed. According to the American historian Richard Pipes, Trotsky actually led the Bolsheviks in Petrograd during the absence of Vladimir Lenin, when he was hiding in Finland.
The importance of Trotsky for the revolution is difficult to overestimate. On October 12, 1917, as chairman of the Petrosoviet, he formed the Military Revolutionary Committee. Joseph Stalin, who in the future would become Trotsky's main enemy, wrote in 1918: "All work on the practical organization of the uprising took place under the direct supervision of the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, Comrade Trotsky." During the attack on Petrograd by the troops of General Pyotr Krasnov in October (November) 1917, Trotsky personally organized the defense of the city.
Trotsky was called the "demon of the revolution", but he was also one of its economists.
Trotsky came to Petrograd from New York. In the book of the American historian Anthony Sutton "Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution" about Trotsky, it is written that he was closely associated with the Wall Street bigwigs and went to Russia with the generous financial support of the then American President Woodrow Wilson. According to Sutton, Wilson personally issued Trotsky a passport and allocated $10,000 to the "demon of the revolution" (over $200,000 in today's money).
This information, however, is controversial. Lev Davidovich himself commented in the New Life newspaper on rumors about dollars from bankers:
“Regarding the story with 10 thousand marks or dollars, neither
government, nor I knew anything about it until the news about her
already here, in Russian circles and in the Russian press.” Trotsky further wrote:
“Two days before my departure from New York for Europe, my German associates arranged for me” a farewell meeting. At this rally, a meeting was held for the Russian revolution. The collection gave $310”.
However, another historian, again an American, Sam Landers, in the 90s found evidence in the archives that Trotsky did bring money to Russia. In the amount of $32,000 from the Swedish socialist Karl Moor.
Creation of the Red Army
Trotsky also has the merit of creating the Red Army. He headed for the construction of the army on traditional principles: unity of command, the restoration of the death penalty, mobilization, the restoration of insignia, uniform uniforms and even military parades, the first of which took place on May 1, 1918 in Moscow, on the Khodynka field.
An important step in the creation of the Red Army was the fight against the "military anarchism" of the first months of the existence of the new army. Trotsky restored executions for desertion. By the end of 1918, the power of the military committees was reduced to nothing. People's Commissar Trotsky, by his personal example, showed the red commanders how to restore discipline.
On August 10, 1918, he arrived in Sviyazhsk to take part in the battles for Kazan. When the 2nd Petrograd Regiment arbitrarily fled from the battlefield, Trotsky applied the ancient Roman ritual of decimation to deserters (execution of every tenth by lot).
On August 31, Trotsky personally shot 20 people from among the unauthorized retreating units of the 5th Army. With the filing of Trotsky, by a decree of July 29, the entire population of the country liable for military service aged 18 to 40 years was registered, military horse service was established. This made it possible to sharply increase the size of the armed forces. In September 1918, about half a million people were already in the ranks of the Red Army - more than two times more than 5 months ago. By 1920, the number of the Red Army was already more than 5.5 million people.
detachments
When it comes to barrage detachments, they usually remember Stalin and his famous order number 227 “Not a step back”, however, in creating barrage detachments, Leon Trotsky was ahead of his opponent. It was he who was the first ideologist of the punitive barrage detachments of the Red Army. In his memoirs Around October, he wrote that he himself justified to Lenin the need to create detachments:
“In order to overcome this disastrous instability, we need strong defensive detachments made up of communists and militants in general. Must be forced to fight. If you wait until the man is out of his senses, perhaps it will be too late.
Trotsky was generally sharp in his judgments: “As long as, proud of their technology, evil tailless monkeys called people build armies and fight, the command will put the soldiers between possible death ahead and inevitable death behind.”
Over-industrialization
Leon Trotsky was the author of the concept of super-industrialization. The industrialization of the young Soviet state could be carried out in two ways. The first way, which was supported by Nikolai Bukharin, involved the development of private entrepreneurship by attracting foreign loans.
Trotsky, on the other hand, insisted on his concept of super-industrialization, which consisted in growth with the help of domestic resources, using the means of agriculture and light industry to develop heavy industry.
The pace of industrialization was accelerated. Everything took 5 to 10 years. In this situation, the peasantry had to "pay" for the costs of rapid industrial growth. If the directives drawn up in 1927 for the first five-year plan were guided by the "Bukharin approach", then by the beginning of 1928 Stalin decided to revise them and gave the green light to forced industrialization. In order to catch up with the developed countries of the West, it took 10 years to "run a distance of 50 - 100 years." The first (1928-1932) and second (1933-1937) five-year plans were subordinated to this task. That is, Stalin followed the path proposed by Trotsky.
red five pointed star
Leon Trotsky can be called one of the most influential "art directors" of Soviet Russia. It was thanks to him that the five-pointed star became the symbol of the USSR. With its official approval by order of the People's Commissar of the Republic of Leon Trotsky No. 321 dated May 7, 1918, the five-pointed star received the name "Mars star with a plow and a hammer." The order also stated that this sign "is the property of persons serving in the Red Army."
Seriously fond of esotericism, Trotsky knew that the five-pointed pentagram has a very powerful energy potential and is one of the most powerful symbols.
The swastika, the cult of which was very strong in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, could also become Veteran Russia. She was depicted on the "kerenki", swastikas were painted on the wall of the Ipatiev House by Empress Alexandra Fedorovna before being shot, but by the sole decision of Trotsky, the Bolsheviks settled on a five-pointed star. The history of the 20th century has shown that the "star" is stronger than the "swastika". Later, the stars shone over the Kremlin, replacing the double-headed eagles.
On November 7 (October 25), 1879, Lev Davidovich Trotsky (Leiba Davidovich Bronstein) was born - one of the key figures in the history of Russia of the 20th century ...
In the 1920s and 30s, Trotsky's name was known to everyone in the Soviet country. At first, he was praised to the skies as the main leader of the October Bolshevik uprising and the winner of the White armies. Then - anathematized as an enemy of the party and the Soviet people. After the release of the film “Lenin in October” in 1937, in the minds of the Soviet people, Trotsky was firmly entrenched in the nickname “political prostitute” (with the reduced “r” characteristic of Ilyich). In fact, Lenin liked to use this word, but only called Kautsky a “prostitute”. In relation to his closest "accomplice" Trotsky, the leader of the world proletariat twice allowed himself the affectionate "Iudushka" (meaning Shchedrin's Yudushka Golovlev). Yes, and this happened only in the pre-revolutionary period, when Trotsky actively collaborated with the "Mensheviks".
However, the name of perhaps the brightest and most charismatic of the leaders of the revolution became a household name already in 1918. Trotsky was respected and feared not only by the red commanders, but also by their opponents in the civil struggle.
So, in the original version of M. Bulgakov's play "Days of the Turbins", Captain Myshlaevsky mentions the name of Trotsky as the only frightening factor for all kinds of bandits and "independents" that neither the Germans nor the whites could cope with:
“At Petliura’s, you say how much? Two hundred thousand! These two hundred thousand heels have been smeared with lard and are blowing at the very word Trotsky! Did you see? Purely!"
After November 1927, "Trotsky", for censorship reasons, was replaced by the word "Bolshevik", but the meaning of the statement of the disappointed White Guard does not change from this. An adversary like Trotsky could not but command respect.
Childhood and youth
Leiba Davidovich Bronstein was the fifth child born in the family of a wealthy Jewish colonist, a large landowner David Leontyevich Bronstein. He spent his childhood and youth on the estate of his parents (Kherson region) and the city of Odessa, where he received a good classical education at the private school-gymnasium of St. Paul. Lev Davidovich himself describes these years with love and tenderness in his autobiographical book “My Life”. The book is an extraordinary literary work, sustained in the style of an adventurous-adventure bestseller, and is certainly worth reading and quoting.
According to Trotsky himself, social inequality hurt him from childhood. His parents achieved their well-being solely by their own labor, and therefore did not share the revolutionary views of their son, but they never refused him material support. In the years of his youth, his father “ransomed” Leiba from prison several times, hoping that he would come to his senses and “get down to business”, but these hopes were not destined to come true.
Subsequently, when the social revolution, started by the former Jewish boy Leiba Bronstein and his associates, won on the entire one-sixth of the land, old David came on foot to his son in Moscow. In his memoirs, Lev Davidovich wrote:
By that time, old Bronstein, like all landowners, was deprived of his property and seriously suffered from the Civil War in southern Russia. It didn’t fit in the head of the unfortunate parent that all this disgrace was created by his youngest son Leib under the name of some Trotsky ...
In addition to the fact that L.D. Trotsky gained fame as an outstanding politician and military leader, he was also a talented writer (it was not for nothing that one of his party nicknames was the nickname "Feather"). Trotsky masterfully mastered the Russian language, and long "times" in prisons and the need to make himself known to a wide reading audience prompted the revolutionary to methodically hone his literary gift.
Trotsky himself recalled more than once that during his time in the tsarist prisons, the main nuisance for him was mandatory walks. The prison authorities took care of the health of their "guests", and the political prisoner was indignant that he had to be distracted from literary work and waste time.
First link
Leiba Bronstein went to his first exile in 1900 and not alone. While still in prison, he married the revolutionary Alexandra Lvovna Sokolovskaya. In 1901 and 1902, the couple had two daughters, Zinaida and Nina. The naive tsarist government hoped that a measured life in Siberia and raising a family would turn the exiled settlers away from active revolutionary activity. It wasn't there! Bronstein very quickly enters into contact with the Social Democratic organizations in Siberia, writes leaflets and appeals for them. Supervision of family exiles, according to the revolutionary himself, was practically not carried out, so already in 1903 he decided to flee. Leaving his wife with two small children (the youngest Nina was not yet four months old), Lev Davidovich gets on a cart to the railway station, where he calmly gets into the car.
“In my hands was Homer in the Russian hexameters of Gnedich. In my pocket is a passport in the name of Trotsky, which I myself entered at random, not foreseeing that it would become my name for life. I was driving along the Siberian line to the west. The station gendarmes indifferently let me past them, ”the successful fugitive later recalled.
Trotsky quickly reached Samara. Under the pseudonym "Pero", he collaborated in the Leninist newspaper "Iskra", then illegally moved abroad. In London, Paris, Geneva, Trotsky met with Russian revolutionary émigrés, including Lenin. The Russian Social Democracy was actively nourished by the means of foreign capital and did not live in poverty. In 1904, Trotsky joined the future "Mensheviks", married N.I. Sedova, and already in February 1905 he again went to Russia - to lead the first Russian revolution.
Second link and escape
At one time, the Soviet "Leniniana" actively exaggerated the exploits of the leader of the world proletariat V.I. Lenin in the fight against the royal gendarmerie. It is worth recalling the leaflets sewn into felt boots by Ilyich himself, milk letters and tricks with the lower and upper shelves during searches in his apartment ... All this looks like “innocent pranks” compared to what L.D. Trotsky.
Without a doubt, the future opponent of the white generals was a much brighter, resourceful and decisive personality than the immigrant theorist V.I. Lenin. Trotsky has repeatedly shown enviable composure, extraordinary energy and ability to survive in the most extreme, sometimes incompatible with life situations. His second escape from exile, after the defeat of the 1905 revolution, is no doubt worthy of the pen of Jack London or Fenimore Cooper.
In 1907, Trotsky, with the deprivation of all civil rights, was exiled to an eternal settlement in Berezov - a small town remote from any civilization, where, as you know, the disgraced favorite of Peter I Aleksashka Menshikov whiled away his days. As soon as he arrived at the place, the exiled revolutionary decided not to waste time getting to know the local sights, but immediately ran away.
A week-long reindeer trip (700 km) in forty-degree frost, in completely wild terrain, could cost the life of any unprepared person. In addition, Trotsky came across a guide from the local northern peoples, who knew the road well, but turned out to be a bitter drunkard.
Lev Davidovich had to carry out such an operation to “sober up” the guide more than once. If caught, the fugitive settler was legally threatened with hard labor; in case of loss of the road in the taiga - inevitable death. Imagine V.I. Lenin, pushing sledges along an icy road and “sobering up” a drunken native, with all his imagination, neither Bonch-Bruevich nor Zoya Voskresenskaya could have been able to ...
However, the revolutionary Trotsky managed to get to the Perm railway and board the train. After 11 days, he met near St. Petersburg with his wife Sedova, and soon moved to Finland.
Emigration and return to Russia
From 1907 to 1917 L.D. Trotsky was in exile. In 1916, for revolutionary activities, he was exiled from France to Spain, then to the United States. Upon learning of the February Revolution, Trotsky immediately went to Russia, but along the way, in the Canadian port of Halifax, he and his family were removed from the ship by the British authorities and sent to an internment camp for sailors of the German merchant fleet. He was accused of spying for Germany. Trotsky immediately protested and got the police to carry him off the ship in their arms. Subsequently, this will become a habit for the revolutionary.
Soon, at the written request of the Provisional Government, the family was released and continued on their way. On May 4, 1917 (a month later than the German “sealed” car with Lenin) Trotsky was “exported” to Petrograd.
Revolution of 1917 and Civil War
After the failure of the Bolshevik uprising in July, Trotsky was arrested and sent to prison as a German spy. Some of his "accomplices", including Lenin, managed to escape. However, already at the end of August 1917, the Provisional Government, having imprisoned participants in the Kornilov rebellion in the Bykhov prison, for some reason freed enemies and "spies" from the "Crosses". It also provides its yesterday's opponents with complete freedom of action.
During the "Bolshevization of the Soviets" in September - October 1917, the Bolsheviks received up to 90% of the seats in the Petrosoviet. The young, energetic Trotsky was elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, elected to the Pre-Parliament, became a delegate to the Second Congress of Soviets and the Constituent Assembly.
On October 12, 1917, Trotsky formed the Military Revolutionary Committee (VRK), the main body for preparing an armed uprising. The pretext for the formation of the Military Revolutionary Committee was a possible German attack on Petrograd, or a repetition of the Kornilov speech. The Military Revolutionary Committee immediately began work to win over the units of the Petrograd garrison. Already on October 16, Trotsky, the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, orders 5,000 rifles to be issued to the Red Guards.
Lenin from Razliv demanded to start the uprising immediately. Trotsky proposes to postpone it until the convening of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies in order to confront the Congress with the fact that the "dual power" regime has been abolished. Thus, the Congress was supposed to be the highest and only body of power in the country. Trotsky manages to win over the majority of the Central Committee, despite Lenin's concern about the postponement of the uprising.
Between October 21-23, the Bolsheviks hold a series of rallies among the wavering soldiers. On October 22, the Military Revolutionary Committee announced that the orders of the headquarters of the Petrograd Military District were invalid without its approval. At this stage, Trotsky's oratory greatly helped the Bolsheviks win over the vacillating parts of the garrison. On October 23, Trotsky personally "agitated" the garrison of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The talented orator was again carried in his arms.
The plan for the October Revolution was worked out by Trotsky and carried out by him completely independently. October 25, 1917 L.D. Trotsky was 38 years old, but he did not even remember it. The leader of the uprising spent the whole day at the telephone in Smolny.
His recollections of this unusual birthday are much more human than anything that has been written about the October uprising in subsequent years:
Yes, it was not enough for Trotsky to take into his own hands the state power lying on the road. Before the executors and planners of the daring political act, the question immediately arose: what to do with this power? Their foreign owners, obviously, did not count on such a grandiose success. Torn apart from the inside by its own revolution, actually defeated by Germany, in 1918 it was not possible to chew such a “fat piece”. The invaders had to resolve the dangerous situation themselves: end the war, recreate the state apparatus, build an army, defend the results of the coup d'état. Over the following years, like a wound spring, Trotsky continues to defend the gains of the Comintern in a single country.
On March 13, 1918, he resigned from the post of People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs (after the failure of his formula in Brest, which read "no peace, no war"). Already on March 14, he actually heads the Red Army as People's Commissar for Military Affairs (People's Commissar of the Sea, Pre-revolutionary Military Council) and retains this post throughout the Civil War.
According to many post-Soviet historians and publicists, as the "military leader" of Bolshevism, Trotsky showed organizational skills and undoubted oratorical talent. However, it was in the military sphere that he remained, as historian Dmitry Volkogonov emphasizes, "an amateur." During the Civil War, Trotsky did not show any special military talents, also making several strategic mistakes.
In our opinion, the claims of historians to Trotsky the military leader are completely unjustified.
It should not be forgotten that the newly-minted “commander-in-chief”, having not received a military education, as well as experience in military service, managed to “beat” much more educated and experienced opponents in the Civil War. The generals of the White armies who opposed him, for the most part, had behind them the experience of the First World War and service in the Russian General Staff. All of them, according to the biographical directory N. Rutycha, graduated from military schools and academies, where they, of course, were trained in planning and conducting strategic operations. Despite this, the illustrious generals from the infantry and cavalry lost their Russia, turning out to be powerless outcasts, taxi drivers and Parisian "clochards". Trotsky, who never served in the army, did not even have the rank of private. Nevertheless, he entered the Kremlin as a victor and remained in power until 1926-27.
Struggle for power in 1921-1927
In 1921, Lenin's deteriorating health and the virtual end of the Civil War brought the question of power to the fore. The secret conclusion of the doctors, sent to the members of the Politburo of the Central Committee, emphasized the extremely serious nature of the illness of the head of state. Immediately after Lenin's stroke (May 1922), a "troika" consisting of Kamenev, Zinoviev and Stalin is formed to jointly fight with Trotsky as one of the likely successors.
At the suggestion of Kamenev and Zinoviev, the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) was established, to which Stalin was appointed. Initially, this position was understood as a technical one and therefore did not interest Trotsky in any way. The Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars was considered the head of state. Meanwhile, Stalin manages to lead the "technical" state apparatus just at the time of a particularly sharp increase in his influence.
Trotsky, in his own opinion, considered himself Lenin's sole successor and did not view Stalin and company as serious competitors. Kamenev (Rosenfeld) was his relative: he was married to Trotsky's sister. Lev Davydovich never took him seriously, as well as Zinoviev, who had long been assigned the image of a party jester.
Since 1922, in parallel with the strengthening of Stalin's influence as the head of the "technical" apparatus, his influence as the secretary of Lenin, who is retiring, has increased. Trotsky himself, in his autobiographical work My Life, admits on this occasion:
Indeed, the "resting on his laurels" Trotsky was never interested in the details or parts of party power. He was used to getting everything and did not pay attention to the little things. Stalin often visited Lenin in Gorki during his illness. Trotsky, as it turned out, had no idea where this settlement was located.
Stalin, starting in 1922, methodically placed his supporters in all key positions in the party. He pays special attention to the secretaries of provincial and district party committees, as they form delegations to party congresses. During 1923, the "troika" replaces the commanders of the military districts with "their own". Trotsky, as if not noticing what is happening around him, does nothing. He defiantly comes to meetings of the Central Committee with a French novel (as if in a toilet), makes loud scandals, slams doors, and often goes hunting.
In the autumn of 1923, while hunting, Trotsky caught a bad cold and fell ill with pneumonia. He never showed up at Lenin's funeral. Subsequently, Trotsky blamed this on Stalin, who he claimed deliberately gave the wrong date for the funeral.
Once losing real power, the second person in the state can only appeal to his authority as a leader of the revolution and the Civil War, using his oratorical and journalistic abilities.
In October 1924, seeing that the "troika" Stalin-Kamenev-Zinoviev was close to collapse, Trotsky finally decided to go on the offensive. He publishes the scandalous article "Lessons of October", in which he recalls his role as the organizer of the October Revolution, and informs readers as "compromising evidence" that Zinoviev and Kamenev were generally against the performance, and Stalin played no role in it. The article provoked the so-called "literary discussion", in which the "troika", once again united, attacked Trotsky with a counter "compromising evidence", recalling to him the non-Bolshevik past and mutual abuse with Lenin before the revolution.
The "war of compromising evidence" started by Trotsky damaged his authority much more than all previous scandals. At the plenum of the Central Committee in January 1925, Zinoviev and Kamenev demanded that Trotsky be expelled from the party. Stalin, continuing to maneuver, suggests that Trotsky not only not be expelled, but even left in the Central Committee and the Politburo, taking away from him only the key posts of the People's Commissariat of Defense and the Pre-Revolutionary Military Council. Frunze becomes the new People's Commissar for the Navy, and Voroshilov becomes his deputy.
According to Trotsky himself, he even accepted his “overthrow” with relief, since this to some extent averted accusations of preparing a “Bonapartist” military coup. The Plenum of the Central Committee appoints Trotsky to a number of secondary posts: Chairman of the Main Committee on Concessions (Glavkontsesskom), Chairman of a special meeting at the Supreme Economic Council on product quality, Chairman of the Electrotechnical Committee.
After such a blow to Trotsky, the "troika" of Zinoviev-Kamenev-Stalin finally disintegrates. Supporters of Zinoviev and Kamenev form the so-called "new opposition". The main pretext for the split is the doctrine developed by Stalin of "building socialism in a single country." Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev continued to head for the "world revolution".
Summing up the intra-party discussions of the mid-20s, it is worth noting that at present, among Stalinist historians and jingoists who have embarked on a new “great-power” platform, there is an opinion that Stalin, who did not participate in any what conspiracies with the Western powers, at that moment he was most concerned about the welfare of the country. The former Caucasian criminal always felt like a stranger in the society of re-emigrant intellectuals, "mishandled Cossacks", and therefore preferred to eliminate Trotsky and the company not only politically, but also physically.
However, the guardian of national interests decided to leave Trotsky alive for some time. A living enemy is better than a dead one, just because the fight against the foreign "opposition" can justify any excesses and lynching in the party elite.
The united opposition Trotsky-Zinoviev-Kamenev lost their war in 1926-27 without even starting it. Stalin very quickly “squeezed” them out of the state of party legality, forcing them to actually go underground. As you know, anti-government protests and opposition rallies on November 7, 1927 only led to outrages and riots on the streets of Moscow and Leningrad.
At the joint October plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission, Trotsky demands that the "Testament of Lenin" be read out, and, in accordance with it, that Stalin be removed from the post of General Secretary. Stalin was forced to announce the text of the "Testament", but it did not, contrary to the expectations of the opposition, "a bombshell". After the XV Congress of the CPSU (b), Stalin asked the plenum of the Central Committee to accept his resignation from the post of General Secretary. It was just a well-rehearsed performance. Naturally, the Central Committee, controlled by Stalin himself, did not accept the “resignation”. On the contrary, the majority of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks voted for the expulsion of Zinoviev and Trotsky from the party. In fact, the opposition was crushed.
In January 1927, Trotsky and his family went into exile in Alma-Ata. Employees of the OGPU had to carry the oppositionist out of the apartment in their arms. Trotsky reiterated all sorts of protests and actively resisted their actions, trying to raise as much noise as possible. But that didn't help him.
Emigration and death
The forcible expulsion of Trotsky from the USSR was associated with even greater difficulties: none of the European powers that accepted white emigrants wanted to give shelter to such an odious figure. In 1929 Trotsky was exiled to Turkey. Then, after being deprived of Soviet citizenship, he moved to France, in 1935 - to Norway, where there were practically no Russian emigrants. But Norway, fearing to worsen relations with the USSR, tried with all its might to get rid of the unwanted guest, confiscating all the works from Trotsky and placing him under house arrest. Trotsky was repeatedly threatened to extradite him to the Soviet government if he did not stop "stirring up the fire of the world revolution" and looking for new "ghosts of communism" in post-war Europe. Unable to withstand the harassment, Trotsky emigrated to distant Mexico in 1936, where he lived until his death. In Mexico, Trotsky completed work on the book The Revolution Betrayed, in which he called what was happening in the Soviet Union "Stalin's Thermidor." He accused Stalin of Bonapartism and the usurpation of power.
In 1938, Trotsky proclaimed the creation of the Fourth International, whose heirs still exist. In response to this, Trotsky's eldest son, Lev Sedov, died (or was deliberately eliminated by NKVD agents) in a hospital in Paris after an appendicitis operation. The fate of Trotsky's daughters from their first marriage was just as tragic: the younger Nina died of tuberculosis in 1928, and the eldest Zinaida followed her father into exile, but in 1933, being in a state of deep depression, she committed suicide.
Trotsky managed to take his personal archive into exile. This archive included copies of a number of documents signed by Trotsky during his time in power in the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, the Central Committee, the Comintern, a number of Lenin's notes addressed personally to Trotsky and not published anywhere else. Based on his archive, Trotsky in his memoirs easily quotes a number of documents he signed, including sometimes even secret ones. In the 1930s, OGPU agents repeatedly tried (sometimes successfully) to steal some of their fragments, and in March 1931 some of the documents burned down during a suspicious fire. In March 1940, Trotsky, in dire need of money and fearing that the archive would still fall into the hands of Stalin, sold most of his papers to Harvard University.
On August 20, 1940, the NKVD agent Ramon Mercader, who had previously penetrated Trotsky's entourage as a staunch follower of his, mortally wounded him in the head with an ice pick. Trotsky died of his wound the next day. The Soviet authorities publicly denied their involvement in the murder. The killer was sentenced by a Mexican court to twenty years in prison, but in 1961, Ramon Mercader, who arrived in the USSR, was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin.
The years of the second Russian revolution and the Civil War became the most significant time for Trotsky as a politician, statesman, leader. At the end of March, on the Norwegian ship Christianiafjord, Trotsky and his family sailed to Europe, but a few days later in the Canadian port of Halifax, along with several emigrants, he was arrested and imprisoned in a camp for German sailors. Trotsky himself wrote about this incident: “In Halifax (Canada), where the ship was subjected to inspection by the British naval authorities, police officers ... subjected us Russians to direct interrogation: what are our convictions, political plans, etc.? I refused to enter into with them in conversations on this subject. The detective officers insisted that I was a terrible socialist (terrible socialist). The whole search was of such an obscene nature and placed the Russian revolutionaries in such an exceptional position in comparison with other passengers who did not have the misfortune of belonging to an allied nation of England, that some of those interrogated immediately sent an energetic protest to the British authorities against the behavior of police agents ... On April 3, English officers accompanied by sailors came on board the Christianiafjord and, on behalf of the local admiral, demanded that I, my family and five other passengers leave the ship ... we were promised to "clear up" the whole incident in Halifax We declared the demand illegal and refused to comply with it. Armed sailors attacked us and, with shouts of "sham" (shame) from a significant part of the passengers, they carried us in their arms to a military boat, which, under the escort of a cruiser, took us to Halifax "Quoted by. Trotsky L. My life. The experience of autobiography. From 320. Under pressure from the Petrograd Soviet, the Provisional Government was forced to intervene, and a month later Trotsky and his comrades were released. Through Sweden and Finland, on May 5, 1917, he arrived in Petrograd (as we can see, Trotsky missed the April crisis, as a result of which the first coalition Provisional Government was formed). A solemn meeting awaited him here. For his merits in 1905, he was included in the Executive Committee of the Petrosoviet with the right of an advisory vote. "It was decided to include me with an advisory vote. I received my membership card and my glass of tea with brown bread "Quoted by L. Trotsky. My life. An autobiographical experience. S. 340. .
Upon his return, Trotsky faced the question of choosing political guidelines. Lev Davidovich considered the best option to join the inter-districts - the St. Petersburg Inter-district Committee. Basically, the Mezhrayontsy supported the slogans of the Bolsheviks, with the exception of turning the imperialist war into a civil one. Trotsky, although he did not take an official post, became the actual head of the organization Chernyavsky G.I. Decree. op. S. 178. .
On May 10, Lenin, Kamenev, and Zinoviev attended a conference of Mezhrayontsy and proposed a plan according to which all left-wing groups would merge into a single party. Trotsky spoke on this subject in a restrained and positive manner, but so far he was in no hurry to accept Lenin's proposal. Note that this was the first step towards Trotsky's accession to Bolshevism Ibid. pp. 179-180. .
A month after Trotsky's arrival in Petrograd, he was already one of the most prominent figures in the motley political background of the revolution. Having looked around, having oriented himself, the revolutionary recklessly and irrevocably plunged into the seething stream of human passions, disputes, disputes, political claims. In the summer and autumn of 1917, Trotsky was "in great demand": he was invited by Baltic sailors, workers of the Putilov factory and the tram depot, students, called to meetings of the Social Revolutionaries and Bolsheviks, to meetings of the soldiers' committees of military units. The singer of the revolution almost never refused. Sometimes he went to rallies with Lunacharsky, who was also a brilliant orator. This tandem, or rather, a duet of revolutionary agitators, was very popular in Petrograd in those distant days, Volkogonov D.A. Trotsky: A political portrait. - M., 1992.T. 1. S. 50. .
At the beginning of the July events in Petrograd, Trotsky had not yet formally joined the Bolshevik Party, although in fact he was already on their platform. With the beginning of events, Trotsky played a significant role in protecting the Minister of Agriculture of the Provisional Government from the revolutionary crowd - the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party V.M. Chernov, who at that time enjoyed considerable popularity. The mob tried to arrest Chernov instead of Justice Minister Pereverzev; the Kronstadt sailors had already dragged Chernov into the car, tearing his jacket, but then Trotsky spoke to the crowd of Kronstadt sailors with a fiery speech and the crowd parted.
After the events of July 3-4, arrests were made among the leaders of the Bolsheviks. Lenin and Zinoviev went underground. It was during these days that Trotsky decided on a defiant and spectacular step: he demanded in the press his own arrest. In an open letter to the Provisional Government, he remarked: “Citizen Ministers! I know that you have decided to arrest Comrades Lenin, Zinoviev and Kamenev. But an arrest warrant is not issued for me. Therefore, I consider it necessary to draw your attention to the following facts. the position of Lenin, Zinoviev and Kamenev and defended it in all my public speeches" Trotsky L.D. Letter to the Provisional Government [Electronic resource] // URL: http: //www.magister. msk.ru/library/trotsky/trotl266. htm (date of access: 04/19/2015). . The authorities did not tolerate such insolence and soon arrested the author of the letter. Trotsky stayed in the "Crosses" for more than 40 days. During this time, his popularity grew at the same rate as his articles and notes appeared in the Bolshevik "worker and soldier", the magazine "Vperyod" and other printed publications. In prison, he wrote two works: "What's next? (results and prospects)" and "When will the end of the damned massacre?". Both pamphlets were published by the Bolshevik publishing house "Priboy" and immediately attracted attention.
A few days after Trotsky's arrest at the end of July, the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b) opened, which worked in semi-legal conditions. At the beginning of the congress meetings were held on the Vyborg side, and then beyond the Narva outpost. Many party leaders who were forced to go underground or landed in the prison of the Provisional Government were not at the congress. In essence, Lenin's main characterization of the moment was voiced at the congress: since the counter-revolution temporarily gains the upper hand, the possibility of seizing power by peaceful means disappears. The question of an armed uprising was put on the agenda. From that moment on, the radical line of the Bolsheviks manifested itself even more clearly.
For the revolutionary fate of Trotsky, the congress was of great importance. He was even elected an honorary member of the presidium. After the past negotiations and agreements, a large group of "mezhraiontsy" was accepted into the party. Thus, while Trotsky was in prison, the question of his party membership was also decided in a new way. Together with Trotsky, M.M. also became Bolsheviks. Volodarsky, A.A. Ioffe, A.V. Lunacharsky, D.Z. Manuilsky, M.S. Uritsky and many of their associates. Trotsky's authority was already so high that when he was elected at the Congress of the Central Committee, he was immediately elected to it.
At the request of the Petrograd Soviet, on September 2, 1917, Lev Davidovich was released on a bail of three thousand rubles. But in reality, Kerensky, who only with the help of the Bolsheviks was able to repel the threat of Kornilov, felt that the tightening of the regime only weakened his position. There is reason to believe that it was Kornilov's August adventure that strengthened the positions of the Bolsheviks and made the October events possible. Trotsky, together with Lunacharsky, Kamenev, Kollontai, and other revolutionaries, emerges from prison as a hero and plunges headlong into party affairs. Volkogonov D.A. Decree. op. pp. 53--56. .
During the Bolshevization of the Soviets in September 1917, the Bolsheviks managed to get the majority of seats in the Petrograd Soviet. On September 25, re-elections of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet were held, the Bolsheviks proposed L.D. Trotsky. After the election, the new chairman made a speech to the approving exclamations of the audience, in which he expressed confidence that he would try to "mark a more successful outcome" for his second election to the Council (after 1905). Decree. op. P. 56. On October 12, Trotsky, as chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, formed the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee - the main body for leading the Bolshevik uprising.
With the formation of the Pre-Parliament, Trotsky was also elected to this body and headed the Bolshevik faction in it. From the very beginning, Trotsky demanded a boycott of the work of the Pre-Parliament, as being too "bourgeois" in composition. After receiving the approval of Lenin, who was then hiding in Finland, on October 7 (20) Trotsky officially announced the boycott of the Pre-Parliament on behalf of the Bolsheviks.
On the whole, by the autumn of 1917, the old disagreements between Lenin and Trotsky were becoming a thing of the past. At the same time, disagreements arose between Lenin and Trotsky over the preparation of an armed uprising. While Kamenev and Zinoviev at that time, fearing a repetition of the July defeat, demanded that no uprising be raised, Lenin insisted on an immediate uprising. Trotsky disagreed with him about the form of the coup. If Lenin demanded that the Bolsheviks take power in their own name, then Trotsky suggested that the question of transferring power to the Soviets be raised at the Second Congress of Soviets. In two or three weeks, Trotsky made a dizzying rise in Bolshevik circles, becoming the second person in them after Lenin. In the absence of the latter, Trotsky became the main spokesman for his positions and ideas Chernyavsky G.I. Decree. op. S. 193. .
We will not dwell on the events of the October Revolution, we will only say that, ultimately, the uprising began on October 23-24, when Rabochaya Pravda and Izvestia of the Petrograd Soviet were banned by government order. Trotsky reacted immediately and gave the order to send detachments of the 6th Engineer Battalion and the Lithuanian Regiment to the printing house. Trotsky then did not leave the phone, receiving more and more confirmation of the successful course of events. On the evening of October 24, Lenin appeared in Smolny, who immediately learned about the completed coup Chernyavsky G.I. Decree. op. pp. 196-197. . The decisive events unfolded on October 25, the day the Congress of Soviets opened. At a meeting of the Central Committee on the night of 25, when discussing the new government, Trotsky's proposal was adopted not to be called ministers, but people's commissars. On October 26, Trotsky made a report on the composition of the government at a meeting of the congress. It is at this congress that Trotsky utters his famous words referring to the Mensheviks: "You are miserable units, you are bankrupts, your role has been played, go to where you should be from now on: into the wastebasket of history" Cited. By. Trotsky L. My life. Autobiographical experience. S. 380. . Trotsky has made his choice: he is a Bolshevik and he is in power. He himself became Commissar for Foreign Affairs.
Trotsky in 1935 assessed his role in the October events as follows: “If it had not been for me in 1917 in St. Petersburg, the October Revolution would have taken place - provided that Lenin was present and led. If there were neither Lenin nor me in St. Petersburg, there would have been no October Revolution either: the leadership of the Bolshevik Party would have prevented it from happening... If there had been no Lenin in St. Petersburg, I would hardly have managed... the outcome of the revolution would have been questionable. to victory" Trotsky L.D. Diaries and Letters / Ed. ed. SOUTH. Felshtinsky. - M., 1994. S. 119. . There is eloquent evidence from Lenin about Trotsky's leading role in the October armed uprising. “After the Petersburg Soviet passed into the hands of the Bolsheviks,” says the XXIV volume of the first Collected Works of V.I. Lenin, “(Trotsky) was elected its chairman, in which capacity he organized and led the uprising on October 25” Lenin.V. Sobr. Op. - M., 1923. T. 24. S. 482. .
However, after the death of Lenin, Stalin gave Trotsky in the revolution a completely different assessment. “But I must say that Trotsky did not and could not play any special role in the October uprising, that, being the Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, he only carried out the will of the relevant party authorities that led Trotsky’s every step.” Stalin I.V. Works. - M.; Tver, 1946-2006. T. 6. S. 328-329. . So what role did Lev Davidovich play in the October coup? Based on numerous documents, eyewitness accounts, analysis of Lenin's works of that period, we can conclude that in October Trotsky proved himself to be one of the main leaders of the revolution, as a person who fell into his native element.
Trotsky showed himself to be a reliable ally of Lenin during the internal crisis of the Central Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, which occurred in the very first days of the existence of the new government. On October 29, the Bolshevik Central Committee began negotiations on the creation of a homogeneous socialist government. The "right" Bolsheviks (Kamenev, Zinoviev, Nogin, Rykov and others) insisted on an agreement. Lenin, with the active support of Trotsky, managed to break the vacillations of the members of the Central Committee and insist on putting forward conditions unacceptable to the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries and the majority of the Mensheviks. And although on November 4 fifteen members of the Central Committee, people's commissars and their deputies resigned, Lenin and Trotsky won. On the same days, Trotsky actively participated in organizing a rebuff to the troops of Kerensky-Krasnov, defeating the junker rebellion in Petrograd. With Lenin, he goes to the Putilov factory, to the headquarters of the Petrograd military district.
Regarding his direct duties - People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs - Trotsky later admitted that "the matter nevertheless turned out to be somewhat more complicated than I expected" Cited. By. Trotsky L. My life. Autobiographical experience. S. 400. . Trotsky's first major action in his new post was the publication of secret treaties concluded by Russia with the Entente countries. Trotsky's assistant sailor Nikolai Markin was directly involved in organizing the decoding and publication of these documents. Within a few weeks, seven yellow collections were published, causing a stir in the multilingual press. Previously, their contents were published by newspapers. By this the Bolsheviks proved their promise to put an end to secret diplomacy. But Trotsky himself was in Brest-Litovsk from the end of December, heading the Russian delegation in negotiations with Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria. There he delivered fiery speeches that were designed not so much for negotiating partners as for the broad masses. Trotsky's speeches were also printed in German newspapers, while the Soviet press published full transcripts of the meetings. From the very beginning, Trotsky played the role of "delaying" the negotiations: "It was necessary to give the European workers time to perceive properly the very fact of the Soviet revolution, and in particular its policy of peace" Cited. By. Trotsky L. My life. Autobiographical experience. S. 440. . The negotiations were extremely difficult: the Soviet side offered a democratic peace without annexations and indemnities on the basis of self-determination of peoples, while the German side, with its outward "friendly" attitude, set deliberately unacceptable conditions. At the same time, it was necessary to conclude peace: "The impossibility of continuing the war was obvious: the trenches were almost empty. No one dared to speak even conditionally about the continuation of the war. Peace, peace at all costs!" Ibid. S. 440. . But how to achieve it? Here disagreements arose. “Three points of view emerged. Lenin was in favor of trying to drag out the negotiations even more, but, in the event of an ultimatum, capitulating immediately. I considered it necessary to bring the negotiations to a break, even with the danger of a new German offensive before the obvious use of force. Bukharin demanded war to expand the arena of the revolution "Ibid. S. 443. . Since the latter position "sank" in the sea of criticism of Lenin and Trotsky, the main contradiction lay in the time of signing the ultimatum peace: after the words about the possible continuation of the war or after the actual offensive. Trotsky succeeded in proving to the other Bolsheviks that it was precisely the latter that was required, since in this case the entire proletarian world would be able to see that revolutionary Russia was physically forced to sign peace with bourgeois Germany. In addition, Trotsky and his supporters hoped that Germany, devastated by years of war, would not be able to carry out an actual offensive. But everything happened just according to the worst scenario: the Germans attacked and, without receiving any resistance, quickly moved deep into Russia. The Soviet government urgently announces a truce and on March 3, 1918 signs the harsh Brest peace. Russia was losing vast territories and was obliged to pay a huge indemnity Chernyavsky G.I. Decree. op. pp. 221-223. . In return, according to Trotsky, she retained "the sympathies of the world proletariat or a significant part of it. In the course of time, everyone will be convinced that we have no other way out." By. Trotsky L. My life. Autobiographical experience. S. 452. .
On March 14, Trotsky was appointed People's Commissar for Military Affairs, and somewhat later People's Commissar for Naval Affairs.
In these posts, Trotsky proved himself to be a resolute, purposeful leader, capable of rallying people to carry out the most difficult tasks. For example, he took an active part in the liquidation of the rebellion of the Left SRs on July 6, 1918.
The role that Trotsky played in the formation of units of the regular Red Army is well known. From the very first days, the people's commissar began the difficult task of its formation. On March 19, at a meeting of the Moscow Council, Lev Davidovich spoke in favor of recruiting old officers into the army. The People's Commissariat of Defense got an unenviable legacy: at his disposal was the 150,000-strong volunteer Red Army, with which it was no longer possible to solve the strategic tasks of the country's defense. It was necessary to reorganize the army, improve, strengthen its combat power. And in April - May 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars adopted a series of decrees that radically reorganized the Red Army. They were based on documents prepared by Trotsky's department. The main one was the decree approved on April 22 by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on compulsory training in military art, according to which workers from 18 to 40 years old were subject to training, on the job for 8 weeks, without remuneration for the time of training. Persons liable for military service who completed the training course could be drafted into the army at any time. Trotsky made a considerable contribution to recruiting former tsarist officers and military specialists into the Red Army. The final stage in the construction of the new armed forces was the reorganization of the command and control system on the principles of centralization and discipline. On August 19, after discussing the project proposed by Trotsky, the Council of People's Commissars adopted the Decree "On the unification of all the Armed Forces of the republic under the jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs" Decree of the Council of People's Commissars. On the unification of all armed forces of the Republic under the jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs [Electronic resource] // URL: http: //istmat. info/node/30980 (date of access: 04/23/2015). . In September, the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic (RVSR) was created. It, along with Trotsky (chairman), included prominent party workers with military experience.
Trotsky was forced to enter into hostilities already in August 1918. Arriving in Sviyazhsk, Trotsky felt defeatist moods in the army located there: "Each detachment lived its own life. All of them had only a tendency to retreat. The soil itself was infected with panic" Cited. By. Trotsky L. My life. Autobiographical experience. S. 440. . Trotsky manages to organize from this "crowd" a combat-ready army, which in a few days begins to win the first victories. In matters of military tactics, Trotsky, a civilian, understood little, so in this matter he relied on military professionals, including former tsarist officers. But Trotsky brilliantly figured out the issue of organizing the army, its propaganda, and support. In many ways, he was helped by those repressive measures that he did not skimp on. “You can’t build an army without repression. You can’t lead masses of people to death without having the death penalty in the arsenal of the command. As long as the evil tailless monkeys, called people, proud of their technology, build armies and fight, the command will put the soldiers between the possible death ahead and inevitable death behind. By. Trotsky L. My life. Autobiographical experience. S. 450. . And that was the most important guiding principle of action. In August 1918, the Red Army was shocked by the news of the execution of 20 fighters, the commissar and commander of the Petrograd Workers' Regiment, who arrived on the Eastern Front.
In matters of providing the army with everything necessary, its moral support, the famous train of the People's Commissariat of War played a huge role during the Civil War. This armored train was a real mobile front command headquarters. "Working on the train were: a secretariat, a printing house, a telegraph station, a radio station, a power station, a library, a garage, and a bathhouse." Ibid. S. 459. . The train at any time could provide military support: there were about a hundred Red Army soldiers in it, propaganda support: there were several communist agitators in it, material support: the train always had stocks of food, clothes, shoes, weapons. It is no coincidence that this semi-legendary train inspired fear in the enemy with its mere appearance Chernyavsky G.I. Decree. op. S. 232. .
During the second defense of Tsaritsyn in September-October 1918, Trotsky began a personal quarrel with the Commissar of the Southern Front, Stalin, and Army Commander Voroshilov, who defiantly turned directly to the Presovnarkom Lenin, bypassing the Revolutionary Military Council headed by Trotsky. The main pretext for the conflict was the appointment personally promoted by Trotsky as the Commander of the Southern Front of the "military specialist", the former tsarist major general Sytin P.P., while Stalin objected to such an appointment, considering Sytin unreliable. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the "military specialist" appointed to the Southern Front personally by Trotsky, Colonel of the Russian Army Nosovich A.L. shortly before the events, he went over to the side of the White Guards, informing General Denikin of important secret information to which he had access. For his part, Trotsky claimed that Voroshilov and Stalin made accusations of treason against Nosovich, which were not confirmed, only because he was sent by Trotsky. As a result, Nosovich fled to Denikin, fearing for his life.
On October 2, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) adopted a resolution in which it demanded to indicate to Stalin that "subordination to the Revolutionary Military Council is absolutely necessary. In case of disagreement, Stalin can come to Moscow and appeal to the Central Committee, which can make a final decision" "Issues of the history of the CPSU." 1989 No. 6. S. 158. . On behalf of the Central Committee, the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Sverdlov, telegraphs Stalin, Voroshilov and Minin S.K. that "all decisions of the Revolutionary Military Council are binding on the military councils of the fronts. There is no army without subordination" "Questions of the history of the CPSU." 1989, No. 6. P. 160. On October 3, Stalin, Voroshilov and Minin protested to Lenin, accusing Trotsky of the collapse of the Southern Front. On October 4, Trotsky personally went to Tsaritsyn, after which he demanded that Stalin be recalled; a conversation took place between the parties, which Stalin described as "insulting". As Trotsky himself writes in his work “My Life”: “Anxiety reigned at the headquarters. A rumor was put out that Trotsky was traveling with a big broom, and with him two dozen tsarist generals to replace the partisan commanders, who, by the way, by my arrival all hastily renamed themselves regimental, brigade and divisional commanders. I put Voroshilov the question: how does he feel about the orders of the front and the high command? He opened his soul to me: Tsaritsyn considers it necessary to carry out only those orders that he recognizes as correct. It was too much. I declared that if he did not undertake to strictly and unconditionally fulfill orders and operational tasks, I would immediately send him under escort to Moscow to be brought before the tribunal... in the great struggle that we waged, the stake was too great for me to look around. And I often, at almost every step, had to step on the corns of personal predilections, friendship or pride. Stalin carefully selected people with crushed corns. He had enough time and personal interest for this "Cit. By. Trotsky L. My life. Autobiographical experience. S. 490. .
On October 6, Stalin leaves for Moscow, and on October 8 he receives a new appointment, to the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic. Contrary to Trotsky's expectations, Stalin received Lenin's support. Stalin's appointment as a member of the Revolutionary Military Council was taken by Trotsky as a personal insult. The result was Stalin's acute hatred of both Trotsky and his first deputy Sklyansky G.I. Chernyavsky. Decree. op. S. 243. .
In a short time, Trotsky became one of the most famous revolutionaries not only in Russia, but throughout the world. Before the October Revolution, this man was always far from military affairs and suddenly became one of the most important military figures in a gigantic country. I think that for the political portrait of L.D. Trotsky absolutely needs touches that characterize him as the creator and conductor of the military policy of the RCP (b). Perhaps, the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic showed himself most fully in this regard at the VIII Congress of the RCP (b), although Volkogonov D.A. was not present there. Decree. op. S. 69. .
In early March 1919, Trotsky returned to Moscow. He had a lot of cases in the Revolutionary Military Council that Sklyansky could not solve for him, and most importantly, a party congress was to be held this month, at which it was supposed to consider, among others, the military question. Trotsky was going to report to the Central Committee that in the spring of 1919 the high command intended to make the main efforts to defeat the combined forces of the Entente and the Volunteer Army both in Ukraine and in the sector from the Karelian Isthmus to Rovno. This was necessary, since in these areas the superior enemy was closest to the main political and economic centers of the country. On February 19, 1919, by order of the commander-in-chief, the Western Front was created, headed by commander D.N. Reliable and members of the Revolutionary Military Council R.A. Rimm, E.M. Pyatnitsky, A.Ya. Semashko (from March 24, O.A. Stigga will join). The Southern and Western fronts were preparing for the upcoming operations. At that time, there were reports from the fronts: in the direction of Riga, the German troops of General von der Goltz went on the offensive, and Polish troops began to advance towards Minsk. But these reports did not particularly bother Trotsky: as long as the enemy had small forces there. But reports from the east, contrary to expectations, began to arrive very disturbing. Kolchak, having licked his last year's wounds, again moved west. According to intelligence estimates, the admiral now had more than 150 thousand bayonets and sabers against 100 thousand troops of the Eastern Front. But in the rear of Kolchak, near and far, there were still tens of thousands of interventionist troops. Telegrams from the Eastern Front confused all Trotsky's plans. He wanted to report to the congress that, after a short respite, there was an opportunity to launch a decisive offensive in several directions. And the enemy was ahead. At the meeting of the Central Committee on March 14, 1919, which was attended by V.I. Lenin, L.D. Trotsky, L.B. Kamenev, N.N. Krestinsky, F.E. Dzerzhinsky, I.V. Stalin, N.N. Bukharin, G.Ya. Sokolnikov, E.D. Stasova, V.V. Schmidt, M.F. Vladimirsky, M.M. Lashevich, G.V. Chicherin, M.M. Litvinov, L.M. Karakhan, Pre-revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, made a proposal to all congress delegates - military workers, including him, to immediately go to the front Volkogonov D.A. Decree. op. pp. 69-72. . But by coincidence, only Trotsky left for the front, or rather in Ufa. The question of martial law was considered at the Congress on March 20 without Lev Davidovich. In Sokolnikov's report, speaking on behalf of the absent Trotsky, the greatest attention was devoted to the question of military experts. It was emphasized that where military experts were involved, and the partisan army was reorganized into a regular one, stability of the front and military success were observed. Sokolnikov attacked the military opposition for its speeches against the use of former officers Eighth Congress of the RCP (b): Protocols. - M., 1950. S. 143. . There was no unity in the speeches of the representatives of the military opposition. Lenin spoke at a closed meeting, he spoke about the need to use the knowledge and experience of military experts, also condemned Stalin's actions in Tsaritsyn, expressed indignation at all those who patronized the partisans Lenin's collection XXXVII. - M., 1970. S. 136-139. . Stalin felt the situation and hastily accepted Lenin's position.
On March 21, at the plenary session of the Central Committee, the "theses of the Central Committee" were adopted by a majority of votes, that is, the theses of Trotsky Chernyavsky G.I. Decree. op. 1879-1917. S. 252. . The congress, thus, approved the course of the People's Commissariat of Defense.
Supporting Trotsky's line at the congress did not at all mean that he was "infallible" in military affairs. Not at all, Trotsky was mistaken in strategic questions. The chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council quickly grasped one operational advantage of the Red Army: its fronts were inland. In necessary cases, the command could transfer formations from one front to another. The White armies and interventionists were deprived of this opportunity. But sometimes Trotsky, due to military unprofessionalism, did not deeply assess the operational situation.
When, for example, in the spring of 1919, the troops of the Eastern Front under the command of S.S. Kamenev, having made an interesting maneuver, launched a strong counterattack on Kolchak, the troops of the white admiral retreated, and then rolled to the east. The persecution of the Whites began. However, on June 6, Commander-in-Chief I.I. Vatsetis, based on the difficult situation on other fronts, gave, with the approval of L.D. Trotsky, an order to secure the troops of the front on the achieved lines. Trotsky intended to transfer several formations to the Southern Front. But the command and RVS of the front protested. The Central Committee supported the offensive mood and, in fact, canceling the decision of Trotsky and Vatsetis, gave the front units the opportunity to continue the persecution of Kolchak. At one of the moments, Trotsky, at the suggestion of Vatsetis, removed S.S. Kamenev from the post of front commander. But after the intervention of Lenin, Trotsky's order was canceled and Kamenev was reinstated in his former position. This was a strong blow to the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic.
Trotsky received his second blow in a row when the Center did not agree with his plan, according to which the main blow to Denikin was to be delivered through the Donbass. The Central Committee did not support the idea, although after some time they returned to this idea. Then the second humiliated Trotsky, being very ambitious, resigned from the post of Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council and People's Commissar of War. Perhaps that moment in Trotsky's military career was the most difficult: the cancellation of his orders, directives, disagreement with his strategic plans. But Lenin saw in this only the complex dialectic of war, and nothing else. It was at the insistence of the leader that in July 1919 a resolution was adopted stating that Trotsky's resignation would be the greatest harm to the Republic. Trotsky obeyed, but survived the painfully difficult days of Volkogonov D.A. Trotsky: A political portrait. pp. 80-84. .
According to Richard Pipes, Trotsky's undoubted personal contribution to the fighting of the Civil War was the defense of Petrograd in 1919. Pipes R. Russian Revolution: In 3 books. Book. 3. Russia under the Bolsheviks. 1918-1924. - M., 2005. S. 87. . Despite the fact that the Red 7th Army had an almost fivefold advantage in manpower over the North-Western Army of Yudenich, Petrograd was seized with panic, including in front of the White Guard tanks, and Lenin seriously considered the prospect of surrendering the city. Trotsky, with his speeches, was able to raise the fallen morale of the troops, at the same time spreading the rumor that Yudenich's tanks were "made of painted wood", and also organized the construction of several tanks at the Obukhov plant. After that, the Red Army was finally able to take advantage of their numerical advantage and defeat the White Guard. Trotsky vividly describes the then prevailing situation in Petrograd: "...everything was crawling...the troops were rolling back...the command staff looked at the communists, the communists at Zinoviev...Sverdlov told me: "Zinoviev is a panic." But Sverdlov knew people...Zinoviev...lay down...on the sofa and sighed..." By. Trotsky L. My life. Autobiographical experience. S. 475. .
On October 21, the decisive battle takes place at the Pulkovo Heights; The Soviet 7th Army launches a decisive counteroffensive.
Of course, Trotsky did not directly command the units of the Red Army, but he really carried out the overall leadership of the defense and offensive operations, worked out and made the main operational decisions, in fact replacing the panicked Zinoviev.
On November 20, the VKITs Presidium awarded Trotsky the Order of the Red Banner for his merits, the same order was awarded to the train of the People's Commissar for Military Affairs Chernyavsky G.I. Decree. op. pp. 259-260. .
Trotsky continued to lead the companies of 1920 against Poland and Wrangel's troops. Let us focus on the fact that the Polish troops near Warsaw in August launched a counteroffensive and threw Tukhachevsky 600 kilometers away. Trotsky, who was at that time on the Southern Front, hastened to return to Moscow. There he spoke in favor of an early conclusion of peace with Poland. Realizing the unreality of a new offensive, Lenin agreed with Trotsky on the need to establish peaceful relations. According to the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921, the border between Ukraine and Belarus, on the one hand, and Poland, on the other, passed east of the Curzon Line, thus Russia lost Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. S. 262. .
In November 1920, Wrangel's army was defeated and withdrawn from the Crimea, after which it was evacuated to Turkey. In the next two years, hostilities ended in the Far East, which meant the end of the Civil War.
Let's sum up all of the above. The true role of Trotsky in the preparation and conduct of the October Revolution is still debatable. According to Richard Pipes, Trotsky, in the absence of Lenin, who fled to Finland in July 1917, is headed by the Bolsheviks until his return. Pipes R. Russian Revolution: In 3 books. Book. 2. Bolsheviks in the struggle for power. 1917-1918. - M., 2005. S. 70. . Curzio Malaparte in his 1931 work "Technique of the coup d'etat" calls Lenin the main strategist of the "proletarian revolution", and Trotsky - the main tactician of the October uprising Curzio M. Technique of the coup d'état [Electronic resource] // URL: http: //society. polbu.ru/malaparte_revolution/ch07_all.html (date of access: 04/26/2015). . Based on the material presented in the chapter, we cannot but agree with this. Indeed, before Lenin's arrival at Smolny, all the levers of control over the coup were in the hands of Trotsky. Based on numerous documents, eyewitness accounts, analysis of Lenin's works of that period, we can conclude that in October Trotsky proved himself to be one of the main leaders of the revolution, as a person who fell into his native element. In a short time, Trotsky became one of the most famous revolutionaries not only in Russia, but throughout the world. Before the October Revolution, this man was always far from military affairs and suddenly became one of the most important military figures in a gigantic country. I think that for the political portrait of L.D. Trotsky absolutely needs touches that characterize him as the creator and conductor of the military policy of the RCP (b).
As for the main aspects of his life related to the Civil War, we know that on March 14, 1918, Trotsky was appointed People's Commissar for Military Affairs, and somewhat later People's Commissar for Naval Affairs, and in September Lev Davidovich headed the Revolutionary Military Council. In these posts, Trotsky proved himself to be a resolute, purposeful leader, capable of rallying people to carry out the most difficult tasks. The role that Trotsky played in the formation of units of the regular Red Army is well known. Lev Davidovich put three principles at the basis of military organizational development. General military training of the working people, which was supposed to ensure a constant influx of a more or less trained reserve into the army. The wide involvement of military specialists of the tsarist army in the work, which made it possible to build a truly professional armed forces. And the widespread planting in the Red Army of ideological overseers - commissars, which guaranteed the protection of the interests of the revolution and the Bolshevik party. Thanks to Trotsky's perseverance during the Civil War, more tsarist officers fought on the side of the Reds than on the side of the Whites.
Undoubtedly, Trotsky's merit was the Defense of Petrograd, for success in which he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. In 1920, the Red Army, led by Trotsky, managed to achieve a decisive turning point in the course of the Civil War.
During his activities as chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council, Trotsky also made many enemies, in particular Stalin, from the conflict with which further political clashes arose, which we will consider in the next chapter.