Page:EB1922 - Volume 32.djvu/345

Rh

Terror against the bourgeoisie had been proclaimed by them from the very beginning: it formed one of the main planks of their platform. It was expanded into a system of wholesale slaughter and ruthless inquisitorial measures as a means of self-defence. The Extraordinary Commission (the famous Tchresvichayka) thrust the Tsar's Okhrana into the shade; as a matter of fact, it was served to a large extent by hangmen, torture-masters and spies borrowed from the Tsarist police, but acting with much greater independence and thoroughness. By the side of this cold-blooded and systematic machinery for crushing human beings acted innumerable gangs of ruffians and criminals, who robbed and killed in the sacred name of the Red Revolution with complete impunity and with the approval of the ruling powers. It is quite impossible to estimate the number of victims who fell a prey to this campaign of hatred.

Here is an extract from Bolshevik sources which may illus- trate this butchery, although it does not in any way give an idea of its real dimensions:

" In 1918 the persons arrested on the charges of counter-revolu- tion, crime in office, speculation, use of forged and other people's documents, etc., numbered 47,348. In 1919 the activities of the Tchresvichayka developed, and the number of persons arrested reached 80,662. Out of the total number of persons arrested in 1919, 21,032 were classed as counter-revolutionaries, while 19,673 were arrested for crimes of office. Out of the 128,010 arrested in 1918-9 54,250, or 42 \/, were liberated without subsequent consequences. Eight per cent of the total number of persons consisted of hostages. Nearly 1 1 % were sentenced to compulsory labour, 29 % retained in prison, and nearly 8 % sent into concentration camps. In 1918 6,185 persons were executed and 3,456 in 1919, the total number during the two years being 9,641." (Lazies, The Fight on the Home Front.)

In such cases it is not only the number of victims that counts, but also their quality: as in the times of Ivan the Terrible, only " God knows the names of the murdered," but let us notice by way of example that some of the most respected among Mos- cow's citizens, whose whole lives had been devoted to the service of the people the Astrovs, the Alferovs, N. Shtechepkin were shot as " spies " in the summer of 1919.

What did the Whites oppose to the Red fury? In fighting prowess the Whites were more than a match for the Reds, espe- cially on the southern front: the exploits of Wrangel's Caucasian corps in the attack and defence of Tsaritsin, the advance of the Volunteer army's infantry against heavy odds on Kharkov and Kursk, the rally at Rostov in the last months of 1920, are proofs of the excellent quality of Denikin's troops. Kolchak's Siberians were not seasoned to the same extent, but they were good mate- rial and improved rapidly, and the Orenburg and Ural Cossacks operating between the two groups did everything humanly pos- sible to oppose the Reds. But neither the eastern nor the south- ern armies were supported by a tolerably organized rear. Kolchak and Denikin moved rapidly forward in the hope of cutting off the economically important district of the Ural, the Donets, the corn-growing provinces along the Volga and in the Ukraine, but their rapid advance involved a hasty and superficial occu- pation of wide tracts. They flooded their regiments with unwill- ing conscripts and had to rely for supplies on requisitions: the corn and the horses of the peasants were seized without any regard for the needs of the farmers, while the raids of Cossack cavalry into regions held by the Reds resulted in indiscriminate looting of friend and foe. What constantly happened in such circumstances was that the advancing Whites were received with " bread and salt " and attacked in the rear when they had been in the country for some time.

If the White leaders had succeeded in persuading the people that their aim was genuinely patriotic and that private interests had to be sacrificed for the sake of the great cause, all the miser- ies of civil war might have been endured, if not willingly, at least with resignation. But neither on the eastern nor on the southern front did the Whites establish confidence, that condi- tion precedent of success. There cannot be the slightest doubt that not only Denikin and Kolchak, but also their principal followers were fighting for the ideal of a reunited and free Russia, but there was too much of the hated past intermixed with their efforts; corrupt officials, greedy squires had flocked to the White

banners and were clamouring and pressing for revenge and com- pensation. The frequent cases of lynching of commissars and Communists were an inevitable consequence of the civil war and of the hatred inspired by the wreckers of Russia: it was impossible to draw the line between justified retribution and wanton cruelty in many of these explosions of wrath. Sometimes, as in the case of Jewish pogroms in the Ukraine, subordinate officers acted against the direct orders of the High Command. But there were other signs of the time in the policy of the White leaders which created the suspicion that they were out for a counter-revolution, for the reestablishment of the old monarchy and the old gentry. The Socialists, who formed a great part of the 'intellectual class as far as the latter still existed, were driven back without any regard for the fact that they were natural allies in the struggle against Communism. One of the leading members of the Constituent Assembly was shot by Kolchak's Government in Ekaterinburg. The same fate befell leaders of the Kuban separatists in Ekaterinodar. The Liberal members of the Denikin " Special Council," like N. Astrov, protested in vain against a policy directed against all Socialists indiscriminately. If Denikin had not personally prevented further persecutions and open reaction, the dictatorial schemes of the generals would have been embodied in some drastic Act of the State for which Prof. K. Sokolov would have supplied a juridical formula. As it was, for the mass of the people the repeated protestations of acceptance of the social results of the Revolution seemed belied by the way in which agrarian reform 1 was to be regulated. The subtle distinctions concerning com- pensation and redemption tax reminded the peasants forcibly of the procedure followed by the Emancipation Act of 1861, and the Reds were not slow to take advantage of this unfortunate association of ideas. The Whites started also a propaganda office (Osvag), but although some 200 million rubles are said to have been spent on it, its activity was subjected to bitter criticism by various groups in the camp of the Whites. The state of affairs brought about two fatal results confusion in the rear of the White armies, and discord between the patriotic forces in Russia and the Allies.

The conditions in the rear of Denikin's army were described by Soviet propagandists with ironical satisfaction. There can be no doubt that the activity of " green " bands of marauders, and the rise of such potentates as Makhno, a brigand whose followers are said to have mustered at times some thirty thou- sand, made orderly life in the rear impossible and drew off con- siderable forces at the most critical moments for the maintenance of some sort of communications. What proved even worse was the defection of dissatisfied Cossacks. When the Volunteer army was straining its forces to hold the line against the Reds north of Rostov, Kuban troops left their positions and went home, leaving Denikin's right flank unprotected.

A similar state of affairs prevailed on the eastern front: the population in the rear, excited by Communist propaganda and fraternizing with the lawless elements so numerous in Siberia convicts and prisoners of war conducted a constant guerrilla warfare against the Russian and foreign troops protecting the Trans-Siberian railway line. Kolchak tried to counteract this shocking demoralization by reorganizing his government under

1 The following were the conditions of land reform proclaimed by Denikin on July 19 1919:

(1) Safeguarding of the interests of the toiling population;

(2) The creation and the placing on a sound basis of small and medium homesteads out of the land belonging to the State and private owners ;

(3) The preservation of the right of the landowners to their land, coupled, however, with the apportionment in each district of the amount of land that is to be retained by the former owner and the order of the transfer of the remainder into the ownership of those who are land-poor ;

(4) These transfers may be achieved by voluntary agreement, or by obligatory alienation for compensation. The new owners are to ac- quire inalienable rights to their allotments.

(5) Intensive aid to be given to tillers of the soil, through technical improvement of the lands, expert agricultural assistance, the supply of implements, seeds, dead and live inventory, etc.