The School of the Nation
Events in the Americas didn’t find much attention in Russia. One had other and more pressing problems. Prices were going up as demand was growing and foodstuffs had to be imported because the archaic Russian agricultural sector did neither produce sufficient quantities nor acceptable quality – and the transport sector often failed to deliver in time what was in demand.
Early April 1923 saw spring eventually taking hold in St. Petersburg. Ice breakers had already opened a shipping lane in the Gulf of Finland and the Kronstatdt Bay, and vessels from Sweden and Great Britain had been the first visitors to the habour after the ice period.
The citizens of ‘Piter’ – as the town was informally called – enjoyed the warmer weather and the certainty that the shift of the Russian capital to Moscow would take just another decade. St. Peterburg was an important industrial centre and had all the infrastructure to support a government – Moscow still was a heap of rubble, although the number of inhabitants there (mainly construction workers) was said to already exceed the number of wolves in the same area.
And who knew? Once that busybody Matutin lost his office in the next election, another Prime Minister might decide to keep the capital in ‘Piter’.
Russian Prime Minister Igor F. Matutin had chosen Monday, April 16th, 1923, for an address to the nation. As wireless transmission was not yet an option in Russia, he had asked the national and international press to his his official residence, the Anichkov Palace. In presence of War Minister Boris V. Savinkov and Chief of Staff and peacetime Commander-in-Chief General Mikhail N. Tukhachevsky, he expounded:
“You will remember that – in my inaugural address – I promised to reduce the Russian Armed Forces. Now, that the Japanese invaders have been beaten and chased away, I am going to keep this promise.
Russia needs modern and proficient forces on land, in the air and on sea. To achieve proficiency, the armed forces will become professional services. Ordinary soldiers will have to volunteer for at least eight years of service. NCOs shall engage for at least twelve, and officers for twenty years. Special schools and acadamies will be provided to train NCOs and officers in science and technology.
The future army will consist of ten army corps only. The total strength of the Russian Army will not exceed 560,000 men. In addition we will have a navy of 65,000 and an air force of 55,000 men.
Nevertheless, Russia needs the ability to levy a sizeable force in short time, should we be attacked by foreign aggressors. To this end, every ablebodied young Russian between the age of 17 and 25 years will attend one year of basic training with the armed forces. After this basic training, the young men can return home – and will not be called for reserve exercises other than in a state of national emergency.
The laws to regulate all this will be passed through the All Russian Duma in the next week. The representatives of the Krestyanina Partiya have already agreed to them. They see them as a great step forward in the right direction, freeing a huge number of young farmers from long-time service and allowing them to return home after only one year of basic military formation.
The professional armed forces will be open to everyone who fulfils the requirements, there will be no privileges and preferences for certain groups of the society. Russia is going to have modern and technically progressive armed forces that can stand up to every international comparison.”
What Matutin did not say was that the recruiting guidelines for the professional armed forces would automatically exclude all non-Russians, such as Jews, Germans, Poles and Muslims. The various minorities could serve their term of basic training and return home thereafter. The professional armed forces would be made up from Russians, White Russians and Cossacks exclusively.
What he also didn’t say was that armaments policy would shift to a clear ‘Russia First’, with Russian companies copying and developing further the existing hardware (which was mainly German). One was content to accept initial delays in this process, but in the long run dependency on foreign deliveries had to be abolished.
Matutin had no clear concept yet how to deal with Manchukuo. After the costly Second Russo-Japanese War, a further armed conflict was beyond Russia’s capacity for the time being. And the important restructuring of the armed forces – which was to bring all peasants’ sons under military influence for twelve months and thus accustom them to modern civilisation – would not allow starting another war for several years as well.
But with their Japanese protectors utterly beaten and humiliated, the rulers of Manchukuo were experiencing a low tide in new immigrants anyway. The attraction of the new entity to Chinese citizens had fallen considerably; Manchukuo no longer was regarded as a new bonanza – in people’s mind it now had become a place where one could lose everything very quickly.
Events in the Americas didn’t find much attention in Russia. One had other and more pressing problems. Prices were going up as demand was growing and foodstuffs had to be imported because the archaic Russian agricultural sector did neither produce sufficient quantities nor acceptable quality – and the transport sector often failed to deliver in time what was in demand.
Early April 1923 saw spring eventually taking hold in St. Petersburg. Ice breakers had already opened a shipping lane in the Gulf of Finland and the Kronstatdt Bay, and vessels from Sweden and Great Britain had been the first visitors to the habour after the ice period.
The citizens of ‘Piter’ – as the town was informally called – enjoyed the warmer weather and the certainty that the shift of the Russian capital to Moscow would take just another decade. St. Peterburg was an important industrial centre and had all the infrastructure to support a government – Moscow still was a heap of rubble, although the number of inhabitants there (mainly construction workers) was said to already exceed the number of wolves in the same area.
And who knew? Once that busybody Matutin lost his office in the next election, another Prime Minister might decide to keep the capital in ‘Piter’.
Russian Prime Minister Igor F. Matutin had chosen Monday, April 16th, 1923, for an address to the nation. As wireless transmission was not yet an option in Russia, he had asked the national and international press to his his official residence, the Anichkov Palace. In presence of War Minister Boris V. Savinkov and Chief of Staff and peacetime Commander-in-Chief General Mikhail N. Tukhachevsky, he expounded:
“You will remember that – in my inaugural address – I promised to reduce the Russian Armed Forces. Now, that the Japanese invaders have been beaten and chased away, I am going to keep this promise.
Russia needs modern and proficient forces on land, in the air and on sea. To achieve proficiency, the armed forces will become professional services. Ordinary soldiers will have to volunteer for at least eight years of service. NCOs shall engage for at least twelve, and officers for twenty years. Special schools and acadamies will be provided to train NCOs and officers in science and technology.
The future army will consist of ten army corps only. The total strength of the Russian Army will not exceed 560,000 men. In addition we will have a navy of 65,000 and an air force of 55,000 men.
Nevertheless, Russia needs the ability to levy a sizeable force in short time, should we be attacked by foreign aggressors. To this end, every ablebodied young Russian between the age of 17 and 25 years will attend one year of basic training with the armed forces. After this basic training, the young men can return home – and will not be called for reserve exercises other than in a state of national emergency.
The laws to regulate all this will be passed through the All Russian Duma in the next week. The representatives of the Krestyanina Partiya have already agreed to them. They see them as a great step forward in the right direction, freeing a huge number of young farmers from long-time service and allowing them to return home after only one year of basic military formation.
The professional armed forces will be open to everyone who fulfils the requirements, there will be no privileges and preferences for certain groups of the society. Russia is going to have modern and technically progressive armed forces that can stand up to every international comparison.”
What Matutin did not say was that the recruiting guidelines for the professional armed forces would automatically exclude all non-Russians, such as Jews, Germans, Poles and Muslims. The various minorities could serve their term of basic training and return home thereafter. The professional armed forces would be made up from Russians, White Russians and Cossacks exclusively.
What he also didn’t say was that armaments policy would shift to a clear ‘Russia First’, with Russian companies copying and developing further the existing hardware (which was mainly German). One was content to accept initial delays in this process, but in the long run dependency on foreign deliveries had to be abolished.
Matutin had no clear concept yet how to deal with Manchukuo. After the costly Second Russo-Japanese War, a further armed conflict was beyond Russia’s capacity for the time being. And the important restructuring of the armed forces – which was to bring all peasants’ sons under military influence for twelve months and thus accustom them to modern civilisation – would not allow starting another war for several years as well.
But with their Japanese protectors utterly beaten and humiliated, the rulers of Manchukuo were experiencing a low tide in new immigrants anyway. The attraction of the new entity to Chinese citizens had fallen considerably; Manchukuo no longer was regarded as a new bonanza – in people’s mind it now had become a place where one could lose everything very quickly.