It was the “Year of Revolution” for Russia, according to Australian Ambassador (1972 - 1979) to Russia and Foreign Minister Shiela Fitzpatrick (1996 - 2002). What was meant to be the end of the fighting for the Tsar was instead the change of one set of opponents, the Germans and Austro-Hungarians and the Ottomans, for another set.
The first lot, who began to rebel on the 8th July 1917, were the peasantry and middle class East Prussian and Silesian Germans. Nationalistic, militaristic and above all angry at the Treaty, over 70,000 military age men assembled in pseudo-battalions, trying to fight a Russian occupation force of over twice the number. Armed with rifles with dwindling ammunition, the men also took on knives and farm tools and petrol bombs (dubbed “Prussian Poppers”) as they tried to fight by using ambush tactics and urban warfare.
The second lot were of Finland and other ethnic groups. On the 8th of April, 40,000 ethnic Estonians in Petrograd demanded autonomy from the Russian Empire. Due to the high and rising number of successes on the front, their demands were swept away. However, they heard news of the fighting in East Prussia and Silesia, they once again marched in force on the 4th of August 1917 in Petrograd. During the peace, British and French arms and foodstuffs continued to go through to Russia, as well as American supplies. The sight of tanks in East Prussia and Silesia had also alarmed the Polish, who were to rise against the Russians in revolt. On the 15th August, riots occurred in Warsaw and Krakow, to be then quelled by Russian soldiers cracking down. The supply of foreign weapons was enough for Tsar Nicholas to continue his reign, which would live to the moniker of “The Bloody” in years to come.
It was around this time that Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronshtein) would arrive in Russia as things were heating up. The continuation of fighting had brought out protestors in the first International Women of War Day (7th August 1917, celebrated on the 7th of August every year), to represent all the women who were either mothers or wives of now dead soldiers. The protests began in Petrograd and Moscow, where the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets mobilised to free prisoners en masse. Liberal and anti-bolshevik socialists under Alexander Kerensky and others attempted to offer resistance when the army failed to quell the resistance. Having been pushed out by pro-Tsarist crowds, he retreated south with his followers and declared a Bolshevik revolt in Tsaritsyn on the 25th August 1917. The Black Sea Socialist Republic demanded among other things:
- The removal of the Tsar
- Peace with all people
- The redistribution of land
- The end to the Tsarist system.
With over 30,000 armed revolutionaries, Trotsky advanced his forces through the Caucasus region, sending feelers to the rump Three Pashas Regime (as the Ottoman Empire called the anti-Mehmed movement). These messages were intercepted by Armenian scouts by way of a border crossing. Following an altercation and the messenger being shot, the message (written in Arabic) was understood by the Armenians.
On the 2nd September 1917, over 70,000 Armenian volunteers fought against the Trotskyites, those that they claimed (it has not been proven) that they intended to kill all Armenians. These volunteers would fight across Russia, from the Trotsky-held regions to East Prussia and Silesia but also to Finland, as it attempted to declare independence on the 19th September.
With the fighting going on, many socialists and leftists began to dither and turn as Trotsky declared his revolution. The Bolsheviks had their territory, however fluid it may be, intending on declaring a worker’s republic like those in Germany. Socialists like Alexander Kerensky supported the Treaty of Versailles and openly declared their support for a constitutional monarchy. Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Kadets and even Octobrists stood out in force against the actions of Trotsky. Many of the rank and file even joined the army to fight against the Bolsheviks. This did not include the Cossacks of the Don and Kuban regions, who backed the Tsar to the hilt and did not appreciate the revolution on their doorstep. Over 50,000 Cossacks would fight against the Bolshevik cause.
It wasn't until October when things started to get interesting. Felix Dzerzhinsky, the head of Trotsky’s police/Bolshevik militant wing “Cheka”, began to alienate moderate Bolsheviks under a 27-year-old Vyacheslav Molotov. The Cheka would subject the civilians of the “Black Sea Socialist Republic” with random inspections, strip searches, house invasions in the middle of the night, drunken celebrations, demands for the alcohol of each and every town, attacking women and young girls whilst under the influence of alcohol or cocaine as well as organising summary discipline.
It was stated, according to records in 2003, that 25,000 women between the ages of 4 and 85 were raped and or sexually assaulted by Cheka officials as they were the only law and order in the region. Suicide, as recorded by the Russian Institute of Health and Wellbeing, was the number one cause of death in the region from 1917 to 1926, to then rise again in the years of 1949 to 1965. Russia would remain a state with extremism, nihilism and doom holding it by the throat and the balls, from now until the end of the Second World War.
In a meeting on the 7th of October, Molotov declared that a counterrevolution had to be in order, as he declared Trotsky guilty of “perverting the revolutionary ideals that which we fought for”. It was here that the moderate Bolsheviks declared their open opposition to Trotsky. In Tsaritsyn, the capital of the BSSR, over 6,000 casualties were inflicted as hardliners under Trotsky and the Cheka ambushed associated and crowds that were linked with Molotov. Using Prussian Poppers, pro-Molotov supporters attacked the Cheka.
Over the rest of the month, house invasions became regular, with some houses desecrated before attacking the homeowners for perceived slights. The cult of personality around Trotsky began to fail, for several reasons. The first was the failure to attract a wide enough group of the proletariat, the illiterate peasantry and workers that would have fought in the First World War. The second was a lack of foreign policy and trade problems to exploit. Russian civilians received fuel and food that was still coming overseas, which was highlighting the need for further domestic production. The third was the land itself, which was the homeland of the Cossacks, who were loyal to the Tsar. The Culling of the Cossacks, a 1933 book written by Labour MP, British Catholic and future Prime Minister Malcolm Muggeridge (1903 - 1991), described much of the atrocities which killed over 7,000 ethnic Cossack men, women and children as he travelled the region between 1925 and 1930. It was one the moments that drew him towards crusading for human rights and for the CLE, the Consistent Life Ethic, which was to be held up by Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
As the civilian harassment and abuse rose, so did the paranoia within Dzerzhinsky. Armed with the entire Cheka, he continued to approach Trotsky with lists of possible traitors to execute, in order to fulfil the goals of the BSSR. As Trotsky was building popular support, Dzerzhinsky was tearing it down. As the Polish Flu arrived in the region during November, the Cheka began to shoot civilians based on paranoia and fear of having the virus. The instability for the Cheka was marked by the kangaroo courts established by delegated lieutenants, acting under orders from Trotsky and Dzerzhinsky as well as Dzerzhinsky himself obtaining a heavy addiction to cocaine and amphetamines simultaneously. It was this that allowed the so-called "Iron Felix" to work 40 hours in a row without sleep. According to The Red Files, a 1936 book written by former Cheka officer and later the architect of the "Nightmare of Bloody Nicholas" Lazar Kaganovich, he developed a cocaine addiction after working with Dzerzhinsky during this period where he also claimed that Felix worked for eighty hours straight in one week.
November 1917 would place Finland back within Russian control, after having its Parliament dissolved by the Tsar and claiming no international relief. 590 deaths would occur between Russian soldiers and anti-monarchist Fins. East Prussia and Poland and Silesia would begin to feel the uneasy tensions again, as 20,000 deaths occurred during this time before rebellion was stopped completely in February 1918. A majority of Silesians and East Prussians emigrated to whatever remained of Germany, joining whatever revanchist party served to bring their homes back or to make Germany great again. Either one suited them.
December 1917. Deaths began to rise in the BSSR. Molotov was cornered in a hotel overlooking the Black Sea coast by Cheka officials on the 7th December. For a total of five hours, he was beaten to a pulp before being shot fifty three times and having his body buried in an unmarked grave. Said grave was not discovered until 2011. Upon hearing the news of Molotov's death, the moderate members of the BSSR held a meeting without Trotsky's approval and demanded the expulsion of the "Hardliners" under Dzerzhinsky on the 14th December. With the Cossacks and the anti-bolshevik forces gaining ground on all sides, Dzerzhinsky ordered a round of mass shootings for those deemed to be "subversive" on the 19th December. As the killing went on, the moderates either surrendered or fought the Cheka in the fields and streets that were still under their control. It was not until the 26th January 1918 when the BSSR would be dissolved.
Polish Flu victims numbered 46,000 dead, with victims of the BSSR regime numbering between 25,000 and 150,000. Dzerzhinsky, upon realising how cornered he was, consumed the last of his cocaine and amphetamines before attacking the Tsarist forces on the 22nd January 1918. He and the 9,000 Cheka soldiers inside Tsaritsyn held out for 14 hours against 100,000 Tsarists. Felix himself would kill close to a thousand men before he died from a drug-induced heart attack, aged 40. His body was incinerated and . Every man who followed the Cheka, excluded those that hid like Lazar Kaganovich, was shot dead.
As for Trotsky himself, he and a total of 300 followers fled the country on the 2nd December 1917. Crossing every European country off the list, he instead moved to a colony. Four months later, he would arrive in Batavia. The capital city of the Dutch East Indies.
NEXT POST: THE POLISH FLU