November 8th, 1919 THE COMMUNIST Page Pivo The Red Army Deeds Problems of The Red Army Three Articles Celebrating the first Anni has long ceased to be any question of trust By Leon Trotsky versary of the Revolutionary Army of Russia on the part of the army. If there is still agitation and argument going on to create ED divisions are over a front of vast alist Fatherland is in danger awakened the mistrust it has no practical effect. The apR best that is in the laboring masses. This proaching conference of our party. do not any direction, prolong it, and you will reach was the test of our revolution. Now we doubt, will strengthen with its authority some part of the Red Army which is fight ers revolution has passed the test.
may say with qniet assurance that the work that system which with the aid of the best ing for Soviet Russia so heroically. The orworkers of the party was put into practice Where are we to get soldiers? How are in the fiery experience of the war and has ganization of this army is a very good example of the efficiency of the revolution.
we to get the peasants into the army of given until this time the very best of reworkers who have not yet had a breathing sults.
No wonder the war was called an exami spell since the imperialistic war? Will the With each new trip to the front saw nation to the people. Of course, war itself people accept universal mobilization? new commanders who worked hand in hand is a great barbarity, and all Socialists are Where are we to get the commanding staff? with the Communist commissaires, with bent upon its extermination. But it must Will the old officers serve the new workers complete mutual trust and respect they fulbe overcome; that is, circumstances must be Russia? Each of these questions presented filled their responsible work. At that time changed so that war will become not only its vexations and it seemed like the crush in all our numerous officer courses and acaneedless but impossible. The people cannot demies groups of officers were organized leap over war instantly, surrounded by the out of the worker peasant families and those jackals of imperialismi, until the mad teeth The Red Army Celebration akin to them.
are jerked out of the mouths of these In February 1918 the Red Army was creThe question of organized equipment. of jackals. And if the people are forced to ated by decree of the Soviet Government; the army was also difficult, but the trardwage war, then in its capability of defense, in February 1919 all Russia celebrated the first anniversary of the first army of the ships are being overcome. They are overbattle and attack all the resources of the proletarian revolution. In an editorial, come often at the cost of the portion alloted people are shown: its economic power, its Year of Struggle and Achievement, the Moscow Pravda official organ of the Comto the working masses of the land, this is strength of organization, the spiritual aver munist Party, said: undebatable. This is clear to every conage of its masses, the amount of material for In the work of building our army we were faced with innumerable obstacles.
scious worker. He knows that war is a terleadership, etc. etc. There was the terrible weariness of the rible poverty. He feels this in his stomach, And so, taking the question from this masses tired out by the war of plunder; an economic break down and a decline of labor sees it in the life of his children, but he angle, we may say with assurance that in discipline; the decay of the old army, pois knows that war is forced upon us by the a land such as ours, worn out, despoiled and oning the air and hampering the construction of a new army; civil war in the whole enemies of the working class and that we ruined to the last degree, no other regime country, and war from without.
cannot defend ourselves with speeches and could organize an army. We may now say We were compelled with weapons in our articles against the cannons and shells of hands to repel the treacherous blow of the with certainty that an army will not be suc enemy and at the same time to lay the foun imperialism.
dations of a new army of the Red Republic. cessfully organized in Germany, neither by Truly, that was building under a rain of That is why every worker appreciates the Ebert or Scheidemann. Only Communists, bullets.
dishonest treacherous call to us on the part who have taken the power into their own Today, as we look back, we may daringly say: The chief task has been performed.
of the Mensheviki: Stop the civil war.
hands and shown in a practical way that this The efforts of the enemy are in vain: the The Soviet government openly declared to army has been created. We may be depower knows no interests, worries or feated, we may be shattered, but nothing the governments of all countries: We problems other than those of the working can succeed in killing the Communist Revo want peace; we are prepared to buy this lution.
class, will find it possible to organize an There is still a great deal of work ahead.
peace at the price of great concessions and army which will become the dependable Forward comrades to the work, to the heavy losses. To this, our direct and ofhedge of the Socialist Republic.
struggle and victory. Long live the Red Army of the Revoficial proposition, we received no answer.
We commenced with the divisions of the lution!
At the time when the enemy continues its Long live World Coinmunism!
Red Guards. Into these we accepted workattacks and the bands of the imperialists ers, not seldom those who took a gun into The articles here printed were published threaten Petrograd, the Jesuit traitors tell in celebration of the first anniversary of their hands for the first time. While the task the Red Army.
us: Unarm, stop the civil war. These was to overcome the fighting bourgeoisie, are the same ones who in the moment of junkers, white guards, groups of students, deadly danger to the proletarian revolution etc. the Red Guards showed an incompar ing of all at the very beginning. But the spoke and wrote of the dying corpse of the able excellence in their revolutionary spirit revolution laughed at the pessimists and Soviet government.
and determination. In a very short period scepties; the youth of the proletariat of Pe The anniversary of the Red Army comes Red Guard divisions spread the Soviet power trograd and Moscow and other cities showed at a period of international and political cirto all parts of the country. But with the truly a wonderful transformation in the cumstances which may be called promising.
offensive of the Germans in February of temper of the working masses, and above And the most important factor in the inlast year the condition changed immediately. all in the red divisions, when they under ternational situation is our Red Army. It The enthusiasm of the untrained, badly stood that the fight is for the life or death of exists, fights, chases back its enemies, armed people proved weak before the well the Soviet Republic.
grows, unites, with the determined and organized Hohenzollern divisions under watched this change at first hand, under heroic support of tens of millions of workers junker leadership. The first battle showed the walls of Kazan in August of last year, and peasants.
this, and brought about a fall of spirits in later on at the southern front near Voro The working class which organized such our divisions and armies. This fall of spirits nezh and Balashov, and in other places. This an army cannot be deieated resulted in decomposition within the ranks. wonder can be accomplished only by the Think of that period. The old army turned revolution.
The Red Army and Foreign into an armed beggary all of Russia, filled You know that in our army a strict discipPolicy.
all stations, cars, made direct attacks upon linary regime was established. War is war, the workers on the railroads, ruined railroad By Chicherin an army is an army. And if we are iorced property, forcefully robbed the food supto fight then we must be victorious, and UR brave revolutionary Red Army is plies, etc. The enemy attacked us from the victory is impossible without iron discipline. such a mighty factor in the foreign west, taking the Ukraine. The Cossacks But such discipline after world imperialistic policy of Soviet Russia that the most rerebelled on the Don; in the East, the Czecho war is possible only because it finds a deep sounding epithets for its praise cannot be Slovaks, and in the north Archangel was moral response in the conscience of every considered exaggerations. It is needless to taken from us. The ring was growing conscious worker, peasant and Red soldier. prove the simple truth that no matter what tighter and tighter. Then the Mensheviki The conflict goes on in the name of the is the foreign policy, it cannot be successful wrote about the dying corpse of the So existence of the Worker and Peasant Re unless it can depend upon real might. Those viet power. Not only the direct enemies of public. Every conscious soldier feels and of us who watch our foreign policy closely.
the working class, but some of the friends understands that this is his fight, that de may each day notice the degree of real inof the workers thought that there is no way serters and grafters are traitors to the gene fluence which the strength of our Red Army out, salvation is impossible.
ral welfare of the laboring masses, that the has upon our international relations. Every It was this moment of deadly danger for the revolution which gave birth to the crisis strictest punishment for these traitors is military success immediately influences our of salvation. The watchword: The Soci honor of the laboring people. And there just and is dictated by the revolutionary foreign standing, just as the defeats, for instance the loss of Perm and Esthonia, im