Description:

LEON TROTSKY
(1879 - 1940) Russian Communist leader who with Lenin organized the Bolshevik October Revolution, defeated by Stalin in their struggle for control of the government, banished and later assassinated in Mexico. TROTSKY ANGRILY BANS BADLY-NEEDED BOLSHEVIK ADMINISTRATORS DURING CZECHOSLOVAK REVOLUTION Rare typed D.S. 2pp. 4to., [n.p. but Moscow], July 1, 1918. Trotsky, in his new role as Head of the Military Council of the Republic, informs his comrades that: ‘...In the newly formed military district, Deich was appointed as the Head of Military-Economic Administration, and his assistant Ivetsky was appointed Head of the economic side of this division…'. These two men, however, refused their new commissions: Deich for family reasons, and Ivetsy due to illness. Trotsky finds this ‘...evasion of the duties assigned to them' disrespectful, and requests that they be excluded ‘forever' from being employed in the military department. Tipped to another sheet at left margin, light wear and a bold pencil emendation scrawled across the message. Shortly after Trotsky bungled the January-February, 1918 peace negotiations with Germany in Brest-Litovksy with his rhetoric of ‘no war, no peace', Lenin accepted the ‘dictated peace' that deprived Russia of eighteen provinces and nearly 30 percent of its pre-war population. Just three months later, the Czechoslovak Legions revolted against the Soviet government, and Trotsky's administrative acumen was again put to the test as the Bolsheviks were suddenly faced with another loss of significant territory by the ever-growing threat of the White Army. Adding to the disarray was the concomitant defection of some of the best military commanders in the Bolshevik government. Trotsky answered the offensive with a robust military mobilization of his own which, by October 1918, comprised some one million troops and the incorporation of ex-Imperial Army officers as military advisors. That Trotsky, in this document, would forever ban two leaders with obvious experience in the government is odd indeed, but entirely consistent with the increasingly-harsh punishment for desertion and insubordination - which now included the threat of execution and even the punishment of the ‘traitors' families - and no doubt extended to critical administrative positions in the military/economic faction. Later, Trotsky in his autobiography would recall his constant struggles within the government and military around that time: ‘It is no wonder that my military work created so many enemies for me. I did not look to the side, I elbowed away those who interfered with military success, or in the haste of the work trod on the toes of the unheeding and was too busy even to apologize. Some people remember such things. The dissatisfied and those whose feelings had been hurt found their way to Stalin or Zinoviev, for these two also nourished hurts.' Ironically, Trotsky's policy of brutal reprisals for refusing to serve would be an inspiration to Stalin, who despite his fractious relationship with Trotsky in 1918, adopted similar policies well into World War II. Worthy of further research.

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December 6, 2024 10:00 AM EST
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