Vol. XIII (2007), no 20 - The International Newsletter of Communist ...
Vol. XIII (2007), no 20 - The International Newsletter of Communist ...
Vol. XIII (2007), no 20 - The International Newsletter of Communist ...
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<strong>The</strong> <strong>International</strong> Newletter <strong>of</strong> <strong>Communist</strong> Studies Online <strong>XIII</strong> (<strong><strong>20</strong>07</strong>), <strong>no</strong> <strong>20</strong> 33<br />
wrath on the Bolsheviks. 65 In 1922, with the peasant rebellion largely broken by the <strong>Vol</strong>ga<br />
famine, the Bolsheviks fought yet a<strong>no</strong>ther pitched conflict against the Russian Orthodox<br />
Church. 66 And all along, the struggle against “class enemies” required ever-increasing<br />
quantities <strong>of</strong> weapons in the hands <strong>of</strong> secret police (Cheka) enforcers. Although a few<br />
ammunition factories continued functioning for the duration <strong>of</strong> all these conflicts in<br />
Bolshevik-controlled territory at Tula, it was at a much-diminished capacity compared to pre-<br />
1917 output. As the Civil War heated up in 1919, the Red Army and Cheka tore through small<br />
arms rounds three to four times faster than they could be replenished. 67 Chronic ammunition<br />
shortage would be overcome only in 19<strong>20</strong>, when the Allied blockade eased up e<strong>no</strong>ugh for the<br />
Bolsheviks to begin importing war supplies in quantity across the Baltic.<br />
<strong>The</strong> pent-up demand, by then, was e<strong>no</strong>rmous. Like boiling water bursting through a sieve,<br />
Bolshevik agents rushed through the blockade breakpoint at Reval (Tallinn) to place import<br />
orders as fast as they could. <strong>The</strong>re was <strong>no</strong> shortage <strong>of</strong> suppliers. As Lenin famously<br />
prophesied, capitalists proved quite willing to sell <strong>Communist</strong>s the rope with which they<br />
would be hanged. <strong>The</strong> Bolsheviks’ pariah status was powerful inducement to businessmen<br />
eager to exploit their desperation, charging hefty premiums for surplus German automatics<br />
and American rifles, artillery and can<strong>no</strong>n, with shells, rounds, gunpowder and explosives;<br />
military aircraft, vehicles, and trains — plus engines and spare parts for all <strong>of</strong> them; cloth for<br />
uniforms and greatcoats; bi<strong>no</strong>culars, goggles, and boots in the millions; cigarettes, foodstuffs,<br />
pots and pans for field kitchens; entrenching equipment, field telephones and<br />
communications wire; medicines and painkillers; and <strong>no</strong>t least, the blank paper, ink, and film<br />
stock for the propaganda which was the true mother’s milk <strong>of</strong> Bolshevism. <strong>The</strong>n there was<br />
Russia’s reeling civilian eco<strong>no</strong>my and its own war factories, which after the depredations <strong>of</strong><br />
“War Communism” was desperately short <strong>of</strong> the most basic necessities — rolling stock, ferrous<br />
metals, ball bearings, agricultural machinery and implements, pumps and centrifuges, castor<br />
oil and machine lubricants, cotton spinning machines and thread, dairy processing equipment,<br />
even vegetable and legume seeds. In the absence <strong>of</strong> goods to trade, all this needed to be<br />
65 <strong>The</strong> best overview <strong>of</strong> all the peasant revolts is Figes, Peasant Russia, Civil War: the <strong>Vol</strong>ga<br />
Countryside in Revolution, 1917-1921 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). For a more recent<br />
overview <strong>of</strong> the literature, see Taisia Osipova, “Peasant Rebellions: Origin, Scope, Dynamics, and<br />
Consequences,” in <strong>The</strong> Bolsheviks in Russian Society. <strong>The</strong> Revolution and Civil Wars, ed. Vladimir N.<br />
Brovkin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 154-176. On the eco<strong>no</strong>mics <strong>of</strong> the peasant<br />
rebellions, see especially Alessandro Stanziani, “De la guerre contre les blancs a la guerre contre les<br />
paysans (19<strong>20</strong>-1922),” in L’Eco<strong>no</strong>mie en Révolution. Le cas russe 1870-1930 (Paris: Albin Michel, 1998),<br />
66 For recent accounts, see Georgii Mitr<strong>of</strong>a<strong>no</strong>v, Istoriya russkoi pravoslav<strong>no</strong>i tserkvi 1900-1927 (St.<br />
Petersburg: Satis, <strong>20</strong>02); Natalya Alexandrovna Krivova, Vlast’ i Tserkov’ v 1922-1925 gg. Politbyuro i<br />
GPU v borb’e za tserkovnyie tsen<strong>no</strong>sti I politicheskoe podchinenie dukhovenstva (Moscow: Airo-XX,<br />
1997). In English, see Jonathan Daly, “‘Storming the Last Citadel’: <strong>The</strong> Bolshevik Assault on the<br />
Church,” in Brovkin, Bolsheviks in Russian Society, S. 235 et sqq.<br />
67 <strong>The</strong> monthly figure <strong>of</strong> small arms rounds fired for 1919, Orlando Figes estimates, ranged from 70 and<br />
90 million; only <strong>20</strong> million rounds a month were being turned out at Tula. Figes, A People’s Tragedy:<br />
the Russian Revolution: 1891-1924 (New York: Penguin, 1998), p. 598. Soviet authors agree that the<br />
upper ceiling on production was 30 million rounds/month. See D. A. Kovalenko, Oboronnaia<br />
promyishlen<strong>no</strong>st’ sovetskoi rossii v 1918-19<strong>20</strong> gg. (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo ‘Nauka’, 1970), pp. 274-278.<br />
From Trotsky’s well-publicized complaints about ammunition shortages, and eyewitness reports which<br />
suggest that maybe one Red Army soldier in ten carried adequate rounds, it is clear even such an<br />
amount was <strong>no</strong>where near e<strong>no</strong>ugh.