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Leon Trotsky: Propagandist to the Red Army
NEIL
M.
HEYMAN
Leon Trotsky: Propagandist to the Red Army
I have waged the fight chieflywith a pen in my hand. Trotsky, My Life The examination of Trotsky as a writer and speaker has focused for obvious reasons on the dozen years culminating with the Bolshevik Revolution, a period in which his rhetoric played so notable a role. Trotsky's extensive historical writing after 1928, viz. The History of the Russian Revolution and his unfinished biography of Stalin, has also been a magnet for attention. The Civil War period, however, has not received comparable scrutiny. During those years from 1918 through 1920, Trotsky served as Soviet Russia's commissar of war. His energies were devoted to the construction and direction of the Red Army. But these were activities in which he turned his literary skills to good use. In particular, he produced wartime propaganda so vivid that even today it retains much of its impact. Trotsky aimed some of his writings at his military and political opponents within Russia; other pieces sought to bend public opinion abroad. Perhaps his most effective propaganda was directed at the rank and file of the Red Army. This study will consider three examples. In each case, Soviet forces faced a crisis: Kolchak's advance on the eastern front in March-April 1919; the appearance of enemy tanks during the siege of Petrograd in October STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM
VOL.
X, Nos. 1 & 2,
SPRING/SuMMER
1977. 34-43
LEON TROTSKY: PROPAGANDIST TO THE RED ARMY
35
1919; the final weeks of the Russo-Polish War during the fall of 1920. Propaganda, 1 leading authorities agree, is a systematic attempt to persuade a mass audience to adopt a specific viewpoint or to undertake a given course of action. Propaganda is the tool of a special interest group, and it features a deliberate effort to manipulate the audience. The propagandist, spokesman for the special interest group, seeks to persuade the audience to adopt the interest group's goals as its own. To this end, propaganda usually involves the deliberate use of distortion: it ignores or suppresses information unfavorable to the interest group while exaggerating and emphasizing the favorable; it frequently includes material the propagandist knows to be false. Moreover, propaganda commonly uses emotional appeals, attempting to block or deflect the audience's reasoning power by evoking a wave of feeling. Strategic or long-range propaganda aims at changing an audience's views permanently over a prolonged span of time; it may incorporate a mixture of reasoned argument with its emotional appeal. Short-range or tactical propaganda seeks to move a group to immediate action in the face of crisis; it depends normally upon arousing intense emotion for a brief period. There exists an obvious problem in measuring the success of propaganda, but there is considerable agreement on the prerequisites and conditions for effectiveness. First, propaganda must reach the attention of the target audience. Second, it must seize the emotional initiative, " satanizing " the aims and associates of the propagandist's opponents, idealizing his own aims and allies. Third, propaganda must appreciate the social and psychological make-up of the audience. It should feature appeals to "reference groups" with which large numbers of the audience feel identified. Fourth, propaganda must be able to channel and control the emotional responses it elicits. No matter how complex the situation, propaganda must present a clear and simple choice of action to its audience. 1. In this discussion of propaganda, I have drawn mainly on the following: Michael Choukas, Propaganda Comes of Age (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs, 1965); Leonard W. Doob, Public Opinion and Propaganda, 2d ed. (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1966): William Hummel and Keith Huntress, The Analysis of Propaganda (New York: Dryden, 1949); Bruce L. Smith, "Propaganda," and William E. Daugherty, "Psychological Warfare," International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York: Free Press, 1%8); Harold D. Lasswell, "Propaganda," Encyclopaedia Britannica (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1910).
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STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM
Trotsky's Propaganda Resources Trotsky's propaganda reached the troops of the Red Army through the small newspaper On the Road (V pull). From his first campaigning days in the summer of 1918, he traveled by armored train. So heavy it required two locomotives, the train held a detachment of combat troops, a small garage, an electric generator, a library, and a printing press. On the Road was written and printed on the train, as Trotsky raced from one trouble spot to another." The propaganda organization that became common during World War II, complete with a team of social scientists and pretesting techniques, had no place here. Trotsky stands as a single, intuitive practitioner, distinguished by his literary skill and psychological insight. Nonetheless, he enjoyed a number of advantages. He could reach his audience readily, and at least some of his readers were friendly to his goals. Members of Trotsky's audience were subject to coercive measures on his part. Thus, much of his writing had the force of an indirect military order. Typically, Trotsky's propaganda was tactical, an effort to stiffen for a brief period the resolve of tired, shaken troops. He could appeal to a variety of emotions: his audience's solidarity with the Bolshevik Revolution, its feelings of Russian nationalism, its desire to end the war and return home. Finally, his opponents' weaknesses, e.g., their dependence on foreign aid, facilitated the" satanizing " process. Trotsky's Propaganda During Kolchak's Advance In early March 1919, Admiral Aleksandr KoIchak's forces went on the offensive against the Bolsheviks' eastern front. The strategically important city of Ufa fell on March 13, and the Whites continued to advance until the final days of April. Red control of Kazan and Samara, commanding the middle Volga, fell into jeopardy. Their loss would cut the major food supply line from the South to Moscow and central Russia. Moscow itself would come within enemy reach. The depleted Fifth Army, protecting the main road to Samara, was down to 11,000 effectives. Outnumbered nearly four to one by the Whites, the Fifth Army also found its rear threatened by a serious peasant uprising. Trotsky arrived at Simbirsk on the Volga shortly after the fall of Ufa, He called on Moscow for reinforcements to bolster the sagging 2. William Henry Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution: 1917-1921 (New York: Macmillan, 1935), Vol. I, pp. 38-39; David Footman, Civil War in Russia (New York: Praeger, 1961), p. 148; Trotsky, My Life (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1960), pp. 411-422.
LEON TROTSKY: PROPAGANDIST TO THE RED ARMY
37
eastern front. After plunging into his customary program of establishing stringent military discipline among the troops, he directed a series of masterful propaganda pieces to the dispirited Red soldiers in the line of Kolchak's advance. Trotsky confronted three main problems in his literary effort to restore the eastern armies. First, Kolchak and his subordinates were enjoying a series of impressive victories that seemed to reflect notable improvement in White leadership. Second, the Red Army remained an amalgam, with Communist Party members and reliable urban workers serving in units composed largely of conscripted peasants. Third, months of alternately dangerous and tedious duty since the fall of 1918 had infected Red units on the eastern front with war-weariness. Losses of men and territory in the face of Kolchak's advance had depressed morale further. Trotsky's impressive propaganda campaign dealt with several problems at once. He derided the White leadership; he made a sweeping appeal to all Russian workers and peasants to join the fight; and he stressed both the need and the possibility for rapid victory. The commissar of war's writing style was an artful mixture of complex elements leading to a simple conclusion. He bombarded his diverse audience with a variety of emotional stimuli, while presenting them with a simple choice. The modest and inept figure of Kolchak has been difficult for historians to admire. Trotsky made him the villainous centerpiece of the propaganda campaign, a mixture of traitor, tyrant, fool, and sure loser. On April 10, in "What Does Kolchak Want? " Trotsky denigrated the admiral's motives. Kolchak claimed to seek a united Russia; in fact he hindered the voluntary union of the country under a Soviet government. He claimed to be freeing Russia from the Jews. In reply, Trotsky himself toyed with anti-Semitism, noting that, out of everyone hundred rubles the admiral received from America to oppress Russia's workers and peasants, 25 came from Jews. Kolchak's real goal was "the restoration of land to the landlords, profits to the capitalists." The choice Trotsky offered was clear. Kolchak would restore the monarchy; perhaps he wanted to be monarch himself. A small minority of the privileged would return to rule the masses. "And once again by whimsy," this minority would lead Russia's millions into a new imperialist war." 3. Lleon l Trotsky, Kak vooruzhalas' revoliutsiia (Moscow: Vysshii voennyi redaktsionnyi sovet, 1924), Vol. II, Part 1, pp. 340-342 (hereafter cited as Trotsky, K.v.r.). This example of Trotsky's anti-Semitism is striking in light of his own Jewish background and his frequent concern for his coreligionists
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STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM
On April 13, Trotsky presented Kolchak in a new light, as a malicious fool. The White leader, according to "What Does Kolchak Hope for? ", knew his army was unstable and his cause hopeless. He fought on only because there was no choice. Relying on false promises of American support received months before, Kolchak undertook an offensive he could neither win nor abandon. Animated by a mixture of hatred and frustration, Kolchak " rushes to do as much harm as possible to the workers' and peasants' country." 4 Under Trotsky's literary chisel, Kolchak's image took the shape of an irrational destroyer of Russian life and property. The following day, Kolchak became the last barrier separating Russia from peace and prosperity. Red units that had retreated for more than a month read Trotsky's" What Does Russia Need? " and found that peace was at hand. Russia's most dangerous enemiesGermany and the Entente-had left or were about to leave Russian soil. Only Kolchak remained a serious threat. If other White forces continued the struggle, if foreign interventionists continued to hang on in the North, they did so only because their hopes were pinned on Kolchak. Trotsky promised a rosy future to his tired troops: "Threequarters, if not nine-tenths, of the Red Army can be demobilized after the victory over Kolchak." Men would return to their farms and factories, and "in two or three years of rest and peace, one won't recognize Russia." The force of such an appeal is obvious. By identifying Kolchak as the last obstacle to peace, Trotsky capitalized on his army's weariness with the war. But Trotsky's optimism was apparently a facade, Since late March Soviet troops had been concentrating for an advance into Hungary to aid the tottering regime of Bela Kun. On April 18, Trotsky ordered military and civil leaders in Kiev to prepare for several major operations, including an offensive into Hungary and the defense of the Donets region against a dangerous attack by Denikin." By April 18, preparations for a counterattack on the eastern front were nearing completion. In "Behind the Smoke Screen," Trotsky claimed to picture life in Kolchak's Siberia, ending with a call to "crush the Kolchakist reptile." The admiral now appeared as " Cain," a front man for foreigners exploiting wealth that belonged during the Civil War. See Joseph Nedava, Trotsky and the Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1972), pp. 110-115, 229-230. 4. Trotsky, K.v.r., Vol. II, Part I, pp. 346-347. 5. Ibid., pp, 348-350; Jan M. Meijer (ed.), The Trotsky Papers: 1917-1922. Vol. I, 1917-1919 (The Hague: Mouton, 1964), pp. 365-367, Trotsky and Lenin to Rakovsky et al., April 18, 1919. The message is in Trotsky's handwriting.
LEON TROTSKY: PROPAGANDIST TO THE RED ARMY
39
by right to Russia's workers and peasants. Trotsky appealed adroitly to both his audience's class and their national feelings: "Once the Cossack Yermak conquered Siberia. Now the admiral Kolchak sells it." The financiers of Japan and America needed Kolchak only to split Siberia from Russia; "plundering Siberia they can do themselves." Trotsky demanded action. The foreign thieves were" preparing to ravage Siberia to the very bottom." 6 On April 24, the eve of the Soviet counterattack, Trotsky explained "The Mission of the Eastern Front." The retreat had ended . Kolchak was about to be crushed. "We can smash him only by an intensive attack along the ent ire front," Trotsky stated flatly. Victory was within sight: "One decisive blow-and Kolchak's regiments , created by coercion and maintained by the knout, will fall to pieces." The attack would result in fewer casualties than would a prolonged retreat. Finally, "Woe to those regiments that do not carry out military orders ." 7 The counterattack of April 26 turned Kolchak' s southern flank and rever sed the tide on the eastern front. Trotsky's promi ses notwithstanding, the admiral's force s did not quite " fall to pieces." As late as October 1919, Kolchak was able to mount a counterattack of his own. The Siege of Petrograd During the fall of 1919, Soviet Russia faced a multisided military crisis. Anton Denikin, commanding the most important White force, had advanced steadily through the Ukraine. On October 14, he took Orel, barely 250 miles south of Moscow. A smaller but well-equipped force under Nikolai Yudenich launched an offensive against the city of Petrograd from bases in Estonia. On Octob er 11 , Yudenich captured Yamburg; within a week, he advanced 100 miles to the outskirt s of Petrograd. On October 16, Trotsky took personal charge of the city's defense. Bitter fighting drove the Whites from the inner ring of suburbs by October 24, but Yudenich held Gatchina, less than 30 miles from Petrograd, and he continued to attack until early November. Yudenich had a small number of British tanks. During his advance they produced a devastating effect against inexperienced Red Army units . On October 25, Trotsky took un the problem in On the Road. The successful defense of Petrograd still hung in the balance, and 6. Trotsky, K.v.r. , Vol. II , Part 1, pp . 351-352. 7. Ibid., p. 356.
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STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM
Trotsky's article "Tanks" was an attempt to rally shaken Red units. A direct appeal to the rank and file, "Tanks" offered manifold reassurance against the frightening new weapon. Trotsky began by stressing the promising overall situation: the Seventh Army was defeating Yudenich; it was clear" to the most junior soldier ... we are stronger than the White Guard bands." The tanks, Trotsky insisted, were not important. "A tank is simply a metal cart of special construction" with " no special means of killing people." Its cannon and machine gun " in no way differ from machine guns and cannon in general." He conceded that great masses of tanks had a role to play in static trench warfare. A few tanks in the open terrain around Petrograd, however, made no difference. With an eye to the background of many of his troops, Trotsky used the homely analogy of country horses bolting in fright at their first encounter with an automobile. The novelty of tanks caused fear; fear led to panicky flight; enemy fire on the withdrawing forces led to heavy casualties. Men ashamed to emulate the fear of dumb animals would not suffer such losses." Trotsky provided several other ideas to restore calm. Petrograd's own factories were producing tanks, some of which were already in action. They functioned as well as the enemy's machines. But for soldiers who might remember nothing else from "Tanks," Trotsky included a not-so-oblique warning. Panic was the enemy's best weapon, and it was he who sowed it. Anyone who mentioned tanks fearfully during combat should be recognized-and presumably would be dealt with-for what he was: "a provocateur, a hireling of Yudenich." In conclusion, Trotsky offered his forces at Petrograd the same mental picture he had held out to the units on the eastern front six months before. The task at hand-conquering the fear of tanks-was decisive for the outcome of the campaign. Success in the campaign meant a speedy end to the entire war and the soldiers' return to peaceful pursuits."
The Last Weeks of the Russo-Polish War In late April 1920, Polish armies drove into the Ukraine. Kiev fell on May 4. A full-scale war between Soviet Russia and the newly independent republic of Poland had been in the offing for more than a year. The main issue was control of the vast border region that 8. Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution, Vol. II, p. 272; Trotsky, K.v.r.. Vol. II, Part 1, pp. 411-412. 9. Trotsky, Kivr., Vol. II, Part 1, p. 412. It is doubtful that Soviet tanks were available in the Petrograd region. See Richard Luckett, The White Generals (New York: Viking, 1971), p. 319.
LEON TROTSKY : PROPAGANDIST TO THE RED ARMY
41
today comprises Belorussia and the western Ukraine. The conflict involved sweeping advances and retreats for both sides. By July, the Red Army was pursuing routed Polish forces westward in a twopronged counterattack. Visions of the Red Army's helping to spread the Bolshevik Revolution into Poland and beyond excited Lenin and other Soviet leaders. But the campaign reached its climax at the Battle of Warsaw in mid-August, when the Poles, led by Marshal Joseph Pilsudski, delivered a stinging defeat to the northern components of the Red Army. During September, a general Polish advance took place. The Soviet southern armies were driven across the Polish border by September 2. The northern forces, led by Mikhail Tukhachevsky, were expelled from their defensive line on the Niemen River in the week following September 20. To add to Soviet woes, serious mutinies, e.g., in the Smolensk garrison, threatened the stability of the forces blocking the Poles. A White army under Baron Petr Wrangel threatened the southern Ukraine. By September 23, with news of the defeat at the Niemen arriving, Lenin advocated an immediate armistice. He was willing to accept large territorial losses in return for peace with the Poles. 10 Trotsky visited the front during the second week of September. The military situation remained fluid. The southern armies were in full retreat, but Tukhachevsky's forces still held the Niemen line between Grodno and Pinsk to shield Belorussia. The possibility of a winter campaign loomed ahead. The commissar of war faced a propagandist's nightmare. The Red Army had suffered serious defeat at Warsaw, and a cloud hung over Soviet military leadership. Ousted from Poland, the shaken Russian armies might have to be ordered to fight a protracted campaign on Russian territory. Trotsky offered the men facing Pilsudski an account of recent events that ignored the embarrassing issue of poor military leadership, as well as hopes for a revolution in Poland. Russian moderation he contrasted with incurable Polish bellicosity. The campaign against Poland. despite the reverse at Warsaw, he labeled a success. Trotsky began with" Is a Second Lesson Necessary? " on September 8. Soviet Russia fought in 1920 only out of necessity, he insisted. Russian moderation and resolve had to cope with Polish malevolence and foolhardiness. Pilsudski's government, "obedient to the will of French financiers," had refused a generous settlement. The Poles had senselessly attacked the Ukraine and compelled Rus sia to fight. 10. Norman Davies , White Eagle, R ed Star : The Polish-Soviet War , 1919-20 (New York : 51. Martin's, 1972), pp. 233-235, 249-251.
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STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM
Driven by both" chauvinistic nonsense" and" rabid class hatred for workers' Russia," the Poles expected the battle of Warsaw to lead to the fall of Moscow. Trotsky also encouraged his forces to see the campaign as a success. Undeniably the Red Army had to retreat from Warsaw; it had struck fresh Polish units after being weakened by its brilliant advance. The Ukraine, Belorussia, and Lithuania, however, had been freed" from the yoke of the Polish nobility." 11 On September 10, Trotsky concentrated on the military situation. In "We're Stronger than We Were," Soviet forces read a carefully colored account of the war. The Red Army had advanced 600 versts and retreated 200; that still placed Soviet troops 400 versts nearer Warsaw than in April 1920. To be sure, the events at Warsaw were " a great misfortune," but the Poles had now bogged down. That the Red Army "has gotten to know the enemy better and studied the road to Warsaw" suggested the initiative would soon return to the Russians." The following day Trotsky presented his most stirring call for a continued Soviet effort. "The Polish Landowners Don't Want Peace" reduced the future to a single dilemma and an obvious solution. No peace with Poland was in sight, according to Trotsky. Pilsudski needed victory to keep his last shreds of support among Poland's" petty bourgeois chauvinists." Moreover, Pilsudski represented "the entire ruling class of Poland, which does not want peace." Thus, the Poles presented ludicrously unacceptable terms, e.g., to include Pilsudski's Ukrainian ally Simon Petliura in peace negotiations. The solution Trotsky advanced was to prepare for renewed fighting. But he led his readers to it with a skillful mixture of outrage and optimism. Polish demands were" impertinent and at the same time laughable. Can one really think Poland has defeated us? Where? When? How?" Russia never intended to conquer Poland, merely to force Poland's landowners to make peace. Soviet forces had indeed retreated from Warsaw, but" as a result" the Ukraine, Lithuania, and Belorussia had been liberated. The Red armies of the western front, Trotsky insisted, were ready to renew the fight for peace. 13 By mid-October, the war with Poland was over. The Red Army no longer faced the threat of a major winter campaign. But Trotsky needed to explain the, harsh peace terms to his exhausted forces while preparing them for a final campaign versus Wrangel. On October 13, he printed" Peace with Poland Achieved." The peace had been 11. Trotsky, Kv:r.; Vol. II, Part 2, pp. 170-171. 12. Ibid., pp. 173-174.
13. Ibid., pp. 175-176.
LEON TROTSKY: PROPAGANDIST TO THE RED ARMY
43
costly, Trotsky admitted, but he offered the opportunity to see it as a victory of sorts. After all, it was a peace " which the bloodthirsty provocateurs of French diplomacy with the aid of their many accomplices in all bourgeois countries wanted at all costs to prevent." Poland had obtained a less favorable frontier than Russia had offered before Pilsudski's advance on Kiev. Poland's workers would soon " add up the results of the war and pass judgment on the policies of their ruling classes." These hints of vicious enemies foiled and future revolutionary victories assured led to a dramatically simple explanation for Russia's territorial losses. "The workers and peasants of the Ukraine and Russia are well aware why the peace is so costly," Trotsky wrote. Wrangel was" a Crimean dog [who] bit at the legs of the Red Army" to aid the Polish government. He and Petliura, " traitors who sold themselves in turn to all who wanted to buy them, are responsible for the fact we had to make peace at a heavy cost." Trotsky ended with the same promise he had used to counter Kolchak and Yudenich: Wrangel was the last enemy. This time the appeal corresponded to military reality, but Trotsky the propagandist presented an even more hopeful pledge: to defeat Wrangel meant to crush "all that remains of old Russian history-the dishonorable, the greedy, the treacherous." 14 Thus, a number of common themes characterized Trotsky's propaganda campaigns. The most obvious was his insistence that the task at hand was decisive. A last, mighty effort-to defeat Kolchak, to remain calm facing Yudenich's tanks, or to crush Wrangel-would bring victory and peace. It seems impossible to have selected a more powerful idea to rally exhausted and frightened troops. The appeal became still more potent with Trotsky'S assertion that the Red Army need muster only the will to win. As he described each situation to his troops, sound military leadership and adequate armaments were already present. Trotsky called for a final burst of determination that lay within his audience's power to provide. Finally, in contrast to the clear purpose of the Red Army, each enemy Trotsky described lacked tenacity and direction. Pilsudski and the White leaders were driven and unprincipled men, fools or slaves to malevolent foreign interests. White armies consisted of soldiers bound solely by coercion. Enemy victories were fortuitous, temporary, and ultimately insignificant. The Red Army's triumphs, Trotsky insisted, were to be predictable, permanent, and decisive. Sweeping all doubt and ambiguity aside, the Soviet commissar of war sounded a loud and confident trumpet. 14. Ibid., pp. 178-180.
M.
HEYMAN
Leon Trotsky: Propagandist to the Red Army
I have waged the fight chieflywith a pen in my hand. Trotsky, My Life The examination of Trotsky as a writer and speaker has focused for obvious reasons on the dozen years culminating with the Bolshevik Revolution, a period in which his rhetoric played so notable a role. Trotsky's extensive historical writing after 1928, viz. The History of the Russian Revolution and his unfinished biography of Stalin, has also been a magnet for attention. The Civil War period, however, has not received comparable scrutiny. During those years from 1918 through 1920, Trotsky served as Soviet Russia's commissar of war. His energies were devoted to the construction and direction of the Red Army. But these were activities in which he turned his literary skills to good use. In particular, he produced wartime propaganda so vivid that even today it retains much of its impact. Trotsky aimed some of his writings at his military and political opponents within Russia; other pieces sought to bend public opinion abroad. Perhaps his most effective propaganda was directed at the rank and file of the Red Army. This study will consider three examples. In each case, Soviet forces faced a crisis: Kolchak's advance on the eastern front in March-April 1919; the appearance of enemy tanks during the siege of Petrograd in October STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM
VOL.
X, Nos. 1 & 2,
SPRING/SuMMER
1977. 34-43
LEON TROTSKY: PROPAGANDIST TO THE RED ARMY
35
1919; the final weeks of the Russo-Polish War during the fall of 1920. Propaganda, 1 leading authorities agree, is a systematic attempt to persuade a mass audience to adopt a specific viewpoint or to undertake a given course of action. Propaganda is the tool of a special interest group, and it features a deliberate effort to manipulate the audience. The propagandist, spokesman for the special interest group, seeks to persuade the audience to adopt the interest group's goals as its own. To this end, propaganda usually involves the deliberate use of distortion: it ignores or suppresses information unfavorable to the interest group while exaggerating and emphasizing the favorable; it frequently includes material the propagandist knows to be false. Moreover, propaganda commonly uses emotional appeals, attempting to block or deflect the audience's reasoning power by evoking a wave of feeling. Strategic or long-range propaganda aims at changing an audience's views permanently over a prolonged span of time; it may incorporate a mixture of reasoned argument with its emotional appeal. Short-range or tactical propaganda seeks to move a group to immediate action in the face of crisis; it depends normally upon arousing intense emotion for a brief period. There exists an obvious problem in measuring the success of propaganda, but there is considerable agreement on the prerequisites and conditions for effectiveness. First, propaganda must reach the attention of the target audience. Second, it must seize the emotional initiative, " satanizing " the aims and associates of the propagandist's opponents, idealizing his own aims and allies. Third, propaganda must appreciate the social and psychological make-up of the audience. It should feature appeals to "reference groups" with which large numbers of the audience feel identified. Fourth, propaganda must be able to channel and control the emotional responses it elicits. No matter how complex the situation, propaganda must present a clear and simple choice of action to its audience. 1. In this discussion of propaganda, I have drawn mainly on the following: Michael Choukas, Propaganda Comes of Age (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs, 1965); Leonard W. Doob, Public Opinion and Propaganda, 2d ed. (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1966): William Hummel and Keith Huntress, The Analysis of Propaganda (New York: Dryden, 1949); Bruce L. Smith, "Propaganda," and William E. Daugherty, "Psychological Warfare," International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York: Free Press, 1%8); Harold D. Lasswell, "Propaganda," Encyclopaedia Britannica (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1910).
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STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM
Trotsky's Propaganda Resources Trotsky's propaganda reached the troops of the Red Army through the small newspaper On the Road (V pull). From his first campaigning days in the summer of 1918, he traveled by armored train. So heavy it required two locomotives, the train held a detachment of combat troops, a small garage, an electric generator, a library, and a printing press. On the Road was written and printed on the train, as Trotsky raced from one trouble spot to another." The propaganda organization that became common during World War II, complete with a team of social scientists and pretesting techniques, had no place here. Trotsky stands as a single, intuitive practitioner, distinguished by his literary skill and psychological insight. Nonetheless, he enjoyed a number of advantages. He could reach his audience readily, and at least some of his readers were friendly to his goals. Members of Trotsky's audience were subject to coercive measures on his part. Thus, much of his writing had the force of an indirect military order. Typically, Trotsky's propaganda was tactical, an effort to stiffen for a brief period the resolve of tired, shaken troops. He could appeal to a variety of emotions: his audience's solidarity with the Bolshevik Revolution, its feelings of Russian nationalism, its desire to end the war and return home. Finally, his opponents' weaknesses, e.g., their dependence on foreign aid, facilitated the" satanizing " process. Trotsky's Propaganda During Kolchak's Advance In early March 1919, Admiral Aleksandr KoIchak's forces went on the offensive against the Bolsheviks' eastern front. The strategically important city of Ufa fell on March 13, and the Whites continued to advance until the final days of April. Red control of Kazan and Samara, commanding the middle Volga, fell into jeopardy. Their loss would cut the major food supply line from the South to Moscow and central Russia. Moscow itself would come within enemy reach. The depleted Fifth Army, protecting the main road to Samara, was down to 11,000 effectives. Outnumbered nearly four to one by the Whites, the Fifth Army also found its rear threatened by a serious peasant uprising. Trotsky arrived at Simbirsk on the Volga shortly after the fall of Ufa, He called on Moscow for reinforcements to bolster the sagging 2. William Henry Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution: 1917-1921 (New York: Macmillan, 1935), Vol. I, pp. 38-39; David Footman, Civil War in Russia (New York: Praeger, 1961), p. 148; Trotsky, My Life (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1960), pp. 411-422.
LEON TROTSKY: PROPAGANDIST TO THE RED ARMY
37
eastern front. After plunging into his customary program of establishing stringent military discipline among the troops, he directed a series of masterful propaganda pieces to the dispirited Red soldiers in the line of Kolchak's advance. Trotsky confronted three main problems in his literary effort to restore the eastern armies. First, Kolchak and his subordinates were enjoying a series of impressive victories that seemed to reflect notable improvement in White leadership. Second, the Red Army remained an amalgam, with Communist Party members and reliable urban workers serving in units composed largely of conscripted peasants. Third, months of alternately dangerous and tedious duty since the fall of 1918 had infected Red units on the eastern front with war-weariness. Losses of men and territory in the face of Kolchak's advance had depressed morale further. Trotsky's impressive propaganda campaign dealt with several problems at once. He derided the White leadership; he made a sweeping appeal to all Russian workers and peasants to join the fight; and he stressed both the need and the possibility for rapid victory. The commissar of war's writing style was an artful mixture of complex elements leading to a simple conclusion. He bombarded his diverse audience with a variety of emotional stimuli, while presenting them with a simple choice. The modest and inept figure of Kolchak has been difficult for historians to admire. Trotsky made him the villainous centerpiece of the propaganda campaign, a mixture of traitor, tyrant, fool, and sure loser. On April 10, in "What Does Kolchak Want? " Trotsky denigrated the admiral's motives. Kolchak claimed to seek a united Russia; in fact he hindered the voluntary union of the country under a Soviet government. He claimed to be freeing Russia from the Jews. In reply, Trotsky himself toyed with anti-Semitism, noting that, out of everyone hundred rubles the admiral received from America to oppress Russia's workers and peasants, 25 came from Jews. Kolchak's real goal was "the restoration of land to the landlords, profits to the capitalists." The choice Trotsky offered was clear. Kolchak would restore the monarchy; perhaps he wanted to be monarch himself. A small minority of the privileged would return to rule the masses. "And once again by whimsy," this minority would lead Russia's millions into a new imperialist war." 3. Lleon l Trotsky, Kak vooruzhalas' revoliutsiia (Moscow: Vysshii voennyi redaktsionnyi sovet, 1924), Vol. II, Part 1, pp. 340-342 (hereafter cited as Trotsky, K.v.r.). This example of Trotsky's anti-Semitism is striking in light of his own Jewish background and his frequent concern for his coreligionists
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STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM
On April 13, Trotsky presented Kolchak in a new light, as a malicious fool. The White leader, according to "What Does Kolchak Hope for? ", knew his army was unstable and his cause hopeless. He fought on only because there was no choice. Relying on false promises of American support received months before, Kolchak undertook an offensive he could neither win nor abandon. Animated by a mixture of hatred and frustration, Kolchak " rushes to do as much harm as possible to the workers' and peasants' country." 4 Under Trotsky's literary chisel, Kolchak's image took the shape of an irrational destroyer of Russian life and property. The following day, Kolchak became the last barrier separating Russia from peace and prosperity. Red units that had retreated for more than a month read Trotsky's" What Does Russia Need? " and found that peace was at hand. Russia's most dangerous enemiesGermany and the Entente-had left or were about to leave Russian soil. Only Kolchak remained a serious threat. If other White forces continued the struggle, if foreign interventionists continued to hang on in the North, they did so only because their hopes were pinned on Kolchak. Trotsky promised a rosy future to his tired troops: "Threequarters, if not nine-tenths, of the Red Army can be demobilized after the victory over Kolchak." Men would return to their farms and factories, and "in two or three years of rest and peace, one won't recognize Russia." The force of such an appeal is obvious. By identifying Kolchak as the last obstacle to peace, Trotsky capitalized on his army's weariness with the war. But Trotsky's optimism was apparently a facade, Since late March Soviet troops had been concentrating for an advance into Hungary to aid the tottering regime of Bela Kun. On April 18, Trotsky ordered military and civil leaders in Kiev to prepare for several major operations, including an offensive into Hungary and the defense of the Donets region against a dangerous attack by Denikin." By April 18, preparations for a counterattack on the eastern front were nearing completion. In "Behind the Smoke Screen," Trotsky claimed to picture life in Kolchak's Siberia, ending with a call to "crush the Kolchakist reptile." The admiral now appeared as " Cain," a front man for foreigners exploiting wealth that belonged during the Civil War. See Joseph Nedava, Trotsky and the Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1972), pp. 110-115, 229-230. 4. Trotsky, K.v.r., Vol. II, Part I, pp. 346-347. 5. Ibid., pp, 348-350; Jan M. Meijer (ed.), The Trotsky Papers: 1917-1922. Vol. I, 1917-1919 (The Hague: Mouton, 1964), pp. 365-367, Trotsky and Lenin to Rakovsky et al., April 18, 1919. The message is in Trotsky's handwriting.
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by right to Russia's workers and peasants. Trotsky appealed adroitly to both his audience's class and their national feelings: "Once the Cossack Yermak conquered Siberia. Now the admiral Kolchak sells it." The financiers of Japan and America needed Kolchak only to split Siberia from Russia; "plundering Siberia they can do themselves." Trotsky demanded action. The foreign thieves were" preparing to ravage Siberia to the very bottom." 6 On April 24, the eve of the Soviet counterattack, Trotsky explained "The Mission of the Eastern Front." The retreat had ended . Kolchak was about to be crushed. "We can smash him only by an intensive attack along the ent ire front," Trotsky stated flatly. Victory was within sight: "One decisive blow-and Kolchak's regiments , created by coercion and maintained by the knout, will fall to pieces." The attack would result in fewer casualties than would a prolonged retreat. Finally, "Woe to those regiments that do not carry out military orders ." 7 The counterattack of April 26 turned Kolchak' s southern flank and rever sed the tide on the eastern front. Trotsky's promi ses notwithstanding, the admiral's force s did not quite " fall to pieces." As late as October 1919, Kolchak was able to mount a counterattack of his own. The Siege of Petrograd During the fall of 1919, Soviet Russia faced a multisided military crisis. Anton Denikin, commanding the most important White force, had advanced steadily through the Ukraine. On October 14, he took Orel, barely 250 miles south of Moscow. A smaller but well-equipped force under Nikolai Yudenich launched an offensive against the city of Petrograd from bases in Estonia. On Octob er 11 , Yudenich captured Yamburg; within a week, he advanced 100 miles to the outskirt s of Petrograd. On October 16, Trotsky took personal charge of the city's defense. Bitter fighting drove the Whites from the inner ring of suburbs by October 24, but Yudenich held Gatchina, less than 30 miles from Petrograd, and he continued to attack until early November. Yudenich had a small number of British tanks. During his advance they produced a devastating effect against inexperienced Red Army units . On October 25, Trotsky took un the problem in On the Road. The successful defense of Petrograd still hung in the balance, and 6. Trotsky, K.v.r. , Vol. II , Part 1, pp . 351-352. 7. Ibid., p. 356.
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Trotsky's article "Tanks" was an attempt to rally shaken Red units. A direct appeal to the rank and file, "Tanks" offered manifold reassurance against the frightening new weapon. Trotsky began by stressing the promising overall situation: the Seventh Army was defeating Yudenich; it was clear" to the most junior soldier ... we are stronger than the White Guard bands." The tanks, Trotsky insisted, were not important. "A tank is simply a metal cart of special construction" with " no special means of killing people." Its cannon and machine gun " in no way differ from machine guns and cannon in general." He conceded that great masses of tanks had a role to play in static trench warfare. A few tanks in the open terrain around Petrograd, however, made no difference. With an eye to the background of many of his troops, Trotsky used the homely analogy of country horses bolting in fright at their first encounter with an automobile. The novelty of tanks caused fear; fear led to panicky flight; enemy fire on the withdrawing forces led to heavy casualties. Men ashamed to emulate the fear of dumb animals would not suffer such losses." Trotsky provided several other ideas to restore calm. Petrograd's own factories were producing tanks, some of which were already in action. They functioned as well as the enemy's machines. But for soldiers who might remember nothing else from "Tanks," Trotsky included a not-so-oblique warning. Panic was the enemy's best weapon, and it was he who sowed it. Anyone who mentioned tanks fearfully during combat should be recognized-and presumably would be dealt with-for what he was: "a provocateur, a hireling of Yudenich." In conclusion, Trotsky offered his forces at Petrograd the same mental picture he had held out to the units on the eastern front six months before. The task at hand-conquering the fear of tanks-was decisive for the outcome of the campaign. Success in the campaign meant a speedy end to the entire war and the soldiers' return to peaceful pursuits."
The Last Weeks of the Russo-Polish War In late April 1920, Polish armies drove into the Ukraine. Kiev fell on May 4. A full-scale war between Soviet Russia and the newly independent republic of Poland had been in the offing for more than a year. The main issue was control of the vast border region that 8. Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution, Vol. II, p. 272; Trotsky, K.v.r.. Vol. II, Part 1, pp. 411-412. 9. Trotsky, Kivr., Vol. II, Part 1, p. 412. It is doubtful that Soviet tanks were available in the Petrograd region. See Richard Luckett, The White Generals (New York: Viking, 1971), p. 319.
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today comprises Belorussia and the western Ukraine. The conflict involved sweeping advances and retreats for both sides. By July, the Red Army was pursuing routed Polish forces westward in a twopronged counterattack. Visions of the Red Army's helping to spread the Bolshevik Revolution into Poland and beyond excited Lenin and other Soviet leaders. But the campaign reached its climax at the Battle of Warsaw in mid-August, when the Poles, led by Marshal Joseph Pilsudski, delivered a stinging defeat to the northern components of the Red Army. During September, a general Polish advance took place. The Soviet southern armies were driven across the Polish border by September 2. The northern forces, led by Mikhail Tukhachevsky, were expelled from their defensive line on the Niemen River in the week following September 20. To add to Soviet woes, serious mutinies, e.g., in the Smolensk garrison, threatened the stability of the forces blocking the Poles. A White army under Baron Petr Wrangel threatened the southern Ukraine. By September 23, with news of the defeat at the Niemen arriving, Lenin advocated an immediate armistice. He was willing to accept large territorial losses in return for peace with the Poles. 10 Trotsky visited the front during the second week of September. The military situation remained fluid. The southern armies were in full retreat, but Tukhachevsky's forces still held the Niemen line between Grodno and Pinsk to shield Belorussia. The possibility of a winter campaign loomed ahead. The commissar of war faced a propagandist's nightmare. The Red Army had suffered serious defeat at Warsaw, and a cloud hung over Soviet military leadership. Ousted from Poland, the shaken Russian armies might have to be ordered to fight a protracted campaign on Russian territory. Trotsky offered the men facing Pilsudski an account of recent events that ignored the embarrassing issue of poor military leadership, as well as hopes for a revolution in Poland. Russian moderation he contrasted with incurable Polish bellicosity. The campaign against Poland. despite the reverse at Warsaw, he labeled a success. Trotsky began with" Is a Second Lesson Necessary? " on September 8. Soviet Russia fought in 1920 only out of necessity, he insisted. Russian moderation and resolve had to cope with Polish malevolence and foolhardiness. Pilsudski's government, "obedient to the will of French financiers," had refused a generous settlement. The Poles had senselessly attacked the Ukraine and compelled Rus sia to fight. 10. Norman Davies , White Eagle, R ed Star : The Polish-Soviet War , 1919-20 (New York : 51. Martin's, 1972), pp. 233-235, 249-251.
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Driven by both" chauvinistic nonsense" and" rabid class hatred for workers' Russia," the Poles expected the battle of Warsaw to lead to the fall of Moscow. Trotsky also encouraged his forces to see the campaign as a success. Undeniably the Red Army had to retreat from Warsaw; it had struck fresh Polish units after being weakened by its brilliant advance. The Ukraine, Belorussia, and Lithuania, however, had been freed" from the yoke of the Polish nobility." 11 On September 10, Trotsky concentrated on the military situation. In "We're Stronger than We Were," Soviet forces read a carefully colored account of the war. The Red Army had advanced 600 versts and retreated 200; that still placed Soviet troops 400 versts nearer Warsaw than in April 1920. To be sure, the events at Warsaw were " a great misfortune," but the Poles had now bogged down. That the Red Army "has gotten to know the enemy better and studied the road to Warsaw" suggested the initiative would soon return to the Russians." The following day Trotsky presented his most stirring call for a continued Soviet effort. "The Polish Landowners Don't Want Peace" reduced the future to a single dilemma and an obvious solution. No peace with Poland was in sight, according to Trotsky. Pilsudski needed victory to keep his last shreds of support among Poland's" petty bourgeois chauvinists." Moreover, Pilsudski represented "the entire ruling class of Poland, which does not want peace." Thus, the Poles presented ludicrously unacceptable terms, e.g., to include Pilsudski's Ukrainian ally Simon Petliura in peace negotiations. The solution Trotsky advanced was to prepare for renewed fighting. But he led his readers to it with a skillful mixture of outrage and optimism. Polish demands were" impertinent and at the same time laughable. Can one really think Poland has defeated us? Where? When? How?" Russia never intended to conquer Poland, merely to force Poland's landowners to make peace. Soviet forces had indeed retreated from Warsaw, but" as a result" the Ukraine, Lithuania, and Belorussia had been liberated. The Red armies of the western front, Trotsky insisted, were ready to renew the fight for peace. 13 By mid-October, the war with Poland was over. The Red Army no longer faced the threat of a major winter campaign. But Trotsky needed to explain the, harsh peace terms to his exhausted forces while preparing them for a final campaign versus Wrangel. On October 13, he printed" Peace with Poland Achieved." The peace had been 11. Trotsky, Kv:r.; Vol. II, Part 2, pp. 170-171. 12. Ibid., pp. 173-174.
13. Ibid., pp. 175-176.
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costly, Trotsky admitted, but he offered the opportunity to see it as a victory of sorts. After all, it was a peace " which the bloodthirsty provocateurs of French diplomacy with the aid of their many accomplices in all bourgeois countries wanted at all costs to prevent." Poland had obtained a less favorable frontier than Russia had offered before Pilsudski's advance on Kiev. Poland's workers would soon " add up the results of the war and pass judgment on the policies of their ruling classes." These hints of vicious enemies foiled and future revolutionary victories assured led to a dramatically simple explanation for Russia's territorial losses. "The workers and peasants of the Ukraine and Russia are well aware why the peace is so costly," Trotsky wrote. Wrangel was" a Crimean dog [who] bit at the legs of the Red Army" to aid the Polish government. He and Petliura, " traitors who sold themselves in turn to all who wanted to buy them, are responsible for the fact we had to make peace at a heavy cost." Trotsky ended with the same promise he had used to counter Kolchak and Yudenich: Wrangel was the last enemy. This time the appeal corresponded to military reality, but Trotsky the propagandist presented an even more hopeful pledge: to defeat Wrangel meant to crush "all that remains of old Russian history-the dishonorable, the greedy, the treacherous." 14 Thus, a number of common themes characterized Trotsky's propaganda campaigns. The most obvious was his insistence that the task at hand was decisive. A last, mighty effort-to defeat Kolchak, to remain calm facing Yudenich's tanks, or to crush Wrangel-would bring victory and peace. It seems impossible to have selected a more powerful idea to rally exhausted and frightened troops. The appeal became still more potent with Trotsky'S assertion that the Red Army need muster only the will to win. As he described each situation to his troops, sound military leadership and adequate armaments were already present. Trotsky called for a final burst of determination that lay within his audience's power to provide. Finally, in contrast to the clear purpose of the Red Army, each enemy Trotsky described lacked tenacity and direction. Pilsudski and the White leaders were driven and unprincipled men, fools or slaves to malevolent foreign interests. White armies consisted of soldiers bound solely by coercion. Enemy victories were fortuitous, temporary, and ultimately insignificant. The Red Army's triumphs, Trotsky insisted, were to be predictable, permanent, and decisive. Sweeping all doubt and ambiguity aside, the Soviet commissar of war sounded a loud and confident trumpet. 14. Ibid., pp. 178-180.