Condition of the Troops at the Front. October 13, 1917
Army Intelligence Report for October 2-13
Northern front. -The situation in the army has not changed and may be described as a complete lack of confidence in the officers and the higher commanding personnel. The belief is growing among the soldiers that they cannot be punished for what they do … The influence of Bolshevik ideas is spreading very rapidly. To this must be added a general weariness, an irritability, and a desire for peace at any price.
Any attempt-on the part of the officers to regulate the life of the army … is looked upon by the soldiers as counter-revolution … and stigmatized as a “Kornilov” move. The soldiers seem to believe that the arrest of Kornilov made void all the orders which he issued reinstating discipline. The army committees are in most cases helpless to guide the mob and are often compelled to follow it so as not to lose completely the confidence of the masses …
The various peace resolutions that are being passed are interpreted by the soldiers in the rear as having the force of law The Germans are very energetic in using newspapers and leaflets to advocate fraternization … Considerable numbers of soldiers feigning sickness are leaving the front for the hospital …
12th Army. – … The press of the political parties is no longer influencing the soldier masses. Again and again one hears the orders of the Provisional Government severely criticized. The committee of the 95th Regiment … declared Kerenskii a traitor …
Apart from the Bolshevik not a single movement has any popularity. Those who read moderate newspapers are looked upon as “bourgeoisie” and “counter-revolutionists.” An intensive agitation is being conducted in favor of an immediate cessation of military operations on all fronts. Whenever a whole regiment or battalion refuses to carry out a military order, the fact is immediately made known to other parts of the army through special agitators …
Western front.- … Because of general war weariness, bad nourishment, mistrust of officers, etc., there has developed an intense defeatist agitation accompanied by refusals to carry out orders, threats to the commanding personnel, and attempts to fraternize with Germans. Everywhere one hears voices calling for immediate peace, because, they say, no one will stay in the trenches during the winter … There is a deep-rooted conviction among the rank and file that fraternization with the enemy is a sure way of attaining peace …
The attitude of the soldiers is very definitely expressed in the army press … The question most frequently debated is the question of war and peace. The moderate newspapers … try to warn their readers against entertaining false hopes, since the coalition of the Central Powers is not at all inclined to stretch a fraternal hand to the Russian proletariat …
In direct opposition to this are the newspapers Izvestiia (of the Minsk Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies) and Molot. They openly advocate the immediate cessation of war, the transfer of political and military power to the proletariat, the immediate socialization of land, and a merciless struggle against capitalists and the bourgeoisie. Their method of argument is quite simple and comprehensible to the masses. It runs as follows: All the ministers of the Provisional Government are subservient to the bourgeoisie and are counter-revolutionists; they continue to wage war to please the Allied and the Russian capitalists; the government introduced the death penalty with the view of exterminating the soldiers, workers, and peasants …
Among the phenomena indicative of tendencies in the life in the rear of the Western front are the recent disturbances at the replacement depot in Gomel. On October 1 over eight thousand soldiers who were to be transferred to the front demanded to be sent home instead … Incited by agitators they stormed the armory, took some fifteen hundred suits of winter equipment, and assaulted the Assistant Commissar and a member of the front committee. Similar events … have taken place in Smolensk …
Southwestern front … Defeatist agitation is increasing and the disintegration of the army is in full swing. The Bolshevik wave is growing steadily, owing to general disintegration in the rear, the absence of strong power, and the lack of supplies and equipment. The dominant theme of conversation is peace at any price and under any condition. Every order, no matter what its source, is met with hostility. The dark soldier masses have become completely confused and lost in the midst of innumerable party slogans and programs, so that now they mistrust everyone and everything. Even their former leaders … -the committees-have lost their confidence … The commissars testify that the soldiers have lost all elementary notions of right, justice, and human worth. The position of the commanding personnel is very difficult. There have been instances of officers committing suicide …
The guard-cavalry corps of the 2nd Army passed a resolution of no confidence in the majority of officers. The soldiers are engaging in organized armed invasions of the surrounding country estates, plundering provisions … of which there is a scarcity in the army. Not a thing can be done to counteract this restlessness … as there is no force which could be relied upon in any attempt to enforce order. The activity of the courts is paralyzed because of the hostile attitude of the soldiers …
The following general conclusions may be drawn from the reports of the commissars: The approaching winter campaign has accelerated the disintegration of the army and increased the longing for peace. It is necessary to leave nothing undone which might supply the soldiers with food, shoes, and winter clothing; to see that the army is reduced in numbers; to improve the discipline in the reserve regiments. Otherwise the ranks will be filled with such material as will lead to the complete demoralization and destruction of the army …
(The rest of the report deals with the Rumanian and Caucasian fronts, describing similar conditions.)
Source: James Bunyan and H.H. Fisher, ed., Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1918; Documents and Materials (Stanford: Stanford University Press; H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1934), pp. 24-26.