Holding Families of Officers Hostage
Leon Trotsky, Order of the Chairman of the Revolutionary War Council of the Republic. September 30, 1918
One of the difficulties of building a new Red Army in 1918 was the reliance on former tsarist officers, some of whom responded with lethargy, sabotage, or outright defection. This order by Trotsky treated such defections as a form of treason and demanded measures “without shrinking from any.” Its practical core was stark: army headquarters had to compile lists of officers who had gone over to the enemy, and Soviet authorities were to arrest their relatives. The document shows how hostage-taking became an instrument of discipline.
Original Source: L. Trotskii, Kak vooruzhalas revoliutsiia (Moscow: Izd. VVRS, 1923-25).
Cases of treacherous flight by members of the commanding apparatus into the enemy's camp, though less frequent, are still occurring. These monstrous crimes must be stopped, without shrinking from any measures. The turncoats are betraying the Russian workers and peasants to the Anglo-French and Japanese-American robbers and hangmen. Let the turncoats realize that they are at the same time betraying their own families-their fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, wives and children.
I order the headquarters of all the armies of the Republic, and also the district commissars to supply by telegram to member of the Revolutionary War Council Aralov lists of all the members of the commanding apparatus who have gone over to the enemy camp, with all needful data about their family situation. I entrust Comrade Aralov with the responsibility for taking, in co-operation with the appropriate institutions, the measures necessary for arresting the families of deserters and traitors.
Source: Leon Trotsky, How the Revolution Armed, Vol. 1, Brian Pearce, trans. London, 1979-1981, p. 196.