In 1931, when I first went to the U.S.S.R., I had certain pacifist sympathies. It was not encouraging, therefore, to see factory workers sometimes marching through the streets carrying rifles, and to find that military training of some kind was available in practically every Soviet institution. Since then, however, my personal experiences while living in the U.S.S.R., together with certain events that have taken place in the rest of the world, have convinced me that effective democracy is something which must be defended by arms against those who, at the present time, are doing their utmost to smash it by force.
And, once this need to defend the achievements of the Revolution by force against armed intervention is realized, then the extent to which the people of the U.S.S.R. receive military training is to be appreciated as one of the greatest proofs of real democracy. To make a comparison with Britain I would put it this way: In Britain, in the “public schools” where the sons of the well-to-do receive their expensive education, the “Officers’ Training Corps” is a voluntary organization of which practically 100 percent of the boys are members. In the universities such corps also flourish. But I have yet to find the industrial enterprises in Britain, where the breadwinners of some 75 percent of the population earn their living, where there are Officers’ Training Corps, so that the people may become skilled in the art of defence. By contrast, it just happens in the U.S.S.R. to be in the factories and in the collective farms, as well as in the universities and scientific institutions, that citizens may receive the elements of military knowledge, and are thus trained to defend themselves against any enemy. In this way the military training which in Britain is confined to a small section of the population is at the disposal of the whole community. Every Soviet citizen has the opportunity to be trained as a military leader.
This relationship between the people of the U.S.S.R. and the army is nothing new. It has existed since the setting up of the Soviet State in 1917. In January 1918 it was declared by the Third Congress of Soviets that “in order to secure the supremacy of the labouring masses, and to guard against any possibility of the exploiters regaining power, the Congress decrees the arming of the workers, the formation of a Socialist Red Army of workers and peasants, and the complete disarmament of the propertied classes.” At the same time it was declared “the duty of all citizens to defend the Socialist fatherland” and “the honour of bearing arms in defence of the Revolution is granted only to the workers. The leisured section of the population will fulfil other military duties.” In this way the “public school class” of Russia was deprived of the right to participate in defence, because the working people distrusted this class in the defence of the Revolution; while the military training of the people, which in Britain is confined within the walls of the “public schools” and universities, was extended to the whole population.
In the early days of the Revolution the Soviet Government issued a decree for the arming of the whole people. The arsenals of the State were thrown open to the workers and peasants, and the authorities were instructed that the people were to be allowed arms for the defence of the Revolution. When, in 1918, a war broke out which was to last for four years, the exigencies of war ‘taught the same lesson as Spain has learned during 1936. This was that the “armed people” were defenceless against a well-organized trained army unless they, too, achieved first-class organization and discipline. And a disciplined and well-organized army is impossible without centralized command.
As a result of the necessities of the war itself, the unorganized arming of the people and the defence of the Revolution by badly trained groups of armed workers could not be allowed to continue. The necessary steps were therefore taken by the Soviet Government to build up a regular army, with a centralized command and the enforcement of the necessary discipline, even though this meant the elimination of certain features which were defended by some as being necessary to a democratic army. It must not be imagined that such a reorganization was easy, for the Revolution itself had been made possible only as a result of the complete breakdown of the old army discipline, the seizure of power by the rank-and-file soldiers and their elected committees, and the replacing of the old army officers by elected commanders. It took time to persuade the rank-and-file soldiers, once the commanders were really drawn from the ranks and there was an equal opportunity for all to rise to the highest positions of command, that a disciplined subordination to the commanders was still essential while in action, whatever might be the relationship of the men in the ranks to the commanders when off duty.
The experience of Soviet Russia in fighting against the armed intervention of ten foreign Powers was that the arming of the people must be followed at once by the organizing of a strong people’s army, with a centralized command, and well disciplined. While the old relationship between soldier and officer was completely abandoned, and all ranks mixed together as equals when off duty, the behaviour of every soldier when on duty had to conform to the necessary military discipline. The fact, however, that in the new army which was being built up the commanders themselves were drawn from the best elements in the ranks meant that the old antagonism between officer and soldier, reflecting the class relationships in society, no longer existed. In this way the Red Army was built up, an army which to-day is officered to the extent of some 95 percent by men drawn from the working class and the collective farm peasantry.
The structure of the Red Army and its administration is in general similar to that of other organizations of the Soviet State. The supreme authority is vested in the Commissar of Defence, who is appointed by the supreme authority of the State. Officers are appointed from above, but at the same time committees of the rank and file play a large part in the management of the barracks and in all matters immediately affecting the welfare of the soldiers, their social and political life, their education, feeding, housing conditions, and so on. In this way the Soviet barracks has its wall-newspaper like the factory, and the commander who does not treat the men with the necessary politeness may be criticized for his uncomradely attitude in the same way as a factory foreman may be criticized by the rank and file.
Just as, in the factory, there are opportunities for every worker to study and to obtain promotion, so, too, in the Red Army, every facility is available for free study and so for promotion. Any rank-and-file soldier may apply for admission to one of the military academies, and will be accepted as soon as he has the necessary qualifications.
Military service in the U.S.S.R. is an obligation on all citizens. So long, however, as there was an employing class, it was expressly stated that the employing class was not to be given military work for the defence of the country. To-day, however, now that the employers no longer exist as a class of the Soviet population, the new Constitution simply states; “Universal military service is the law. Military service in the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army represents the honourable duty of the citizens of the U.S.S.R.”
It has already been shown, when we were considering trade unions in the Soviet State, how the regiments of the Red Army freely mix with the workers and peasants in social and cultural activities of various kinds, as well as giving them active assistance in production in times of emergency. Similarly, when we discussed the setting up of the Soviet State, we saw that the soldiers, like the other citizens, had the full right to vote and to participate in elections. In the army of the U.S.S.R.—and this is a feature of every really democratic army—politics have always played an important part, for the Soviet Government has nothing to hide from its soldiers, and it is to the greatest advantage that they should know for what they are fighting.
In discussing the Soviet factory we saw how the work of the factory manager included, in addition to responsibility for production, the work of caring for the welfare of the workers employed. So, too, in the Red Army, the duty of the commander, not only to his superior staff but to the men under him, is stressed in the official field regulations which state: “Care for the Red Army man is the first obligation of the commander, and is his direct duty.”
An interesting feature of the field regulations of the Red Army is a paragraph which deals with the treatment of prisoners of war. We have already seen how, in general, prisoners in the Soviet Union are treated as deserving of education rather than punishment. However, with regard to deliberate enemies of the State, the law is applied as between enemies and not as between comrades. In preparing the Red Army for action, however, we find the following paragraph in the field regulations: “The troops of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army are generous to prisoners of war, and render them all kind of help for the purpose of preserving their lives.” This, at a time when the aeroplanes of Hitler and Mussolini were bombing the defenceless women and children fleeing from Malaga, was one of the field regulations issued by the Soviet Government.
I remember how, when working in Moscow, I happened to see a letter sent to the U.S.S.R. from an English worker. During the period of British intervention he had been sent to the north of Russia, and had been taken prisoner. In his letter he recalled his experiences—how he had been given work to do, was paid for this work, and allowed to spend his free time wandering about the town in the evenings just as he wished. This was no accidental treatment; it was typical of the treatment of prisoners during the last war against the U.S.S.R.; and, from the field regulations quoted, we see that it will probably be true of the next.
What is the explanation of this leniency, of this friendliness, to the prospective prisoners of the Red Army in a war? The answer is that the leaders of the Red Army look upon it, not simply as a military machine, but as a political organization capable of winning to its side the workers and peasants, the vast majority of the people, in any territory which it may enter. For this reason the regulations definitely state: “The winning over to the side of the proletarian revolution of the working and peasant masses of the enemy army as well as the population of the field of action is the principal condition for victory.”
The Fascists, in their attack on Spain, bomb defenceless women and children who are fleeing from a captured town. The Red Army, when there was a serious dispute with the Chinese in Manchuria a few years ago, entered Manchurian territory. When it entered a town or village the first thing it did was to hand over all stores of food and clothing to the most impoverished of the population, thus endearing itself to the women and children instead of murdering them. Such a policy is consistent only with a democratic army, not interested in the preservation, but with the destruction, of the power of private property. And it is for this reason that in a war against Fascism the Red Army has not only its own morale in its favour, but the opportunity to gain very rapidly the sympathy of all the democratic forces in the country with whose Government it happens to be at war. The Red Army, at a time when the whole world is menaced by ever more flagrant acts of Fascist aggression, stands out as a bulwark of democracy, as a political as well as a military organization, rooted in, and recruited from, the rank and file of the people, a people’s army which will respect the people of any territory which it may ever have cause to enter.
Such an army, however, representing a people so organized that they have no unemployment—and there are among them no citizens who can gain anything from war—is not likely to enter foreign territory unless absolutely compelled to do so by an act of aggression, either against the Soviet State itself, or against a State with which it has a pact of mutual assistance. In 1917 one of the main slogans of the, Congress of Soviets was “Peace.” To-day, twenty years later, no citizen of the U.S.S.R. wants war. Therefore we find that Voroshilov, Commissar for Defence of the U.S.S.R., recently made the following public statement:
“We are proud of our army, its organization, its military training, its splendid equipment, but without hesitation we would send this army back to the factories and the collective farm fields, we would disarm it completely if the capitalist countries would accept our disarmament proposals.”
Only the U.S.S.R. could contemplate such demobilization without fearing unemployment. Only the U.S.S.R. has jobs waiting for every ex-soldier, and only in the U.S.S.R.—a country where not one citizen can gain anything from war—can such a demobilization be looked upon as highly desirable, if only the security of the country could be guaranteed in other ways.