<center>STALIN IN THE RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR PERIOD
A BIBLIOGRAPHIC COMMENTARY</center>

(Source: Stalin in the Russian Civil War – Unpublished MA Thesis, Carleton University, Ottawa, 1980 – Contributed by the author, Paul Harrison. There is also a full formal listing of the sources. Note that this bibliography has not been updated since 1980, but considering the lack of historical interest in the topic, only primary sources are likely to have surfaced. New bibliographic contributions should be entered in the Full formal listing of sources on Stalin in the Civil War. See also the Bibliographic commentary of Stalin in the Russo-Polish War and Bibliography on Stalin in the Russo-Polish War.

Although most of Stalin's many biographers devote a chapter to the
Civil War period, they tend to focus on his political activities as Commissar for Nationalities. His extensive experience as a military commissar is mentioned mainly as a forum for his rivalry with Trotsky. His performance in a military environment, what effect, if any, the role of front commissar had on him, and how his actions affected the course of the war, have been very much neglected. Isaac Deutscher, for example, notes that:

<blockquote>By the light of the secret military correspondence of those days [Stalin's] role looms much larger than it did in the writings published while Trotsky was in power, though not nearly as large as in the official histories of the Stalinist era.2</blockquote>

Nonetheless, he dismisses Stalin's military activities as "a dull matter to follow out . . . in detail."3 and better suited to a history of the Civil War.4

Thanks, in part, to the nearly universal sympathy felt for Trotsky in the West, Stalin's role in the war itself has been traditionally portrayed as an unimportant one, his status being reduced to that of a nuisance with which Trotsky had to deal while building the Red Army. In all his works, Trotsky carefully minimized the significance of Stalin's role compared with his own, even to the point of claiming that: "In the heat of the fight, I usually forgot [Stalin's] existence."5

With few exceptions, noted below, the histories of the Civil War are equally sparing in their treatment of Stalin, again mentioning him mainly in connection with his feud with Trotsky; even his responsibility for the failure of the Polish campaign is in most accounts given only incidental mention.

Despite this scanty treatment, the significance of the war for Stalin personally is generally, and correctly, portrayed as considerable. Boris Souvarine concludes that "Stalin emerged from the war matured and tempered."6 Ronald Hingley credits the Civil War with promoting "Stalin's early development as a leader."7 Adam Ulam came closest to the truth when he commented that in the Civil War, Stalin "was allowed to develop the habits of a tyrant while still far from being a dictator."8

The Civil War experiences of Stalin are recorded in plentiful primary documentation. While serving at various fronts, Stalin was in regular contact with Lenin and other party members, and with his own subordinates. Since his communications at this time were mostly from or to a field headquarters, via teletype, most of them were preserved in Soviet military archives, and a large number have not only survived, but have become available in the West. Stalinist Russia published many accounts and documents on the Civil War exploits of its leader. Post-Stalinist Russia produced its own accounts and evidence, intended to tarnish the legend, and demonstrate that Stalin was far from the only active party member in the Civil War.

So, in addition to Stalin's and Lenin's collected works,9 there are two collections of Red Army directives10 of the Civil War period, supplemented by two propagandist collections published early in the Second World War in honour of Stalin's defence of Tsaritsyn and Petrograd. 11 These contain not only "directives" but orders, informational messages and correspondence of all types originating from the general headquarters and front headquarters.

Together, these collections provide what must be very nearly all of Stalin's written and transmitted military communications during the Civil War.12 For no other period in Stalin's life does there exist such a copious collection of his own words, often written not for the public record or to bolster his intellectual reputation but as "secret" military communiqués, many addressed directly to Lenin. They provide a revealing and uniquely detailed portrait of a man who would in a few years become master of Russia.

Supplementing these documentary collections are primary and secondary Soviet accounts. These are sometimes useful, but have notable short-comings. Pre-1926 Soviet memoirs of the Civil War limit themselves to generalities and rarely mention names. While the unflagging insistence of Stalinist historians that Stalin was single-handedly responsible for all successes is a severe distortion, the post-Stalin determination to reduce Stalin's significance is only a slight improvement. Nonetheless, used with caution, Soviet accounts provide at least small items of supporting data and occasional documentary material available nowhere else.13 Of particular use in clarifying the military background of events in which Stalin was involved are the accounts of Cavalry General S. M. Budénny14 and General A. I. Egorov.15

Only one western writer has dealt in any detail with the military aspects of Stalin's Civil War experience. Albert Seaton, in his Stalin as Warlord (New York, 1975), devotes his first three chapters (about 77 pages) to the Civil War. His account is accurate and perceptive, and is frequently referred to in this paper. Unfortunately, Seaton attempted to compress into a mere 300 pages Stalin's lifetime involvement with the Red Army, with the consequent abandonment of much useful detail. Since Seaton intended his work for the general reader as well as the specialist, it also includes much background material on military and political events which still further limited the space available to him for serious discussion. Moreover, Seaton made the decision that, as he explains in his introduction, "limitations of space have precluded comment or assessment by the author, and this is, in any case, unnecessary since the material is for the most part self-explanatory." It was, for a historian, a curious and disappointing avoidace of assessment.

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FOOTNOTES

2 I. Deutscher, Stalin: A Political Biography (Oxford, 1949), pp. 215-16,

3 lbid., p. 208.

4 Ibid., p. 217.

5 L. D. Trotsky, My Life (New York, 1970), p. 441.

6 B. Souvarine, Stalin: A Critical Survey of Bolshevism (New York, 1939), p. 248.

7 R. Hingley, Joseph Stalin: The Man and the Legend (London, 1974), p. 115.

8 A. Ulam, Stalin: The Man and His Era (New York, 1965), p. 184.

9 V. I. Lenin, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii (Moscow, 1967-70, 55 vols. and 3 vol. index, cited hereafter as PSS ; J. V. Stalin, Sochineniia_ (Moscow, 1940-52), 13 vols).

10 Direktivy glavnogo komandovaniia Krasnoi Armii 1919-20 gg. (Moscow, 1969, cited hereafter as DGKKA); Direktivy komandovaniia frontov Krasnoi Armii 1917-1922 gg. (Moscow-,1971-74, 4 vols).

11 Dokumenty o geroicheskoi oborone Tsaritsyna v 1918g. (Moscow,1942); Dokumenty o geroicheskoi oborone Petrograda v 1919 g. (Moscow, 1941).

12 In a few cases, the correspondence refers to messages not in the collections. Whether these are missing from Soviet archives, or deliberately excluded, one can only speculate.

13 For a review of Soviet historiography on the subject, see Albert Seaton, Stalin as Warlord (New York, 1975), pp. 75-79 and chapter 4.

14 Proidennyi put (Moscow, 1965)

15 L'vov-Varshava, 1920 g.: Vzaimédeistva Frontov (Moscow, Leningrad, 1929).