It was a singularly inept command, not only because it was unnecessarily provocative but because Trotsky had no means of enforcing it: the Czech Legion was far and away the strongest military force in Siberia. At the time, it was widely believed that Trotsky acted under German pressure, but it has been established since that the Germans bore no responsibility for these May orders.67 It was Trotsky’s very un-Bolshevik disregard of the “correlation of forces” that sparked the Czechoslovak rebellion.
The Czechoslovaks on May 22 rejected Trotsky’s order to disarm:
The Congress of the Czechoslovak Revolutionary Army, assembled at Cheliabinsk, declares … its feelings of sympathy with the Russian revolutionary people in their difficult struggle for the consolidation of the Revolution. However, the Congress, convinced that the Soviet Government is powerless to guarantee our troops free and safe passage to Vladivostok, has unanimously decided not to surrender its arms until it receives assurance that the Corps will be allowed to depart and receive protection from counterrevolutionary trains.68
In communicating this decision to Moscow, the Czechoslovak Congress said that it had “unanimously decided not to surrender arms before reaching Vladivostok, considering them a guarantee of safe travel.” It expressed the hope that no attempts would be made to impede the departing Czechoslovak troops, since “every conflict would only prejudice the position of the local soviet organs in Siberia.”69 The Allied instructions for units of the legion to be rerouted to Murmansk and Archangel were simply ignored.
When Trotsky’s instructions became known, 14,000 Czechoslovaks had already reached Vladivostok, but 20,500 were still strung out along the length of the Trans-Siberian and railroads in central Russia.* Convinced that the Bolsheviks intended to turn them over to the Germans and threatened by the local soviets, they seized control of the Trans-Siberian. But even while so doing, they reaffirmed that they would have no dealings with anyone fighting the Soviet Government.70
86. General Gajda, Commander of the Czech Legion.
Once the Czechoslovak troops took over the railroads Bolshevik authority in the cities along them crumbled; and as soon as that happened, the Russian rivals of the Bolsheviks moved in to fill the vacuum. On May 25, the Czechoslovaks occupied the railroad junctions at Mariinsk and Novonikolaevsk, which had the effect of cutting Moscow off from rail and telegraph communications with much of Siberia. Two days later, they took over Cheliabinsk. On May 28 they seized Penza, on June 4 Tomsk, on June 7 Omsk, and on June 8 Samara, the latter of which was defended by the Latvians. As their military operations expanded, the Czechoslovaks centralized the command, choosing as their chief the self-styled “General” Rudolf Gajda, an ambitious adventurer, whose considerable military talents were not matched by political sense. His men had unbounded confidence in him.†
Although not directed against it, the Czechoslovak rebellion presented the Bolshevik Government with its first serious military challenge since the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. Despite months of talk, the Red Army existed largely on paper. Bolshevik effectives in Siberia consisted of a few thousand “Red Guards” and a like number of pro-Communist German, Austrian, and Hungarian POWs. This motley force, without central command, was no match for the Czechoslovaks. Desperate, the Soviet Government asked Berlin at the end of June for permission to arm German prisoners of war in Russia for use against them.71
