Felix Dzerzhinsky, the Polrevkom and the Tactics of Political War

Abstract

Some authors who have dealt with the Soviet–Polish War primarily from the military point of view have been struck by the Soviet regime’s inability or unwillingness to reinforce the Western front armies. As one Soviet general later wrote, by August the ′ranks of the red troops were greatly thinned, regiments approximated battalions and even companies in their size. John Erickson, commenting on the attempt by Glavkom to transfer

‘In some two hours we will start out from Belostock to Warsaw. Felix is so preoccupied that he cannot afford a minute to write a letter. ... all of us feel in excellent health, as befits a revolutionary government of Poland. In about two days, perhaps, we will already be in Warsaw, where, according to rumours which reach us, the workers are striving to see that the city will be given to us without battle.’

— Felix Kohn ¹

(15 August)

‘We returned to Belostock from the outskirts of Warsaw. Radek is with Smilga and the XVI Army ... we thought that yesterday we would be in Warsaw, but a temporary postponement has occurred, I think. Strange feelings were growing inside of me upon nearing Warsaw ... the fear that Warsaw is now no longer the same as earlier, and that, perhaps, it will greet us not as we desire. Our Warsaw, terrorized and ready to surrender, is crying, but we do not hear its clear voice ... we are in a crisis; the struggle in Russia is becoming international — the fate of the world is being decided.’

— Dzerzhinsky²

(17 August)