Towards a regular army

The decision to work towards a mass centralized ‘regular’ and professionally trained army began to take shape in the days immediately after the signing of the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty. New principles were not, however, adopted all at once. It was a slow and gradual process lasting until December 1918 at least. Over this period, almost every new decree issued by Soviet power on military matters chipped away at the organizational principles that had still prevailed at the beginning of the year. The apparent reluctance with which the new course was embarked upon was partly a result of unavoidable conditions: recruiting, for example, proceeded with difficulty and this was a symptom of the exhaustion of the population and its potential discontent. There were also various political factors that counselled circumspection. A notable resistance could immediately be felt within the Bolshevik party itself. Moreover, until late autumn 1918 Soviet leaders must have been uncertain whether their main armed adversary would be internal counter-revolution or German occupation. Nor was it clear what forces the enemy would be in a position to field. There was therefore a preference for consolidating each newly adopted measure rather than attempting to set up a whole new scheme from scratch.

Lenin's exhortation to the 7th Party Congress, on 7 March 1918, to ‘learn the art of war properly’, was probably the first significant indication that a change of course was in the air. The task of organizing the defence of the country had become top priority since it had been observed that well-armed and disciplined foreign armies had been able to impose on the Soviet Republic the extremely hard terms of the peace treaty.