February 25, 1918 – Russian Army Demobilized, Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army Formed
Pictured – Are you among the volunteers?
Was the Bolshevik revolution to be stillborn? On February 23, Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin convinced the Bolshevik Central Committee to accept peace with Germany. The terms were devastating: Russia lost all claims to the Baltic, Ukraine, and Finland, while the Germans would keep the land they had occupied since breaking the armistice. Germany also demanded the Russian Army be demobilized. The Bolsheviks only agreed to peace after a stormy session where Lenin threatened to resign if no conclusion was reached.
The peace was to be signed in March, but already its effects were clear. It put Petrograd almost in German hands; the Bolsheviks would have to leave for Moscow. Moreover, even if peace was made with the Germans, the soviet regime could obviously not be left defenseless in the face of its many enemies. With the Russian army gone now both officially and quite literally, scattered in every direction by the Central Powers’ invasion, a new army had to be formed.
That week the Bolsheviks began calling for volunteers for a new revolutionary army. 60,000 workers in Petrograd signed up to be a part of the Workers’ and Peasents’ Red Army. Trotsky appealed to former imperial officers to sign up as well. Over 8,000 did. Although few Russian officers sympathized with the October Revolution, most of them had been left unemployed, while they also desired to continue fighting against the Germans. Despite these initial recruiting successes, morale remained low. Thousands of men deserted quickly, leaving the Red Army with a strength of only 150,000 men by March. Worse, organization was hap-hazard. Many units elected their own officers, and the Bolsheviks had abolished the military’s rank structure. In battle against experienced German troops the nascent Red Army stood no chance.