What is more important to us here is the character of the Red Army, The Red Army is an army like every other. It can exist and meet with success only by maintaining the strictest war and military morale: discipline, obedience. But that these qualities should be especially suitable to the development of men into socialists and communists, is something that no man, if he wants to be honest, can truthfully state. For the maintenance and the efficiency of an army those slave characteristics are of incalculable worth, as they are an integral part of an army. Without using much circumlocution we can make the statement that militarism is the mortal enemy of the freedom of the individual and thus also the greatest enemy of socialist development. Not only is the statement true that "as long as we have armies, so long will there be war," but also the statement that "as long as there is an army, no socialist development can prosper."
Going out from these idealistic considerations the true socialist and champion of freedom must also be an anti-militarist. But from historic considerations one may take a different position and consider the Red Ar\my as necessary.
If Trotsky from an historical standpoint seeks, as a Marxian, to establish the necessity of the Red Army through proofs and arguments, it would, of course, be easy for a representative of the opposite standpoint, if he only has the ability and the skill, to present as many or, perhaps, still more proofs for an opposite standpoint. But this would only be a theoretical, speculative discussion, such as we find in Trotzky's anti-Kautsky book "Terrorism and Communism."
Instead of carrying on all this discussion I might point to the fact that in Russia itself not all revolutionaries agree with Trotzky's viewpoint. In the question of defending the revolution the bolsheviks take the standpoint that without the Red Army the revolution would have been vanquished by the counter-revolution, and that, therefore, the Red Army, as a savior of the revolution, is one of the first revolutionary factors. If it had not been for the Red Army, some reactionary general or a new czar would now be ruling in Russia, that is, in short, the standpoint of the bolsheviks.
The maximalists, a large part of the syndicalists, the anarchists and a part of the left social-revolutionaries take an opposite standpoint. Against the first assertion they put another one, namely, that it is not the Red Army which has saved the revolution and beaten down the counter-revolution, but the revolutionary workers and peasants would have defended the revolution even without the Red Army.
As examples they mention: When general Korniloff marched against Moscow, it was not the Red Army by which he was conquered. At that time there was not yet a Red Army. It was other parts of the same czarist army with him which turned and foughl him and proved to be the strongest. For the workers and peasants who fought in the czarist army, but against Korniloff, this Korniloff was a counter-revolutionary, who wanted to force them to continue the war. For that reason it was necessary to fight Korniloff if peace was to come. But this does not speak for the Red Army, which then did not exist, it speaks solely for the urge of liberty among the people.
According to the viewpoint of the mentioned tendencies the bolsheviks make the conscious mistake that they consider the R< Army equal to an armed uprising of the people.
Further, the syndicalists and the related tendencies point t<. the fact that it was not the Red Army that drove the Germans and the Austrians out of Ukraine, but the peasants themselves, the partisans, the leaders, the insurgents. By guerilla warfare in small partisan groups they chased the Germans away or blocked them in such a manner that finally they were compellec to retreat from the country.