Trotsky's Military Writings

In his writings, Trotsky notably expressed his view that military doctrine was an art rather than a empirical science. He also opposed attempts among Soviet figures during this period to transfer pre-conceived, Marxist concepts to the theatre of war. Rather, he instead emphasised a reliance on experiential experience to develop military methods of adaptation and proficiency.

Writing background

Trotsky had been appointed as the Commissar of War, leader of the Supreme Military Council and eventually the Revolutionary Military Committee without any previous, formal military training. He had been most influenced by the works of Prussian general Carl Von Clausewitz in his approach towards military affairs. Contemporary Bolshevik, Karl Radek, relates that Trotsky had read only a few books on military affairs such as Jean Jaurès L'Armée Nouvelle, the History of War by Friedrich Wilhelm Schulz and Franz Mehring's writings on Frederick the Great. However, his biographer, Isaac Deutscher, believed Radek undervalued Trotsky's level of theoretical comprehension and cited his previous studies on the Balkan wars and the first years of the World War I.

Trotsky had viewed war as a historical expression of the class struggle and did not negate the possibility that under specific circumstances that a civil war would ensue after a revolutionary insurrection as seen during the English Civil War and French Civil War.

Originally, he had envisioned that the Red Army would be founded on the principle of a people's militia but eventually adhered to the establishment of a professional standing army due to the immediate pressures of the Civil War. Trotsky believed the democratisation of the army would emerge in the future with the modernization of Russia's socio-economic structure in which mass education, high cultural standards and collective consciousness had manifested.

In the context of the Civil War, Trotsky prioritised a professional army based on rules of hierarchy and command. He favoured the influx of military specialists from the Tsarist era and oversaw the precedence of an appointments system over the election of commanders. Simultaneously, Trotsky constructed a political commissar system in the army in line with his initiatives for military reorganisation. The social structure of the Red Army was shaped by an collectivist ethos which distinguished it from traditional armies of the past as officers were increasingly drawn from peasants and workers in pursuit of egalitarian principles. He would introduce proposals through his "Theses" to the eighth party congress in March 1919 which were adopted and endorsed in the ninth party congress but generated significant levels of criticisms from figures such as General Alexander Svechin.

Trotsky had formulated his writings whilst travelling in his mobile, armoured train between conflict fronts and delivered a number of lectures at the Scientific Military Society and to military delegates at the Communist Party. In the latter speech, he elaborated his views in relation to the historical experiences of the Civil War, transferability of their military approach to other worker's movement and compatibility of a military doctrine with class analysis.