# Did Leon Trotsky actually lead troops in combat? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 20, 2009, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-leon-trotsky-actually-lead-troops-in-combat/493703 "2009-04-20T07:10:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-leon-trotsky-actually-lead-troops-in-combat/493703/1 "2009-04-20T07:10:47Z")
It has always been my understanding that, at least during its early years, the Red Army was led by Leon Trotsky. This is confirmed by Wikipedia. > [@](#): > > The post of commander-in-chief was abolished, and Trotsky gained full control of the Red Army, responsible only to the Communist Party leadership, whose Left Socialist Revolutionary allies had left the government over Brest-Litovsk. With the help of his faithful deputy Ephraim Sklyansky, Trotsky spent the rest of the Civil War transforming the Red Army from a ragtag network of small and fiercely independent detachments into a large and disciplined military machine, through forced conscription, party controlled blocking squads, compulsory obedience and officers chosen by the leadership instead of the rank and file. He defended these positions throughout his life. Did this mean that Trotsky was actually in the front lines of combat during the Russian civil war, with his life on the line, leading troops into battle or otherwise having a position of command in the field? Or did he just “lead” the army from the Kremlin? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-leon-trotsky-actually-lead-troops-in-combat/493703/2 "2009-04-20T07:22:19Z")
He oversaw the defense of Petrograd in 1919, but I don’t think he did other than that. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-leon-trotsky-actually-lead-troops-in-combat/493703/3 "2009-04-20T15:26:46Z")
In “A People’s Tragedy:A History of the Russian Revolution”, Orlando Figes states > [@](#): > > On October 19 [1919] Trotsky was despatched to Petrograd to take charge of its defense. This was one of the few occasions in the civil war–much fewer than claimed by his acolytes–when Trotsky’s presence at the Front helped decide the outcome. At one point he even mounted a horse, rounded up retreating troops and led them back into battle. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-leon-trotsky-actually-lead-troops-in-combat/493703/4 "2009-04-20T18:42:02Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Did this mean that Trotsky was actually in the front lines of combat during the Russian civil war, with his life on the line, leading troops into battle or otherwise having a position of command in the field? Or did he just “lead” the army from the Kremlin? For almost three years, at the height of the Russian Civil War, Trotsky was to be found on an armored train that made a total of 36 journeys along the front lines. He may not have been at the head of decisive battles (though he did on occasion take part, for instance in a night raid from the river on the city of Kazan while it was being held by the White army) but it cannot be argued that he did nothing besides a few desultory appearances. In his autobiography _My Life_, he writes about the experience: > [@](#): > > _I haven’t even the exact figures of the total distance covered by the train during the civil war. One of the notes to my books mentions 36 trips, with a total run of over 105,000 kilometers… This does not include the thousands of kilometers done by automobile from the railway line to the heart of the front line. Since the train always went to the most critical points, the diagram of its journeys gives a fairly exact and comprehensive picture of the relative importance of the different fronts._ This period of Trotsky’s life is well-documented in the five-volume collection [How the Revolution Armed](http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1918/military/index.htm) - speeches, articles, orders, and other records relating to his efforts to build the Red Army in the midst of a war. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-leon-trotsky-actually-lead-troops-in-combat/493703/5 "2009-04-20T19:27:14Z")
Thanks for that info. I ask because I recall reading somewhere that Trotsky was very popular among front-line troops - possibly even moreso than Lenin was - because they considered him a soldier and not merely a politician. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-leon-trotsky-actually-lead-troops-in-combat/493703/6 "2009-04-20T20:53:20Z")
I can back that up for you as well - another quote from _My Life_: > [@](#): > > _The war commissariat of Riazan succeeded in gathering some 15,000… deserters. While passing through Riazan, I decided to take a look at them. Some of our men tried to dissuade me. ‘Something might happen,’ they warned me. But everything went off beautifully. The men were called out of their barracks. ‘Comrade deserters - come to the meeting. Comrade Trotsky has come to speak to you.’ They ran out excited, boisterous, as curious as schoolboys. I had imagined them much worse, and they had imagined me as more terrible. In a few minutes, I was surrounded by a huge crown of unbridled, utterly undisciplined, but not at all hostile men. The ‘comrade deserters’ were looking at me with such curiosity that it seemed as if their eyes would pop out of their heads. I climbed on a table there in the yard, and spoke to them for about an hour and a half. It was a most responsive audience. I tried to raise them in their own eyes; concluding, I asked them to lift their hands in token of their loyalty to the revolution. The new ideas infected them before my very eyes. They were genuinely enthusiastic; they followed me to the automobile, devoured me with their eyes, not fearfully as before but rapturously, and shouted at the tops of their voices. They would hardly let me go. I learned afterwards, with some pride, that one of the best ways to educate them was to remind them: ‘What did you promise Comrade Trotsky?’ Later on, regiments of Riazan deserters fought well at the fronts._ I won’t touch the subject of Trotsky’s popularity in comparison with Lenin but I will say that Trotsky never saw himself as competing against Lenin on those terms; Trotsky was a staunch (but not uncritical) supporter of Lenin and Lenin, in turn, at least once gave Trotsky a blank, signed military order with text to the effect that “Whatever Trotsky writes here has my full support and approval”. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2009, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-leon-trotsky-actually-lead-troops-in-combat/493703/7 "2009-04-20T23:27:06Z")
I would say that Trotsky’s military role was similar to Eisenhower’s in World War II - he was directing military operations more than leading troops into battle.