Google Search

Web    Site

 Semjon Budjonny (Moscow News)                                                                  

The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused the fragmentation of the old Romanov Empire, and although peace with Germany was attained in 1918, internal strife and counter-revolution threatened to undermine the Bolshevik party’s grasp on the reins of power. On fifteen fronts Soviet Russia was fighting a life or death struggle with the ‘White’ armies of Denikin, Kolchak, Yudenich, with the British in Archangel, Murmansk and the Caucasus, the French in Odessa, and the Americans and Japanese in Vladivostok.[i]

With Germany’s surrender in 1918, and their withdrawal from their enclave in Ober-Ost the new Polish Republic under the charismatic leadership of Józef Pilsudski sort to re-establish control over what it saw as lands taken away when the Kingdom of Poland had been dismantled in 1795. For the Poles the Borders were, ‘…the outpost of Christendom, warring with the Turks and the Tartars in defence of the Faith, and with the Muscovites for a sway of the steppes.’[ii] As for the Bolsheviks they saw the Borders as a gateway into Europe through which their revolutionary dogma could be unleashed on the war-weary capitalist nations of the west.

The Polish-Soviet War of 1920 saw both sides in a state of chaos and uncertainty. As General Fuller states, ‘Both were improvised, chaotically equipped and suffered from over- rapid growth…Though manpower was sufficient, Poland possessed no arsenals and lacked munitions…(The Russian Army) Is a horde, and its strength is that of a horde.’[iii]

Members of the Konarmiya, 1920 (see note in Bibliography section)

Those who had to face the Soviet First Cavalry Army (the Konarmiya) quickly learnt just what this “horde” was capable of, and I quote here at length from Norman Davis’s account of this formidable organisation.

The First Cavalry Army (the Konarmiya) was the most successful innovation of the Civil War. Formed in November 1919, it was the logical outcome of warfare with the White armies, in which the Reds had proved themselves equal to everything except the Cossack cavalry. By massing all available sabres into one formation, it enjoyed not only the famous Cossack mobility and esprit de corps but also overwhelming weight and numbers at any point where it was applied. It waged a form of Tartar blitzkrieg. It welcomed all who could ride and obey, who were ready to saddle and march to any point in the continent where the Revolution was in danger. It was the ultimate antithesis of the original localized, class conscious, footslogging Red Guards of 1918.

Semyon Mikhaylovich Budyonny typified the best of the men he served. He was a man who thrived on hard times through his skill as a soldier and by force of personality. The son of a poor farmer in Rostov province, he joined the 43^rd Cossack Regiment in 1903 and served in Manchuria before graduating from the Petersburg Riding School. In the summer of 1917, chairman of the soviet of his mutinous regiment, he found himself at Minsk, where Frunze and Myasnikov were organizing resistance to Kornilov. From there he made his way as a Red cavalry commander. He first attracted notice at Tsaritsyn in December 1918, when his daring and enterprise recommended him to Voroshilov. He was the obvious choice to lead the ‘Konarmiya’. Very tall, very athletic, he was a breathtaking horseman, who led from the front. His fine Asiatic features, his superb black moustache, curled and groomed like the main of a showhorse, his steady almond eyes revealed the perfect man of action-a prime animal, a magnificent, semi-literate son of the steppes. 25 April 1920, the day the Kiev campaign was launched, was his fortieth birthday.

The troopers of the Konarmiya had little in common with Bolshevik politics, except that they were fighting on the same side. Most of them were former Cossacks, partisans, and bandits, won over in the course of the Red Army’s victories. Yet they understood Revolution perfectly. They approached the thoughts of Lenin and the concepts of Marxism more with awe than with understanding. There were one or two literates, like Isaak Babel* in the 1^st Brigade of the 6^th Division, or Zhukov, the future Marshal. But by and large they were more distinguished in heroics than in dialectics. In the eyes of the Poles, they were the reincarnation of the hordes of Genghis Khan.[iv]

After crushing the ‘White’ Russian forces under Denikin in the Caucasus, the Konarmiya had been ordered to the Polish front in April 1920. Within two weeks it was crossing the River Don into Rostov where Budyonny quelled a riot in the ranks due to faction of the Konarmiya whose former leader, Dumenko, had just been liberated from prison. Order was restored and, after sacking Rostov the Konarmiya split into columns to continue its march:

Gorodovikov’s 4^th Division, Timoshenko’s 6^th, Morozov’s 11^th, and Parkomenko’s 14^th. Their four armoured trains, three air squadrons, and other support services were dispatched by rail through central Russia. They themselves went overland. Leaving Rostov on 23 April they gave themselves a fortnight to reach the (River) Dnieper. They travelled in column, resting and riding in turns. They pulled the sick and tired behind them in carts, along with the artillery. They shot the horses lamed by the pace at the rate of a dozen a day. In the daytime the front ranks carried letter-boards on their backs to teach the ranks behind to read…At the end of April, with news of the Polish offensive, they received orders to quicken their pace. They were in Makhon country, where for months past a murderous war for the life and soul of the peasantry had been in progress Cheka squads were touring the villages, hanging partisans and installing soviets. Makhano was following them, shooting communists and ambushing Red Army forage parties. On 28 April the 14^th Division stormed Gulaypolye, ‘Markhanograd’ itself, routing a force of some 2,000 partisans. The Konarmiya rode on regardless, like a ship of the line driving through a fleet of fishing smacks.[v]

The subsequent campaign against the Poles was to prove how adaptable the Konarmiya could be when properly led. Knowing that to attack entrenched positions with mounted troops was nothing short of glorified suicide, Budyonny dismounted part of his force and approached the enemy in open formation, with massive artillery support, while trained groups took-out any fortified strongpoints. The remaining mounted units, because of the vastness of the terrain to be held, could normally find an open flank and then role-up the enemy line.[vi]

What might have occurred had the Soviet leadership been united in its military decision making, as well as in its overall policy concerning the war as a whole, is made glaringly obvious when one reads Pilsudski’s writings. The Polish leader was well aware of the power of the Konarmiya, as well as the amazing abilities and qualities of the Russian General Mikail Tukhachevski, who commanded the Russian Army of the West. By a combination of muddle-minded decisions, petty jealousies, and power crazed over rulings, men like Stalin, Trotsky, Kamenev, and even Lenin himself, managed to throw away all that had been gained at the very gates of Warsaw. What does remain remarkable is the fact that, even allowing for the massive increase in firepower on the battlefield, the horse soldier could still pose a threat, both psychological and real to the armies of the twentieth century. Old Bedford Forrest would have been happy to know that his way of fighting was still being used to good effect by those who had understood and imbibed his way of waging war.

 

Graham J. Morris  
June 2004

 

---