The Commissar by Tony Roberts

Author:Tony Roberts [Roberts, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781513646985
Published: 2019-03-20T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

It had taken time to form the new recruits into an organized force. New officers had come in along with the recruits, some of these officers had been promoted from the existing ranks, but many more had come down from Moscow or Petrograd, and these were the ones full of political fervor.

They were loosely grouped into the newly-formed Army Group of Kursk Direction – a mouthful if ever there was one – under the newly-appointed People’s Commissar for War, Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko. He formed two divisions to take on the Ukraine in the coming war. Everyone knew that this was a resumption of the war that had ended with the Red withdrawal from the Ukraine who had German help, but now the Germans had been defeated in the Great War and were withdrawing.

With the defeat of Germany, the Bolshevik government declared that the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was null and void and that it was meaningless, and they massed troops on the border. Kursk was the headquarters for the Front and Casca found himself grouped in what was called the 2nd Insurgent Division. Their task was to advance on and take Kharkov while the 1st Insurgent Division would head for Kiev.

Casca’s task was to organize two companies of fresh-faced Russians and Ukrainian Bolsheviks into a fighting force. He was told in no uncertain terms that they would be ready in three weeks.

Casca sighed. Typical politically-motivated and minded people; they had no idea of any practicalities and insisted that their will be made real, even if it wasn’t possible. Then they’d blame the poor bastards they had put in positions of responsibility for the failure of achieving the impossible. Stupid fuckers, Casca grumbled to himself.

They had a large field outside the city where the army was gathering; row upon row of tents stood there, but in the gathering winter these would provide little protection against the wind or sub-zero temperatures.

Trees were chopped down in swathes, to provide both temporary shelter in the form of rudimentary huts, with earth packed on the roof for insultation, and also to be used as firewood.

Casca lined up the two hundred men under his care, watching as they shuffled into a chilled line, their breath clouding the air before them. All had thick greatcoats and were muffled up to the eyeballs. Thick fur hats or cloth caps with the flaps down over the ears completed the covering, all with the ubiquitous red star sewn onto them.

These were little different to many of the recruits he’d seen over the years. They looked perished. “Comrades,” Casca said loudly and clearly, his voice carrying to all in the cold, crisp air of December. “The struggle that we have been experiencing these past few years is about to enter a new phase. Gone now are the Germans. We do not need to concern ourselves with them anymore. Our enemies now are the Ukrainian Hetmanate, who are preventing us from claiming the Ukraine for the revolution.”

He looked along the rows of eyes.

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