Imperial Apocalypse: The Great War and the Destruction of the Russian Empire

300 Pages·2014·2.41 MB·English

by  Joshua A. Sanborn

THE GREATER WAR
GeneralEditor ROBERT GERWARTH

Imperial Apocalypse
The Great War and the Destruction
of the Russian Empire
JOSHUA A. SANBORN
1
3
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Table of Contents
Preface vii
ListofMaps xi
SourcesforMaps xi
Introduction:ImperialChallenge 1
1. TheOutbreakofWarandtheTransformationoftheBorderlands 21
2. TheFrontMigrates 65
3. RemobilizingtheMilitary:CombatInnovation,
POWs,andForcedLabor 109
4. RemobilizingSociety:Nurses,Doctors,andSocialControl 143
5. Revolution 171
6. Decolonization 205
Conclusion:ImperialApocalypse 239
WorksCited 263
Index 279

Preface
Ibeganresearchingthisbookmorethanadecadeagowithastudyofeverydaylife
in the war zones of the Eastern Front during World War I in mind. I wanted to
restorethehumanityofthevoicelessmenandwomenwhofigureinmosthistories
of the war only as archetypes of the primitive Russian peasant-soldier or the
sufferingvictimsofmodernwar.Mostofmyinitialarchivalforayswerededicated
totheexcavationoftheirstoriesthroughpolicereports,censoredletters,telegrams
fromarmyofficers,andthememoiranddiaryliterature.Itwasonlylater,asIbegan
writingarticlesbasedonmyresearch,thatIsawmoreclearlythetrajectoryofevents
Iwasdescribing.Adifferentsortofhistorynowemerged,onethatlinkedmilitary
violence, state failure, social collapse, and the end of empire together in an
overlapping but causal chain. This process bore such a striking resemblance to
theworld-historicalprocessoftwentieth-centurydecolonizationthatIreframedmy
project to suggest that Russia’s apocalyptic experiences during the Great War and
theCivilWarrepresentedanearlyphaseofadramaticbutpainfulglobalstory.The
phenomenon of decolonization places the Great War even more centrally in the
narrative of twentieth-century world history. This book thus has two aims: to
describethelivesofawidevarietyofactorsontheRussianFrontandtoanalyzethe
waytheRussianEmpiredecolonized.
Thesetwoaimsstructuredmostofmyauthorialchoices.Ilingerondescriptions
of the lives of soldiers and nurses, recount in some detail how Osip and Mariana
losttheircows,uncoverthedesperateandsordidendeavorsofEl’zaVimbanearthe
ApolloTheaterinRiga,andtellofDoctorMirotvortsev’sfrantictravelsthroughthe
warzonenotjustbecauseoftheintrinsicinterestofthesesmall-borehistories,but
because these unknown stories help to flesh out the story of the war as a whole.
English-speaking readers have long been able to grasp the humanity of those
fighting on the Western Front. I hope this book introduces them to others who
livedthroughthoseawfulyearsontheothersideofthecontinent.Similarly,Icame
to share the view of many military historians that accounts of war that ignore
combatleaveoutsomethingessential.Asaresult,thereisagooddealmoreonthe
battlesofthewarthanIhadenvisionedatthestartoftheprocess.Atthesametime,
thedesiretofollowtheunravelingthreadofempireinEasternEuropedetermined
choices as well. The story of the Balkan Wars took on added importance as an
introductiontotheeventsoftheGreatWar,andthesadtaleofthe RussianCivil
War provided a concluding bookend. Events in Ukraine in the summer of 1917
seemedmuchmoreimportantasIfinishedthisbookthantheydidwhenIbegan.It
turned out that the stories of life in front-line zones and of the collapse of the
empire were much the same story, viewed from different angles. They belong
togetherinthesamestudy.
Finally,Iwrotethisbookformultipleaudiences.Ihavetriedalwaystokeepin
mindnon-specialistreadersinterestedinenlargingtheirknowledgeabouttheGreat
viii Preface
War or Russian history. I do not expect readers to be scholars either of this time
periodorofthehistoryofRussiaandEasternEurope.Forthesamereasons,Itrust
thatstudentswillfindthistextengagingandaccessible.Thisaccessibilitydoesnot
have to come at the expense of scholarly rigor. While there are some tensions
involved, I hope that specialists will find both that I have incorporated the latest
researchintomyargumentandthatIhavenewcontributionsofmyowntomake,
bothfactuallyandanalytically.Iparticularlyhopethatnon-Russianisthistoriansof
theGreatWarfindthisworkusefulandstimulating.Ifgeneralreadersprofitfrom
the discussions of state failure and decolonization, and specialists can forgive the
abbreviatedtreatmentofsomeissuesandtheabsenceofothers,thenIwillconsider
thisbookasuccess.
Allbooksonthistopicmustdealwiththetroublesomeissuesofdatesandnames.
TheJuliancalendarusedbyRussiapriorto14February1918laggedthirteendays
behind the Gregorian calendar used on the rest of the continent. To assist those
whowishtofixRussianeventsonthebroaderEuropeantimelineandtominimize
confusion, I give both dates each time I use a date in the text. In the footnotes,
however, I retain whatever date is used in the documents themselves. Names are
trickier.Forlocations,Imostlyusetheplacenamesusedtoday,soIrefertoL’viv
ratherthanL’vov,Lwów,orLemberg.Iffornootherreason,thiswillhelpreaders
who may want to find these locations on Google Maps. I do make exceptions for
namesfamiliarinEnglish, suchasMoscow,Warsaw,Kiev,andtheVistulaRiver.
Most personal names are rendered in the standard Library of Congress transliter-
ationsfromRussian,evenifthenameisplainlyofsomeotherethnicorigin,soitis
General Ianushkevich rather than General Januszkewicz. Exceptions are made in
footnotes, where I use whatever spellings are in the documents themselves, trans-
literatingdirectlyfromtheRussianwherenecessary.
Ihavebenefittedfromthewisdomofsomanypeopleoversuchalongperiodof
timethatIknowIcannotacknowledgethemallhere.Letmegivespecialthanksto
the students involved in Lafayette College’s wonderful EXCEL program, which
allowsundergraduatestheopportunitytoworkasresearchassistantsforprofessors
atthecollege.Theseyoungwomenandmenworkedwithmeinavarietyofways
for time periods ranging from a couple of months to a couple of years: Maria
Azimova,CarlaBenedek,MartinChojnacki,IvanDimitrov,DanielFaulkenberry,
Diana Galperin, Brian Geraghty, Milos Jovanovic, John Raymond, Christine
Shanahan, Hannah Smock, Zsuzana Vojtekova, Lori Weaver, and Sandamali
Wijeratne.IalsobenefittedgreatlyfromVasiliiKashirin’sassistanceovertheperiod
ofseveralyears.Otherscholarshavebeenparticularlyhelpful.AndrewJancoalerted
me to the possibility that I might find useful manuscripts at the Biblioteka-fond
“Russkoe Zarubezh’e,” and Brigid O’Keeffe and Eric Lohr very kindly and
thoughtfully read a full draft of the final manuscript. I will not list the many
otherspecialistsontheGreatWarwhohaveinfluencedmythinkingandhaveread
parts of this work. So many have shaped this book that there would scarcely be
anyonelefttoreviewitifIweretomentionthemall.
It is a challenge to conduct a major research project while not at a research
university,butLafayetteCollegehasbeenverysupportivethroughouttheprocess.
Preface ix
In addition to funding the EXCEL scholars mentioned, the Academic Research
CommitteeprovidedseveralgrantstoconductresearchinMoscow,Kiev,Riga,St.
Petersburg,WashingtonDC,andStanford,California.KarenHaduckandtherest
oftheinterlibraryloanstaffatSkillmanLibraryworkedveryhardtofulfillmymany
challenging requests. John Clark, another outstanding librarian, refashioned the
mapsatthelastmoment,forwhichIamtremendouslygrateful.Thisbookwould
not have been possible in this form without their diligence and professional
excellence. Several former and present Lafayette colleagues have shaped my views
ofempireorhaveotherwisegiventhoughtfulfeedbackonmywork:PaulBarclay,
Bill Bissell, Emily Musil Church, Neil Englehart, Rebekah Pite, Deborah Rosen,
and Andrea Smith have been particularly important in this regard. I also received
extensiveandgeneroussupportfromexternalgrantsandfellowships.Workonthis
project began in earnest when I was a visiting fellow at the Shelby Cullom Davis
CenterforHistoricalStudiesatPrinceton.FurtherfellowshipsfromtheAmerican
Council of Learned Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities
allowedmetospendextendedperiodsabroadforresearch.
Finally, I deeply thank Robert Gerwarth for inviting me to submit a book
proposal for inclusion in this series, and Christopher Wheeler, Robert Faber, and
CathrynSteelefortheirassistanceandjudgmentatOUP.Last,butnotleast,Igive
my love and thanks to my wife Kim and my children Clayton and Grace. It is a
clichétoremarkthatthebooktookmeawayfromthemphysicallyandmentallyat
varioustimesovertheyears.Itisalsotrue.
Ihavemadeuseofselectionsfromseveralpreviousarticleswhencomposingthis
text.Ithankthepublisherslistedbelowforpermissiontoreusethemhere.
(cid:1) Joshua Sanborn, “Unsettling the Empire: Violent Migrations and Social
Disaster in Russia during World War I,” Journal of Modern History 77, no.
2(June2005):290–324,#2005,reprintedwithpermissionoftheUniver-
sityofChicago.
(cid:1) Joshua Sanborn, “The Genesis of Russian Warlordism: Violence and Gov-
ernance during the First World War and the Civil War,” Contemporary
European History 19, no. 3 (August 2010): 202–207, # 2010, reprinted
withpermissionofCambridgeUniversityPress.
(cid:1) Joshua Sanborn, “Military Occupation and Social Unrest: Daily Life in
RussianPolandattheStartofWorldWarI,”inWritingtheStalinEra:Sheila
Fitzpatrick and Soviet Historiography, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, reproduced
with permission of Palgrave Macmillan. The full published version of this
publication is available from: http://us.macmillan.com/writingthestalinera/
GolfoAlexopoulos and <http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/doifinder/10.
1057/9780230116429>.