Having lost the discussion at long distance from the Politburo, Stalin accepted the decision. Indeed he developed an eagerness to prove himself in the campaign. He had been spending much time in previous months on yet another dispute about his posting and its responsibilities. In November 1919 he had made a characteristic attempt to intimidate Lenin and the Politburo by threatening to resign.15 His explanation was more colourful than usuaclass="underline" ‘Without this, my work on the Southern Front will become pointless and unnecessary, which gives me the right or rather the duty to move away anywhere — to the Devil even — rather than stay on the Southern Front.’16 The Politburo, already habituated to his tantrums, rejected his ultimatum.17 In January 1920 the Southern Front was re-formed as the South-Western Front with the task of defending Ukraine against both the Poles and Wrangel’s Crimean forces. But Stalin was transferred in February to the Caucasian Front. He did not like this;18 he wanted to be active where the fortunes of the Revolution were crucially threatened: he resented being regarded as the man from the Caucasus whose expertise was limited to Caucasian affairs. On 26 May Stalin’s tenacity was rewarded when he was assigned to the South-Western Front, where battles with the Poles were anticipated.
On 12 July Lenin sent a message to him in Kharkov:19
I request Stalin 1) to accelerate arrangements for a furious intensification of the offensive; 2) to communicate to me his (Stalin’s) opinion. I personally think that [Curzon’s proposal] is pure skulduggery with the idea of annexing Crimea.
Previously sceptical about the Polish campaign, Stalin telegraphed his euphoric agreement:20
The Polish armies are completely collapsing, the Poles have lost their communications and administration and Polish orders, instead of arriving at their address, are falling ever more frequently into our hands; in short, the Poles are experiencing a collapse from which they will not soon recover.
Stalin scoffed at Lord Curzon’s proposal of a truce followed by peace talks in London:21
I think that imperialism has never been so weak as now at a time of Poland’s defeat and we have never been as strong as now. Therefore the more firmly we conduct ourselves, the better it will be both for us and for international revolution. Send on the Politburo’s decision.
Lenin and Stalin, advocates of caution at Brest-Litovsk in 1918, had become the warmongers of the Bolshevik leadership.
In Stalin’s opinion it was imperative ‘to seize the maximum we can’ before any cease-fire might occur. He aimed to take Lwów.22 This was a personal preference: the fall of Lwów would not only benefit the Soviet cause but also bring him kudos as the city’s conqueror. The trouble was that, as Stalin had warned, Wrangel’s forces remained a serious threat. Stalin typically called for a policy of executing White officer POWs to a man.23 Learning that things were not going well for the Red Army in the Crimea,24 he put this failure down to the cowardice of the Soviet Commander-in-Chief Sergei Kamenev. His mind was focused on glory in Poland as he and his command staff moved westward.25
Stalin and Lenin also undertook preliminary planning for the kind of Europe they expected to organise when socialist seizures of power took place. Their grandiose visions take the breath away. Before the Second Comintern Congress, Lenin urged the need for a general federation including Germany, and he made clear that he wanted the economy of such a federation to be ‘administered from a single organ’. Stalin rejected this as impracticaclass="underline" 26
If you think you’d ever get Germany to enter a federation with the same rights as Ukraine, you are mistaken. If you think that even Poland, which has been constituted as a bourgeois state with all its attributes, would enter the Union with the same rights as Ukraine you are mistaken.
Lenin was angry. The implication of Stalin’s comment was that considerations of national pride would impel Russia and Germany to remain separate states for the foreseeable future. Lenin sent him a ‘threatening letter’ which charged him with chauvinism.27 It was Lenin’s objective to set up a Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia. His vision of ‘European socialist revolution’ was unchanged since 1917. But Stalin held his ground. The Politburo had to acknowledge the realities of nationhood if the spread of socialism in Europe was to be a success.
These discussions were hypothetical since the Red Army had not yet reached Poland, far less set up a revolutionary government in Warsaw. Stalin himself had caused one of the operational snags. This occurred when he ordered his military and political subordinates to regard Lwów as their priority. He failed to mention that such a command would disrupt the general strategic plan approved by Trotski and Tukhachevski on campaign and by Lenin in Moscow. Stalin was ignoring the precedence given by these others to the capture of Warsaw; instead he diverted the armed forces of the South-Western Front away from a line of convergence with those of the Western Front.
The battle for Warsaw took place across four sectors. Lasting from 12 to 25 August, it settled the outcome of the war.28 Tukhachevski’s original plan had been to attack even sooner, before the Poles had time to regroup for defence of their capital. His losses had been substantial. Supplies and reinforcements were unlikely to be forthcoming. The exhausted Red Army, harassed by the Polish inhabitants, had to win a very quick victory or else lose everything.29 Piłsudski grabbed his chance. In successive sectors he repulsed the Red advance. Sergei Kamenev, the Supreme Commander, had planned to move forward on two fronts: the Western under Tukhachevski and Smilga and the South-Western under Yegorov and Stalin. Kamenev failed to co-ordinate them. The South-Western Front was still charged with protecting the Soviet state against Wrangel from the Crimea: it was therefore aimed in two different directions at once. On 22 July, furthermore, Yegorov had pointed his line of march towards Lublin and Lwów and daily increased the gap between himself and Tukhachevski. This was a recipe for confusion and dispute, and Stalin was never one to hold back from aggravating a difficult situation.
The Red Army had urgent need of a revised strategic plan. Such a plan could be devised only at the highest political level. On 2 August the Politburo resolved to split the South-Western Front into two and give half its forces to the Western Front and the other half to a reformed Southern Front tasked with defending Ukraine against Wrangel.30 Yet no action followed until 14 August, when Sergei Kamenev ordered the transfer of forces from the South-Western Front with immediate effect.31
The impracticality of Kamenev’s injunction infuriated Stalin. Yegorov and Stalin were already engaged in their attack on Lwów before the start of the battle of Warsaw. Although the distance between Warsaw and Lwów as the crow flies is two hundred miles, the geography of the region made quick movements of troops impossible. It was swampy and roadless. The Polish inhabitants were almost universally hostile to the Reds, who were regarded as yet another Russian invading force. Stalin, who was always quick to criticise the professional military men inherited from the Imperial Army, told Kamenev in no uncertain terms: ‘Your order pointlessly frustrates the operations of the South-Western Front, which had already started its advance.’32 When Yegorov dutifully complied with Kamenev’s order, Stalin refused to counter-sign the latest dispositions and left the task to his deputy R. Berzins.33 But the Cavalry Army of Stalin’s associate Semën Budënny was heavily involved in fighting in the vicinity and it was not until 20 August that the attack on Lwów was abandoned. By then the battle of Warsaw was nearing its catastrophic conclusion for Tukhachevski and the Western Front.