The last thing the Bolsheviks wanted was a large standing army draining people and resources from socialist reconstruction, but needed to be prepared for any imperialist assault. As part of the creation of the Red Army came General Military Training of the adult population to create a militia system that could mobilize and feed into the Army as need arose. Victory in the Civil War required total mobilization–the Red Army growing to 5 1/2 million–however, the G.M.T. established itself under fire, training and organizing the rear.

‘Three Years of General Military Training’ by G. Sax from Soviet Russia (New York). Vol. 4 No. 8. February 19, 1921.

THE November Revolution has, in Soviet Russia, accomplished the ideas of the great European teachers of the working class, Marx and Engels, that the armed working class would be able to organize the revolution and to overcome the bourgeoisie. The general military training of the workers is the concrete expression of this idea in Soviet Russia. It is very difficult to organize the Russia of the workers into an “armed people”, but the organization which has already been created represents an immense power, counting millions of people and is of the greatest historical interest and significance.

The German offensive along the Russian frontier, after it the Brest-Litovsk negotiations, compelled the Petrograd Workers to take up military training in a feverish haste. And here a short term of training was applied—96 hours—which afterwards became exemplary. A part of the workmen, the most qualified, wait through a seven days’ term of training for artillery service, being so occupied for six hours each day. Thus, the first foundation of the general military training was laid for the gigantic structure of the armed people, which is to assume shape in the form of a people’s militia.

The “Chief Management of General Military Training” having been formed, strenuous work was started to help the front. Regiments were formed of workingmen, brigades and detachments, which at the demand of the field staff, were regularly sent to the front. The organization of the general military training met with great obstacles of a material and moral order. The lack of technical means, of horses, munitions, wagons, supplies, extremely hindered the work, delaying the formation of the G.M.T. (General Military Training) regiment for months. But the organizers of the G.M.T., devoted to the revolution body and soul, exerted the greatest efforts to carry out the tasks which the revolution had put upon them.

To put matters in working order, two All-Russian Conferences were convened at which notes and experiences were compared, the necessary work to be undertaken outlined and the further course and the possibilities of organizing the militia settled. The ninth conference of the Russian Communist Party also adopted the following resolution dealing with the organization of the militia:

The Resolution Adopted at the Ninth Conference of the Russian Communist Party on the Question of Organizing a Militia

1. The approaching end of civil war and the favorable changes in the international position of Soviet Russia have placed on the order of the day the problem of introducing fundamental changes in our military organization which should be in keeping with the pressing economic and cultural needs of the country.

2. However, as long as the imperialist bourgeoisie remains in power in most countries of the world, the position of the Socialist Republic cannot be regarded as safe.

The further progress of events may, at a certain point, again drive the imperialists, who feel the ground vanishing beneath their feet, on the way of bloody adventures directed against Soviet Russia.

Hence the necessity of maintaining the military defence of the Revolution on a proper level.

3. In keeping with the present transition period, which may prove to be of a protracted nature, an organization of the armed forces of the country must be established offering the workers the possibility of obtaining the necessary military training while taking away as little as possible of their time employed in productive labor. This may be accomplished solely by the organization of a Red Workers’ and Peasants’ Militia built on a territorial basis.

4. The essence of the Soviet Militia must be the approximation, as far as possible, of the army to producing areas so that the living human power of definite economic regions shall at the same time represent the living human forces of definite military units.

5. The militia sections (regiments, brigades, divisions) bearing in mind the territorial disposition of industry, must in the matter of territorial distribution be so arranged, that industrial centers with interdependent agricultural areas around them shall form the basis of the militia sections.

6. In matters of organization the militia must be based on units which are militarily, technically, and politically well trained, and which shall keep a constant register of the workers and peasants trained by them so as to be in a position to get at them at any time, and, when necessary, to incorporate them in the military organization, providing them with arms and leading them into battle.

7. The passing to the militia system must be carried out gradually, in accordance with the military and international diplomatic position of the Soviet Republic; with the proviso that at all times the defensive strength of the republic be kept at a high level.

8. The gradually demobilized Red Army must be distributed so that its best units are put to the best advantage, that is to say, the distribution must run on lines best suited for the local industrial and social conditions, thus assuring a ready machinery of administration for the militia section.

9. Subsequently, the staff of the militia units will have to be gradually renewed, with a view to establishing a closer connection with the economic life of the given region, so that the commanding staff of the militia stationed in the territory embracing, let us say, a group of factories or works with an agricultural district adjoining it, should consult of the best elements of the local workers.

10. For the purposes of the indicated renewal of the staff, the military training courses must be territorially distributed in accordance with the militia districts, and the best representatives of the local workers and peasants must pass through these courses.

11. To assure the highest military efficiency the military training for the militia shall be carried on as follows:

(a) Preliminary military training of citizens, the military departments, in this connection, working hand in hand with the departments of public education, with the trade unions, with the organizations of the party, with the leagues of youth, and with sporting societies, etc.

(b) Military training of citizens who have reached the age of military service, this training to be of an ever shorter and shorter duration with the approximation of the barracks to the type of military schools.

(c) Calling up, for a very brief period, of those who have been trained, in order to test the military efficiency of the militia units.

12. The organization of the militia units set up for the purpose of military defence must in due measure be adapted also to the purposes of labor service, that is to say, it must be in a position to form labor sections and supply them with the necessary machinery of instruction.

13. The militia tending to develop into the armed Communist organization of the people must in the present transition period retain in its organization all the elements of the dictatorship of the workers.

Operation of the Training System

The G.M.T. has made a beginning with those who have not yet reached the age of military service. All children from eight years of age are obliged to undergo, in school as well as out of school, a course of training in physical culture. Along with the ordinary primer they must acquire the primer of physical culture.

For the management of this great and responsible work a special “Supreme Council of Physical Culture” has been created, with scholars and professors at its head, controlling through its local branches the work throughout the republic. In this manner a new generation is being raised of bright, strong, and alert people, who will defend Socialism and the Revolution. In accordance with the decree of the Council of People’s Commissars, the young, between the age of 16 and 18, are undergoing military training. By the terms of this decree boys and girls, the latter voluntarily, but the members of the Communist Union of Youth, by obligation, are receiving such military training as to acquire, at the age of 18, all that may be required of a young warrior of the Republic.

This scheme enables us to make the idea of the armed people, the militia, a reality with the smallest expense of energy and means. But the work of the General Military Training is going even farther. It is striving to solve the problem of improving the health of the working class, the problems of eugenics and of physical culture. Thousands of different sporting societies and clubs have been established, institutions in which mass-sport is cultivated on scientific lines and with utilitarian aims. Hundreds of thousands of workers are taking part in the sports, thereby becoming bearers of the higher forms of culture.

Parallel with the work of physical culture, political as well as cultural and educational work is being carried on at the clubs, gymnasiums, etc., lectures, conversations on various subjects, moving pictures, and plastic art celebrations are being organized.

Special effort is made to draw the working women into the general military training. There are three to four month courses on communication service and on military matters for them. They may take up instructors’ courses in sport and gymnastics. Many a hundred working women now training will be able to occupy different posts in military detachments. The G.M.T. is opening for Russian working women new possibilities, new horizons; and, in the near future, the Russian working woman will stand in the foremost ranks of the world movement.

Serious attention is being paid to the question of military training in schools and colleges. At present, there are about 100 schools in the regimental districts, in which non-commissioned officers are being prepared. The whole system of military training is conducted according to plan. First, a 96-hour-course of individual instruction is given, then a brief collective course, and finally a month is devoted to going over again the whole course of exercise. Then a part of the pupils are selected to attend the schools for non-commissioned officers (four months), from which they graduate as instructors. These instructors are sent to practice (for six months), after which they are transferred to higher instructors’ courses. After a course of six months, they are again put to practice, and then the most able get into the highest organization and method courses (one year; after January, 1921, two years is proposed). They graduate from these courses as battalion instructors and as regimental commanders. After a practice of six to twelve months they are sent to a repeating course (not less than two months). This is, in short, the system of training instructors for the territorial militia. At the courses the applied method of work is that of the seminary type.

Soviet Russia is divided into regimental and brigade districts so that every province covers a regimental or brigade district. In each regimental district there is a sufficient number of instructors for the training of the young. Thus a regimental staff is to be found in every chief city of a province. This staff has different departments dealing with the technical work, as well as that of organization connected with the military training of the population. Each provincial regimental district is divided into three districts, and each company district into three platoon districts.

A noteworthy feature of the system is that a brigade is made up of three regiments, and that only a part of the commanders leave for the front in war time while the rest are engaged in forming new units. Every regimental district is thus in a position, in time of peace, to go on forming brigades until the whole able-bodied population has been enrolled. The commander of a regiment in peace time becomes commander of a brigade in war time, etc., that is to say, we have potentially a staff who can occupy high positions in time of war. This is a very important feature of the system and due attention should be paid to it.

In spite of the severe times and in spite of the difficulties of the work, the General Military Training assists in the formation of labor-companies for work in the rear, helps to eradicate illiteracy, giving part of its time and of its instructors for these purposes.

Notwithstanding its gigantic work extending to millions of the working class, the General Military Training is in closest contact with the R.C.P. All the commanding positions in the territorial companies are occupied by Communists. Besides, all the members of the Communist Party are taking part in the General Military Training, and are so distributed that a third of any military unit is composed of Communists. When the workers and the toiling peasants are, for instance, mobilized into a regiment, a third of that regiment must be Communists, besides sympathizers.

Glancing back at the road passed we can be proud of the great military, political, and cultural work that has been done. Millions of working men and working women, boys and girls, undergo military training. The gun and the hammer is their symbol while the future militia is their aim.

Soviet Russia began in the summer of 1919, published by the Bureau of Information of Soviet Russia and replaced The Weekly Bulletin of the Bureau of Information of Soviet Russia. In lieu of an Embassy the Russian Soviet Government Bureau was the official voice of the Soviets in the US. Soviet Russia was published as the official organ of the RSGB until February 1922 when Soviet Russia became to the official organ of The Friends of Soviet Russia, becoming Soviet Russia Pictorial in 1923. There is no better US-published source for information on the Soviet state at this time, and includes official statements, articles by prominent Bolsheviks, data on the Soviet economy, weekly reports on the wars for survival the Soviets were engaged in, as well as efforts to in the US to lift the blockade and begin trade with the emerging Soviet Union.

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