The Commissar Page 5

  The victorious troops took to looting and huge quantities of vodka were found and then it was a case of letting the troops drink themselves senseless. Nobody was able to prevent it and the general lawlessness of the army was clear to see.

  Casca wearily sat down in a house he had managed to secure for himself. A small detachment of soldiers he had surrounded himself with were also there, as a kind of small garrison. These were the more disciplined members of the company, and numbered eight in all. They took special pride in becoming the commissar’s personal guard.

  Nakarov turned up, sporting a bloodied sling and bruising on his face. He also clutched two bottles of vodka. “Ho, Comrade! Something to pass the night with, don’t you think?”

  Casca grinned, then jerked a thumb at the men stood in the corridor and by the doors. “And them?”

  “Already sorted. A crate is on the doorstep.”

  “Kalinsky,” Casca pointed to the front door, “you and one other get the crate. Four of you off duty take a bottle each, then the four on duty swap.”

  “Comrade!” Kalinsky saluted, an action frowned upon by the more rabid communists who insisted there was no distinction in rank anymore. Casca knew that was bullshit and eventually necessity would push its way through the political crap and as in every army you would have those who ordered and those who obeyed.

  Communism was all very well in theory, Casca mused, but in reality it could never work because of one factor. People. There were always those who could not command or lead, just as there were those who just had to and could not do anything else. Theories and rhetoric should be kept to the classroom or studies and the reality was, like out here, something utterly different.

  “Vodka cures most known ailments,” Nakarov sighed, easing his buttocks onto an upturned wooden crate. “It’s going to be a cold one tonight, comrade, so let’s warm ourselves up the best possible way.”

  They cocked their heads as shots rang out, not too far away, then relaxed as there came no more. “Firing squad?” Casca guessed aloud.

  “Mmm. Like the whoresons who gave me this,” the other commissar pointed to his sling. “Tried to kill me for this vodka, and I had to defend myself. Killed the first bastard, then the rest saw my star and that I was a commissar. I called out to watching soldiers to come to the assistance of a man of the Revolution and arrest these who would readily kill a commissar.”

  He laughed briefly, opening the bottle. “One of the local Soviet members was passing by, ordered the men arrested and condemned on the spot. They were put against a wall and shot without a moment’s hesitation.”

  Casca puffed out his cheeks. If commissars were attacked by the more disorderly members of the army, then danger lurked around every corner. It seemed that the red star would have to be prominently worn no matter where he was.

  Nakarov had more news. “It seems our ‘victory’ at Kruty two weeks ago was anything but. The delay that caused allowed the UPR to sign a peace treaty with the Central Powers and now the Ukraine is allowing German troops onto its soil to assist them in their fight for survival in return for wheat to feed Germany.”

  “Oh shit, now we’re going to have to face German soldiers?”

  Nakarov grinned mirthlessly. “Time for some vodka, I think.” He raised his bottle up, passing the other to Casca who cracked it open in no time. “To victory!” Nakarov said ironically.

  Casca laughed and took his first pull from the bottle.

  The next few days were spent on getting some kind of order in Kiev. The news that filtered down to Casca from the Soviet wasn’t good. With the Soviet representative Leon Trotsky refusing to sign the peace treaty with Germany at Brest Litovsk, and the fact the Ukraine had signed a treaty, German troops now had been ordered to advance through the Ukraine to put pressure on Trotsky to sign.

  There was no Soviet opposition. What forces they had were facing the Whites in the south, or there in Kiev, and Casca knew these troops were in no fit state to take on the disciplined and battle-hardened forces of Germany, few though they may be now.

  Casca had a taste of the near-anarchy a day or two later while he was inspecting a factory that was supposed to be churning out uniforms. The factory had been unable to meet the demand of the local Soviet committee to equip the occupying Red forces so Casca – ‘Comrade Kaskarov’ – was ordered by the committee to attend and investigate the situation, and to ‘deal with the problem as appropriate’.

  Accompanied by a squad of twenty soldiers, most of whom looked as if they had just been vomited up by a particularly ugly yak, they were driven to the site in a former tsarist army truck, sliding all over the icy road. It was with some relief that they arrived at their destination intact and without losing a limb.

  The driver leaned out of his cab, lazily smoking a black cheroot, his bushy beard coated with ice, for all the world enjoying a balmy summer’s evening, rather than a February day in snow-bound Kiev. Insane. Why he didn’t shut his window Casca didn’t know, but that was the man’s affair, not his. “Wait here, Comrade,” Casca growled.

  The driver waved the cheroot in the air and nodded.

  The factory was a large warehouse close to the huge width of the Dniepr river, which was at that moment a sheet of ice. The citadel rose off to the south of the factory which was on the edge of a cleared expanse of land. The artillery works were just over the road and to the left was the Marien Park. The land dropped away to the river and there was a long bridge in the distance that spanned the river, leading to one of the suburbs on the east bank.

  But Casca wasn’t interested in that; he was interested as to why the factory here was not fulfilling its order. It was a building of brick foundations topped with corrugated sheets of iron nailed to a skeleton of wood. The windows fitted badly and clearly let in the cold.

  The door was rusting and on wheels that had jammed with oil and detritus and God knows what else. It had been left open as it clearly couldn’t move, and a large brazier burned at the entrance with a group of men huddled around it for warmth. They looked up unenthusiastically at the arriving group of soldiers.

  Casca stood before the work force. “Who’s in charge here?”

  “Nobody is in charge Comrade!” one of the men spat. “Your words smack of tsarism.”

  “Shut it,” Casca snapped. “You’re workers of this factory, so why aren’t you fulfilling the order sent to you by the Kiev Soviet?”

  The others looked to the one who’d spoken, who sullenly mumbled something. Casca didn’t care much for this, nor for the atmosphere that was cloaking them. Something wasn’t right, and he’d lived far too long not to know something was wrong. “I wish to inspect the interior of the factory,” he said.

  The men all began to look a little frightened. The spokesman stood up straight and looked Casca in the eye. “There is nothing for you to see in there, Comrade.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” Casca said, waving his men to check inside. A couple of the workmen went to try to stop them but bayonets at the throat soon dissuaded them. Casca was called in and what met his eyes was not pleasant.

  Hanging from the ceiling on a chain, a hook through his neck, was a man, swinging gently. Blood pooled below his feet on the ground. Casca ordered the workmen brought in at gunpoint.

  “Alright, who’s responsible for this, and why?”

  The spokesman gestured to the corpse. “He was asking us to fulfil unreasonable orders, Comrade, I swear to God.”

  Eyes darted quickly to the man. One of the intentions of Lenin was to eradicate religion, and therefore God. It had been made known through the various Soviets that not only royalty and the upper classes were to be removed, but religion, as it was seen by the radical communists that religion and the ruling classes went hand in glove. God was therefore no longer relevant in the egalitarian society envisaged by Lenin and company.

  “I-I mean…” the man realized his mistake too late.

  “Silence. This man was merely carrying out the wishes
of the Kiev Soviet, who are the ruling council here. You wish to oppose the wishes of the Soviet? Then go tell them to their faces, Comrade!” Casca knew how to get compliance from the most sullen and revolutionary of the Ukrainians. He still didn’t know who was backing whom; Ukrainian communists backed the Soviet, but other Ukrainians backed the UPR, and of course there were still those who supported the old order.

  He pointed to the other workmen. “Get him down! You put him up there. Then get to work. The Soviet will need to be appraised of this murder. As for you,” he swung on the wretched-looking spokesman who was now being held firmly by two of Casca’s squad, most enthusiastically, for they took delight in enforcing authority and control over someone, “you will come with us back to the Soviet, where they shall determine your punishment for your crime.”

  The man went pale. Not only was he guilty of murder, but also of defying the Soviet, and Casca wasn’t sure which attracted the greater penalty. It was no different under the tsars, for doing either or both – murder or defying the tsar – would also result in capital punishment. Nothing changed, except those who gave the commands and who wrote the laws.

  But this was just an example of what was going on. Everyone was confused and unsure about how things were shaping up. A few days after the factory incident word came to pack and get out; the Germans were closing in and the Soviet were packing up and moving to Kharkov. The Red Army wasn’t strong enough to stop them so it was a retreat.

  They left Kiev and it was on the journey by truck to Kharkov that they learned of Trotsky’s capitulation to the Central Powers, and Russia, in whatever form it was now, had signed the armistice and was officially out of the Great War.

  But things weren’t settled by any stretch of the imagination. Nakarov threw a copy of Pravda onto Casca’s table the night after they got to Kharkov. “There! We are going to have to abandon all of Ukraine before long, Comrade, for the Germans have promised to throw us out of the country. What is left of Russia will have to fight between itself to determine who will end up running the country. Us or the Whites? Bah, the whole place is in the shitter. Latvia and Estonia have declared independence, as has Finland. Comrade Trotsky says we have to fight on to victory, but with enemies on all sides, we’re in a fix, I can tell you!”

  “Yes, but we’re in the center while the opposition are on the edges. We have the rail network and can switch forces rapidly to any threatened theater while they are disjointed and un-coordinated. I think we ought to leave Ukraine and get on with fighting the Whites and win that one first, then we can settle differences with Ukraine and whoever else.”

  Nakarov farted, and sat down heavily. “Ah, you may be right, but this fucking mess is getting on my nerves. That and those who think we should have no form of government and nobody to tell them what to do. The anarchists. Bah!” he snorted, hawked up some phlegm and spat mightily.

  Casca grinned. “Tell the workers and peasants for long enough they can determine their own future and not those who rule them, then they think they don’t have to do what anyone says.”

  “How can you win a war with people like that? Hang the bastards.”

  “No doubt the Soviet will order it. Me, I’m just happy to be fed and watered and have a warm fire.”

  “Be even better with a woman,” Nakarov grumbled.

  Casca perked up. “Now, Comrade, you’re talking. I’ve not enjoyed one for longer than I can recall. Tell me, is prostitution banned by the communists?”

  “No – they would have a revolution on their hands if they did!” he laughed. “There’s one in the seedier district. I know of it, in fact. Come on, let’s get warm.”

  The two left the house and walked down the street arm in arm, roaring with laughter.

  CHAPTER SIX

  April brought more changes. The weather improved, so now they had to cope with seas of mud rather than oceans of snow and ice. Digging was easier and the army was put to use digging in their new positions south of Voronezh. The Germans had advanced through most of the Ukraine, pushing back the Bolshevik forces towards Kursk. In the south the White forces were gathering their strength for an offensive.

  The capital had been moved from Petrograd to Moscow. This was because of the nearness of the Germans in the west and the Finns to the north. Moscow was further away and the center of a huge rail network. This would give the Bolshevik government greater flexibility, or so it seemed to Casca.

  Their unit was told to get ready for transferring further south. It seemed the situation there was in need of reinforcements, and the 1st Army was needed in the Don Basin.

  It was in between arriving at their new position near Voronezh and being taken by rail towards Rostov, that Casca first came into contact with the Cheka. These policemen of the Revolution had been established by a group of communists in Petrograd to counter any anti-Soviet activity. Now they were being set up everywhere, under the control of ‘Extraordinary Committees’. Their remit seemed, to the eternal mercenary anyway, to be as wide ranging as they liked. Anyone they didn’t like was subject to arrest and interrogation.

  The man whom Casca met was a shifty-eyed individual called Alexander Astapenko, a Ukrainian communist dedicated to the world revolution ideal. Casca hated the swarthy man on the spot. Astapenko strutted into the room Casca and a few others were billeted in, wearing a long black coat and a black Astrakhan hat. It seemed the thing to be wearing these days if you were someone of substance. Casca thought it made the man look a prick.

  “So you are Comrade Commissar Kaskarov, mm?” Astapenko began in a voice that promised nothing but bad times ahead.

  “I am,” Casca replied, looking up briefly before resuming his studying of the latest reports of German advances towards Odessa, which seemed in imminent danger of being taken.

  “A man highly thought of.” Astapenko smiled evilly. “By the common soldiery.”

  “What of it?” Casca put the report down and gave the man a thorough study. Yep, guy’s a cock.

  “It would be far better for you to impress the committees of the Soviets, Comrade.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because, Comrade Kaskarov, it is not the soldiery who will determine your future, but the Soviet. And I am here to ensure that the wishes of the Soviet are carried out, even if it goes against the wishes of the soldiery.”

  “Good for you, Comrade. Now is there anything specific you wish to ask me?”

  Astapenko’s smile slipped for a moment, then was back in place. “I am here to see that there are no anarchists present.”

  “Anarchists, eh?” Casca mused for a moment. “I suppose you mean anyone not obeying the word of the Soviet?”

  Astapenko scowled for the first time. This disrespectful commissar was asking for trouble. “I should be very careful what you say, Comrade, or it may be taken the wrong way, which would be unfortunate.”

  Casca stood up and stepped directly in front of the slightly-built man. “Why don’t you fuck off and bully someone else? I’m not afraid of you or your pathetic attempts to scare me into obedience. I’ve fought in more areas of conflict than you’ll ever see, and there isn’t a lot that makes me frightened these days. I know you, and your type, Astapenko. You’re a nobody who gets his way by climbing to a position of power and muscles everyone out of his way, using your power to terrorize people into submission.”

  “Comrade Astapenko,” he corrected Casca.

  “You’re no fucking comrade of mine, shithead. Now go find your anarchists elsewhere. There are none here.”

  The Chekist men behind Astapenko looked nervously at their commander while Casca’s men picked up their rifles. It was a non-contest, and the political policemen backed away, knowing in a fight they would be massacred against soldiers. But as he went to leave, Astapenko turned and looked at Casca. “We shall meet again, Comrade,” he said softly, “and when we do, you had better be prepared for what will come your way. It will not be pleasant.”

  There was no immediate cons
equence of this encounter, although Casca did get a summons to the Soviet headquarters three days later to explain his conduct, which he answered to by stating the Cheka were accusing his unit of being anarchists, which was untrue.

  What with the changing situation at the front and the need to send the soldiers down south to prop up the worsening situation there, Casca was sent away with a warning not to be disrespectful to those carrying out difficult duties on behalf of the revolution in trying circumstances.

  Casca thought it a load of political crap. The Bolsheviks needed the army to keep in power, and everyone knew it, so he was safe for the moment. They were packed on a train two days later and sent down to Rostov, arriving on April 28. By then Odessa had fallen to the Germans and they were now heading for the same location Casca and his men were in.

  It was a mess. The Cossacks were trying to establish their own state in the region; the Ukraine wanted it, and the Bolsheviks were insisting all Russian territory was theirs. The Whites were in a bit of disarray following the death of their general Kornilov, but they were regrouping north of the Caucasus.

  Casca slapped a bundle of papers on the desktop of his new ‘office’ in the railway siding in the city. “Who the hell are we fighting today then?” he demanded of the liaison officer, a Captain Kirilov, a dark-haired, brown-eyed man of big build and thick lips. “The Whites? The Greens? The Blacks? The Germans? The fucking Cossacks? All of them? The UPR?”

  “Calm down, Comrade Commissar,” Kirilov rumbled in his deep throaty voice. Too many cigarettes, probably. “The Cossacks are our main concern currently. The Blacks and Greens are not present here.” The Blacks were the anarchists and the Greens non-affiliated revolutionaries, socialists not belonging to the Bolsheviks or the Social Revolutionaries.