Apricot Jam: And Other Stories (42 page)

The orders that came from Tambov headquarters and the regiment were never written in strictly military fashion, setting out our reconnaissance sector or giving operation instructions; it was always just
“
Attack and destroy!
”
“
Surround and liquidate!
”
“
Whatever the cost!
”

And we didn
’
t count the cost. But how were we to smoke out the bandits? How could we tell who they were? There were no Soviet authorities left in the villages; they
’
d all run off to wait it out in the towns, so who could we ask? An army commander would order all the village people to come to a meeting. He
’
d line up all the men in one rank:
“
How many of you are with the bandits?
”
No one said a word.
“
Shoot every tenth man!
”
And they
’
d be shot on the spot, in front of the whole crowd. The women would scream and howl and moan.
“
Close up the rank. Now, how many are bandits?
”
Once again, they
’
d count off every tenth man to be shot. Then the villagers would give in and point them out. A few of them would scamper away. You couldn
’
t pick them all off.

Sometimes a woman walking alone along the road would be arrested and searched to see if she
’
d been spying or carrying messages. A lot of horse manure along a road told us that a detachment of bandits had passed by.

Our boys also went hungry many times. Their boots were full of holes, and their uniforms were worn-out and bedraggled. They wore them all day and slept in them at night. (And some of them still had the raspberry pants!) We suffered a lot. If anyone had a leg amputated, it was done without anesthetic, and there were no bandages either.

In the middle of April, we in Zherdyovka heard that Antonov
’
s men had swooped in and taken the large factory town of Rasskazovo, just forty-five
versts
from Tambov. They held it for four hours and slaughtered the communists in their own homes, cutting their heads right off. Half the Soviet battalion there went over to Antonov, the other half was taken prisoner. Then the bandits withdrew under fire from airplanes.

So that was how our war with them went. Then, through the winter and spring, things got even hotter. It had been eight months now, and Antonov still hadn
’
t surrendered—in fact, he was even getting stronger. (Even though they sometimes had no bullets and just used bits of iron.)

An order came from Tambov headquarters:
“
All operations are to be carried out with sufficient severity to inspire respect for Soviet power.
”
Villages that supported the bandits were burned to the ground. All that was left were the skeletons of Russian stoves and ashes.

The Cheka Special Section in Zherdyovka wasn
’
t sitting still, either. The head of the section, Shurka Shubin, walked around in a red shirt and blue breeches with hand grenades dangling from his chest and a hefty Mauser in a wooden holster. He
’
d come into a cavalry camp (the formation commander was subordinate to the head of the Special Section):
“
All right, boys, whoever wants to execute some bandits, two paces forward!
”
No one stepped forward.
“
Some fine training you
’
ve had here.
”
All the people to be executed had been herded into the Special Section compound. They dug a huge pit, made the prisoners sit down on the edge, facing it and with their hands tied. Shubin and his men would walk along shooting them in the back of the neck.

But how else could they deal with them? Yorka had a good friend, also named Zhukov, though his first name was Pavel, and he would cut the bandits into pieces.

It was a full-scale war, and you had to give it all you had, and more. It wasn
’
t like that German War. It was here in Tambov that Yorka turned savage; it was here that he became a hardened, cruel warrior.

In May, a Plenipotentiary Commission from the All-Russian Central Executive Committee headed by another Antonov (though he was Antonov-
Ovseenko
) arrived from Moscow to stamp out the bandits. And to command the Special Tambov Army, they sent the commander of the western front, army commander Tukhachevsky, who had just settled scores with Poland. His deputy was Uborevich, who had a good deal of experience fighting bandits in Belorussia. Tukhachevsky brought his own staff with him, along with a detachment of armored cars.

Not long after this, Zhukov was lucky enough to see the famous Tukhachevsky in person when he came to the headquarters of the 14th Independent Cavalry Brigade in Zherdyovka along the railway in an armored trolley. The brigade commander,
Milonov
, ordered all the political officers and commanders down to squadron level to hear Tukhachevsky speak.

Tukhachevsky was rather short, but he carried himself proudly, as stately as a peacock. He knew his own worth.

He began by praising everyone for their bravery and dedication to their duty. (Everyone glowed, chests swelling.) Then he explained the mission that lay ahead of them all.

The Council of People
’
s Commissars had ordered that in the six weeks following May 10, the Tambov rebellion was to be put down. No matter what the cost! We all have heavy work ahead, he told us. The experience of suppressing such popular rebellions shows that we have to flood the whole area of the revolt with troops until it is completely occupied and then station armed units at critical points all across it. Kotovsky
’
s renowned cavalry division has just arrived from Kiev, detrained in
Morshansk
, and is already advancing on the rebel area of
Pakhotny
Ugol
. When it
’
s done its job, it will come here, to the center of the rebellion. We have a huge material advantage over the enemy, with our air and armored car
detachments. One of our first demands to the local population will be to rebuild all the bridges on the roads through the villages so that our motorized units can pass through. (But we must never use local people as guides!) We also have a supply of chemical gasses that we will use if necessary; the Council has given permission for this. In the course of this vigorous suppression of the revolt, all of you commanders will get some wonderful military experience.

Zhukov could not take his eyes off the army commander. This was probably the first time in his life he was seeing a genuine military leader, someone completely different from us simple cut-and-thrust commanders or even our brigade commander. How self-confident he was! And he was able to instill that same confidence in everyone else: it would all unfold just as he had said! There was nothing of the peasant in his face; it was aristocratic and well groomed. He had a long, slender white neck and large, velvet eyes. He
’
d kept his side whiskers long, but they were carefully trimmed. And he didn
’
t speak at all the way we did. His Budyonny helmet—the same helmet we all wore—truly suited him and made Tukhachevsky look even more like a leader.

Of course, he added, we
’
ll also send more of our agents to scout out the bandits, though the Chekists have, unfortunately, suffered some heavy losses. But we still have our biggest weapon: putting pressure on the bandits through their families.

Then he read aloud Order No. 130, which he had already signed and just now issued across the province so that the whole population would know. The language of the order was as absolutely confident as the young commander himself:
“
All peasants who have joined the rebel bands must immediately place themselves at the disposal of Soviet authorities, surrender their weapons, and name their ringleaders . . . Those who surrender voluntarily will not face the death penalty. The families of bandits who do not turn themselves in will be arrested immediately, their property confiscated and distributed among the peasants who have remained loyal to the Soviet authorities. The families of those bandits who do not report and surrender will be exiled to remote areas of the RFSFR.
”

No gathering in which there were large numbers of communists, as was the case on this day, could end without everyone singing
“
The Internationale,
”
but Tukhachevsky took the liberty of not waiting for that.
He extended his white hand only to the brigade commander and, with the same proud
bearing,
he left and drove off in his armored trolley.

This audacious display of authority also impressed Zhukov.

Then, even before
“
The Internationale,
”
all the commanders were given a leaflet from the Provincial Executive Committee addressed to the peasants of Tambov Province: The time has come to rid
yourselves
of this festering abscess of
Antonovism
! Until now, the bandits
’
advantage lay in their frequent exchange of exhausted horses for fresh ones. Now, however, with the presence of Antonov
’
s criminal gangs in your area, you must not leave a single horse in your village. Take them away to a place where our forces can protect them.

As the meeting broke up, Zhukov came away with new feelings: he felt inspired with fresh confidence, he had a new example to follow, and he was envious.

Just fighting a war—well, that was something any fool could do. But now—-to be a soldier with every bone in your body, with every breath you took, and do it so that everyone around you could sense it! That was something great.

Zhukov loved soldiering more than anything else.

The six-week period for the final suppression of the rebellion began. The armored cars of Uborevich
’
s detachment had their limitations. They couldn
’
t travel everywhere, and they often broke through the bridges, just as the light trucks and even the cars armed with machine guns did. The peasant horses feared the automobiles and wouldn
’
t go into an attack with them, and when our cavalry was pursuing the rebels, they couldn
’
t lose contact with the vehicles.

We did have one other big advantage. Antonov, of course, had no radios, and so our units pursuing him could communicate with each other without encoding anything, and this made for better coordination and easier transfer of information. The Antonov men would gallop along, thinking that no one had spotted them, but meanwhile messages were being transmitted through all three regions, revealing where the bandits were, where they were going, and where to send a pursuit force to cut them off.

So we went off in pursuit, trying to trap Antonov
’
s main body and force him into a major battle, which he was avoiding. Kotovsky
’
s brigade moved on him from the north, Dmitrienko
’
s brigade from the west; another detachment of Kononeko
’
s Cheka forces was added—seven one-and-a-half-ton Fiat armored cars with their own motorized gasoline carriers. Antonov stumbled into the trap laid for him, but he immediately rushed away; changing horses regularly, he traveled 120 or 130
versts
a day, retreating into Saratov Province toward the
Khopyor
; and then he returned. The 14th Brigade, like all the Red cavalry, lagged behind him everywhere. Now only the armored cars were pursuing him. (People told of how an armored car detachment once almost caught Antonov by surprise while he was resting in the village of
Yelan
. The cars rolled through the village, firing at the bandits from their machine guns. But the Antonov men galloped to the forest, regrouped, and held on, while half our machine guns jammed. Once again, our cavalry was late, and once again the Antonov men withdrew or simply vanished—no one knows.)

Three weeks passed, already halfway to the deadline set by the Council of Commissars, yet Antonov had not been beaten. Cavalry brigades had to feel their way, waiting for news from informants. Both mechanized detachments were waiting for parts and gasoline. An armored train and the armored trolley ran back and forth along the nearby railways, also trying to track down the bandits or intercept them. But they found nothing.

Then came Tukhachevsky
’
s Secret Order No. 0050, to be read aloud to cavalry squadrons and infantry companies:
“
Effective dawn, July 1, we begin a mass removal of the bandit element from the general population.
”
This meant that we were to comb through the villages and pick up any suspicious people. As Zhukov read this to his squadron, he seemed to see Tukhachevsky; he seemed to become him and, perhaps, he even took on his voice and his bearing. He read in his fullest voice:
“
This removal must not appear to be a chance event; it must show the peasants that the bandit
element, along with their families, are
being eliminated and that the struggle against Soviet power is hopeless. Carry out the operation with vigor and enthusiasm. Avoid bourgeois sentimentality. Tukhachevsky, Force Commander.
”