The Military Writings of
Leon Trotsky

Volume 2, 1919

How the Revolution Armed

The Fight for Petrograd

ORDER No.164

By the Chairman of the Revolutionary War Council of the Republic and People’s Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs to the North-Western White Army, November 3, 1919, No.164, Petrograd

Transcribed and HTML markup for the Trotsky Internet Archive by David Walters

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To be read in all companies, task-forces, squadrons and batteries.

In view of the fact that the enemy of the people, the Tsarist General Yudenich, has arbitrarily and forcibly conscripted members of the working population against Workers’ and Peasants’ Russia, I hereby order, in the name of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers’, Peasants’, Red Army Men’s and Working Cossacks’ Deputies:

(1) All units without exception, of the so-called North Western White-Guard Army of General Yudenich are to be disbanded. This applies to the lager [?] Cavalry Regiment, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Riga regiments, the 3rd Talabsky, the Semyonovsky, the 2nd Ostrovsky, the 7th Uralsky, the Vyatsky, the 53rd Volynsky, the Krasnogorsky, the 12th Temnitsky, the 1st Ingermanlandsky, the 9th Krennevsky, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd holding regiments of General Pahien’s First Corps, Balakhovich’s Cavalry Regiment, the 23rd Pechersky Regiment, the 21st Chudsky, 1st Georgiyevsky, the 2nd Revelsky, the 3rd Kolyvansky, the 4th Gdovsky, the 1st Ostrovsky, the 2nd Litovsky, the 13th Narvsky, the 1st Pskovsky, the Denikinsky, the Voznesensky, the 2nd Tulsky, the 2nd Goraysky, the Kochanovsky, the 1st holding regiment of General Arsenyev’s Corps, and to all others.

(2) On receipt of this order, all soldiers of the North-Western Army are released from military serivce and required to return to their homes.

(3) All commanders of the North-Western Army who obstruct the fulfilment of this order are pronounced to be outlaws, and every soldier is required to kill them on the spot, as enemies of the people.

(4) The following payments will be made, in full, for weapons brought by demobilised soldiers of Yudenich’s North Western Army to one of the Red Army’s headquarters:

• For a rifle – 600 roubles.
• For a machinegun – 2,000 roubles
• For separate parts – according to valuation.
• For a gun – 15,000 roubles.

(5) Soldiers who have lost working time through the criminal actions of Yudenich will retain, as compensation, their uniforms, and also a horse and other things needed for life as a peasant.

(6) All demobilised soldiers of Yudenich’s army are guaranteed free railway travels to their home district.

(7) Concealment of this order from the soldiers will be treated as equivalent to the worst crimes against the state and punished in accordance with martial law.

Last updated on: 23.12.2006