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Frunze
Bazhanov's book, mentioned above, contains another particularly interesting passage. He spoke of the contacts that he had with superior officers in the Red Army:
`(Frunze) was perhaps the only man among the communist leaders who wished the liquidation of the régime and Russia's return to a more human existence.
`At the beginning of the revolution, Frunze was Bolshevik. But he entered the army, fell under the influence of old officers and generals, acquired their traditions and became, to the core, a soldier. As his passion for the army grew, so did his hatred for communism. But he knew how to shut up and hide his thoughts ....
`(H)e felt that his ambition was to replay in the future the rôle of Napoleon ....
`Frunze had a well defined plan. He sought most of all to eliminate the Party's power within the Red Army. To start with, he succeeded in abolishing the commissars who, as representatives of the Party, were above the commanders .... Then, energetically following his plans for a Bonapartist coup d'état, Frunze carefully chose for the various commander positions real military men in whom he could place his trust .... so that the army could succeed in its coup d'état, an exceptional situation was required, a situation that war, for example, might have brought ....
`His ability to give a Communist flavor to each of his acts was remarkable. Nevertheless, Stalin found him out.'
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Bajanov, op. cit. , pp. 105--109.
It is difficult to ascertain whether Bazhanov's judgment of Frunze was correct. But his text clearly showed that in 1926, people were already speculating about militarist and Bonapartist tendencies within the army to put an end to the Soviet régime. Tokaev would write in 1935, `the Frunze Central Military Aerodrome (was) one of the centres of (Stalin's) irreconcilable enemies'.
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G. A. Tokaev, Comrade X (London: The Harvill Press, 1956), p. 33.
When Tukhachevsky was arrested and shot in 1937, he was accused of exactly the same intentions that were imputed to Frunze by Bazhanov in 1930.
Next: Alexander Zinoviev Up: How did the Previous: George Solomon
Fri Aug 25 09:03:42 PDT 1995