Pavel Dybenko
Encyclopedia
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
officer.
Until the military service
Pavel Dybenko was born in Lyudkovo village, NovozybkovNovozybkov
Novozybkov is a historical town in Bryansk Oblast, Russia. Population: -History:It was founded in 1701 and granted town status in 1809. Novozybkov was a major hemp supplier in the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly for the production of ropes for the Russian Navy...
uyezd
Uyezd
Uyezd or uezd was an administrative subdivision of Rus', Muscovy, Russian Empire, and the early Russian SFSR which was in use from the 13th century. Uyezds for most of the history in Russia were a secondary-level of administrative division...
, Chernigov guberniya
Guberniya
A guberniya was a major administrative subdivision of the Russian Empire usually translated as government, governorate, or province. Such administrative division was preserved for sometime upon the collapse of the empire in 1917. A guberniya was ruled by a governor , a word borrowed from Latin ,...
, Imperial Russia (now in Bryansk Oblast
Bryansk Oblast
Bryansk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Bryansk. Population: 1,278,087 .-History:...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
) in an ethnic Ukrainian peasant family. From 1907 onward, Dybenko was active in a Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
group. He started working in the Treasury, but was fired as "untrustable". He moved to Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...
and worked as a port labourer. He tried to avoid enlisting, but was arrested and forcibly enlisted.
Towards the October 1917 revolt
In November 1911, he joined the Baltic FleetBaltic Fleet
The Twice Red Banner Baltic Fleet - is the Russian Navy's presence in the Baltic Sea. In previous historical periods, it has been part of the navy of Imperial Russia and later the Soviet Union. The Fleet gained the 'Twice Red Banner' appellation during the Soviet period, indicating two awards of...
. The first six months he served on a so-called "punishment" ship "Dvina". What caused this imprisonment, is not known. Victor Suvorov suggests it had nothing to do with the revolution, otherwise orthodox communist biographs would have described it in detail.
(The whole of the Baltic Fleet ships were at times referred to as "prison ships". Not as a result of a sailor's actions, rather the ill treatment that awaited the sailors. The "Dvina" was utilized by the Navy as a training vessel for the new recruits at Kronshtadt. Formally known as the "Azov's Memory" its sailors were veterans of the 1906 revolutionary actions. An infamous occasion which led to the Revel gardens and later a trip to Nargen Island.)
In 1912 he joined the Bolshevik Party. In 1915, he participated in the mutiny on board of the battleship Emperor Paul I. He was imprisoned for six months and sent as an infantry soldier to the German front. There he went on with anti-war propaganda, and was again imprisoned for 6 months.
He was released after the February 1917 revolution, and returned to the Baltic Fleet. In April 1917, he became the leader of the Tsentrobalt.
Dybenko's role in the October Revolution
As the leader of Tsentrobalt, Dybenko played an enormous role in the revolt. It was the ten warships that entered the city with ten thousand Baltic fleet mariners that actually took the power in Petrograd and put down the Provisional GovernmentRussian Provisional Government
The Russian Provisional Government was the short-lived administrative body which sought to govern Russia immediately following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II . On September 14, the State Duma of the Russian Empire was officially dissolved by the newly created Directorate, and the country was...
. The same mariners dispersed by force the elected parliament of Russia, and used machine-gun fire against protesting demonstrators in Petrograd. About a hundred demonstrators were killed, and several hundreds were wounded. Dybenko in his memoirs mentioned this event as "several shots in the air".
(The events surrounding the Constituent Assembly in January 1918 as referred to above are disputed by various sources. Louise Bryant's observations of the political atmosphere are available in her book Six Red Months in Russia pgs 60-61. As for the killing of protestors demonstrating in Petrograd; news outlets at the time in the west reported the unfortunate loss of life occurred in Moscow not Petrograd and the number was much less than is suggested above. As for the "several shots in the air" there is little evidence suggesting otherwise. Pavel Dybenko understood accepting the leadership of the Right Socialist Revolutionists would be to take a step back from the accomplishments of October. This was the party of Kerensky, Chernov, and others who refused to discuss the proposals of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, failed to recognize the Declaration of Rights of the Working and Exploited People, but most importantly failed to recognize October and Soviet power. The dissolution of the assembly was inevitable. Pavel Dybenko recalled the Assembly was dispersed not on the day of its opening, but on October 25, the sailor Zheleznyakov just executed the order of the October Revolution.)
During the first hours after the taking the Winter Palace, Dybenko personally entered the Ministry of Justice and destroyed there the documents concerning the financing of the Bolshevik party by Germany.
(The above alleged action of Dybenko entering the Ministry of Justice to destroy documents as recalled by Savchenko can be challenged...according to all reports Pavel Dybenko was in Helsingfors organizing the sailors departures for Petrograd.
From the book Radio October...On the “Krechet” in Helsingfors, radio operator Makarov hands a telegram to Pavel Dybenko with the report of the “Samson” commissar, Grigoriy Borisov:
“To Tsentrobalt. Everything is calm in Petrograd. The power is in the hands of the revolutionary committee. You have to immediately get in touch with the front committee of the Northern Army in order to preserve unity of forces and stability.”)
Dybenko was appointed the People's Commissar (minister) of naval affairs. Lenin, who knew Dybenko well enough as not to rely on him as a Navy commander, assigned to him an assistant, an ex-tzarist admiral who helped manage professional affairs of the Navy.
On February 18, 1918, the German army advanced towards Petrograd. The Lenin-Trotsky government sent Dybenko to defend Petrograd by the force of the Baltic Fleet. The later communist propaganda claimed that revolutionary mariners achieved a great victory there on February 23, 1918. February 23 was declared "The birthday of the Red Army". This day is celebrated in Russia and Ukraine to this day as a national holiday. A special military decoration, "20 years to the Soviet Army" was instituted for this occasion in February 1938. However, this medal was never given to Dybenko himself.
Pravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
evening edition: A lesson humiliating but neccessarry : Refused to fight,... refused to defend the Narva line, ...failed to destroy everything as they retreated...
Lenin added:
From the point of view of the defence of the fatherland it would be a crime to enter into an armed conflict with an infinitely superior and well-prepared enemy when we obviously have no army. ... implying that Dybenko and his mariners definitely were not an army.
The government issued an order to arrest Dybenko and to deliver him to Moscow, that he might face court martial. His command was taken over by General Parsky
Dmitri Parsky
Dmitri Pavlovich Parsky was a Russian general who commanded the 3rd Army from 9 September 1917 to 8 November 1917.In 1893 he attended the General Staff Academy...
.
The Germans were in fact stopped by the ex-Tzarist general Nikolayev who organized some retreating Russian soldiers to fight.
The defeat at Narva caused the Bolshevik government to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, mediated by South African Andrik Fuller, at Brest-Litovsk between Russia and the Central Powers, headed by Germany, marking Russia's exit from World War I.While the treaty was practically obsolete before the end of the year,...
. Another outcome was the transfer of the Bolshevik capital from Petrograd to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
.
On April 1918 he was dismissed from the government, expelled from the communist party and put to trial for cowardice. Unexpectedly, the court martial declared him innocent, since "Being no military expert, he was absolutely neither competent nor trained for the task,... he was not prepared to fight...".
Dybenko strongly opposed the Brest-Litovsk peace, and tried to organize mariners to act against it. He was arrested.
According to the testimony of J.Sadoul, a French socialist who was present then in Moscow and wrote memoirs about this period, it was Dybenko's fellow mariners who saved him. They threatened to open fire on the Kremlin
Kremlin
A kremlin , same root as in kremen is a major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities. This word is often used to refer to the best-known one, the Moscow Kremlin, or metonymically to the government that is based there...
and terrorized Bolshevik government members. The intervention of his wife Alexandra Kollontai
Alexandra Kollontai
Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai was a Russian Communist revolutionary, first as a member of the Mensheviks, then from 1914 on as a Bolshevik. In 1919 she became the first female government minister in Europe...
, then a People's Commissar of social affairs, also played a role.
In April 1918, Dybenko arrived with Kollontai in Samara
Samara, Russia
Samara , is the sixth largest city in Russia. It is situated in the southeastern part of European Russia at the confluence of the Volga and Samara Rivers. Samara is the administrative center of Samara Oblast. Population: . The metropolitan area of Samara-Tolyatti-Syzran within Samara Oblast...
, a city governed by local Leftist-SR party (Leftist-SR: Leftist-Socialist-Revolutionaries, see Socialist-Revolutionary Party
Socialist-Revolutionary Party
thumb|right|200px|Socialist-Revolutionary election poster, 1917. The caption in red reads "партия соц-рев" , short for Party of the Socialist Revolutionaries...
), along with Anarchists and some other non-Bolshevik groups, all opposing Bolsheviks and the Brest-Litovsk peace. Dybenko soon headed the local opposition, and from that remote town he published letters accusing Lenin of corruption, stealing 90 tons of gold, incompetence, terrorism, and of being a German agent.
The Samara opposition groups planned an armed revolt on May 15, 1918. However, one week prior to that date, Dybenko reappeared in Moscow. There he was pardoned and granted life, on the condition that he would never again meddle in politics. The Samara revolt was crushed by Bolshevik forces.
Dybenko left Moscow. In order to keep him as far as possible from the Baltic Navy, Lenin gave him a low-rank military job (a battalion commander, a lt.col equivalent) at the "No-man's land" between Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine was occupied by the German army as the outcome of the Brest peace
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, mediated by South African Andrik Fuller, at Brest-Litovsk between Russia and the Central Powers, headed by Germany, marking Russia's exit from World War I.While the treaty was practically obsolete before the end of the year,...
, and after the German capitulation and retreat of the German army, the situation there developed a chaos of "war of everybody against everybody".
During the Civil War
In the winter 1918, Dybenko troops conquered some towns near the Russian-Ukraine border in the Kharkov district. Dybenko tried then to cooperate with non-Bolshevik leftist political forces, especially with the Left SR, but also with Maximalists and Anarchists, all having some military forces, who tried to achieve independence in Ukraine. However, this attempt brought no results. The non-Bolshevik troops were disarmed.In the beginning of 1919, Dybenko unexpectedly received a general-rank appointment as the commander of the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
forces which invaded Ukraine (particularly, the 1st Trans-Dniepr division. This division had 10000 soldiers, and included the anarchist brigades of Makhno and Grigoriev
Nikifor Grigoriev
Nikifor Grigoriev was born Nychypir Servetnyk in a small village of Zastavlia was a paramilitary leader noted for numerous switching of sides and anti-Semitism...
). Trotsky selected him for this role because of his Ukrainian name and origin. It could help the Bolsheviks to pretend it was just another military force acting in the Ukrainian chaos, rather than an "official invasion".
During the spring of 1919, Dybenko's forces destroyed all non-Bolshevik political forces in Ukraine. In Dnipropetrovsk
Dnipropetrovsk
Dnipropetrovsk or Dnepropetrovsk formerly Yekaterinoslav is Ukraine's third largest city with one million inhabitants. It is located southeast of Ukraine's capital Kiev on the Dnieper River, in the south-central region of the country...
, he arrested and executed all S.R. activists. In Zaporozhie he executed the members of the local Soviet (elected local authority).
The Dybenko troops supplied their own needs robbing both the local population, and the trains carrying coal and provision to Russia.
In April 1919 Dybenko disregarded the orders of his superiors, and conquered Krym instead of moving his forces into the eastern Ukraine (Donbass). The result of this insubordination was, that the White army conquered Donbass, and later (August to December 1919) conquered the entire Ukraine. Dybenko created what he called "The Krymean Soviet Army", with 9000 men, independent from the Ukrainian Front. He created the Krymean Soviet Socialist Republic, and invited Lenin's brother Dmitry Ulianov, to be the prime minister there. Kollontai also joined him. For himself he reserved the appointment of the Army-and-Navy minister.
The regime which Dybenko established in Krymea was called "Dybenkism" by the leading Bolsheviks. By "Dybenkism" they meant some combination of anarchy, tyranny, and banditry. Trotsky said then that the whole Krymean army was infected by Dybenkism and stopped supplies to it. During his short reign, Dybenko terrorised national minorities in Krymea.
The Krymean Soviet Socialist Republic was rather short-lived. Soon Krym was reoccupied by Denikin. Dybenko fled to Ukraine, losing his army. Some of his soldiers deserted to Makhno's forces, some became independent bands fighting against the Red army and the White army simultaneously.
In September 1919 Dybenko appeared in Moscow, and entered the Red Army Academy. After one month he was appointed the commander of the Division No. 37, and sent to fight against the advancing white army at Tsaritsyn and Tula
Tula, Russia
Tula is an industrial city and the administrative center of Tula Oblast, Russia. It is located south of Moscow, on the Upa River. Population: -History:...
. He was put on Court Martial for unjustified executions of soldiers of his, but was found not guilty.
In March 1920 Dybenko was appointed commander of the Caucasian cavalry division, and in May 1920 - the Horseback division #2 of the Southern front. Due to Dybenko's lack of experience in cavalry warfare, his division #2 was crushed by the White-Guard cavalry led by General Barbovich (Барбович). After this event, the Bolshevik command could not entrust any cavalry to him, and he was recalled to Moscow to complete his studies.
After the civil war
In March 1921 Dybenko led, under the command of Tukhachevsky, the bloody suppression of the naval rebellion in KronstadtKronstadt rebellion
The Kronstadt rebellion was one of many major unsuccessful left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the Russian Civil War...
. The uprising was caused mainly by hunger. Following the military action, Dybenko created a court martial, that "Individually discussed each man's case, and issued and carried out 2103 death sentences in one day." The sentences were carried out mainly by drowning
Drowning
Drowning is death from asphyxia due to suffocation caused by water entering the lungs and preventing the absorption of oxygen leading to cerebral hypoxia....
the convicted mariners under the ice. 7 to 15 thousands more of seamen died in the Solovky concentration camp.
Dybenko won there his first Order of the Combat Red Banner
Order of the Red Banner
The Soviet government of Russia established the Order of the Red Banner , a military decoration, on September 16, 1918 during the Russian Civil War...
, then the USSR's supreme decoration. He received two more, in peace time, (12.2.1922, 19.4.22) for his excellency in suppression of peasants uprisings (One- for the Tambov uprising
Tambov Rebellion
The Tambov Rebellion which occurred between 1920 and 1921 was one of the largest and best-organized peasant rebellions challenging the Bolshevik regime during the Russian Civil War. The uprising took place in the territories of the modern Tambov Oblast and part of the Voronezh Oblast, less than...
, the second- unclear).
Dybenko wrote several books, all memoirs from the pre-revolution and revolution time. The high quality of these books was no match with his very low education and poor vocabulary. This led some historians to suspect he could not have written them, and they were indeed written by his wife Alexandra Kollontay.
In 1922 Dybenko finished (as an extern) the General Staff Military Academy. Alexandra Kollontai
Alexandra Kollontai
Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai was a Russian Communist revolutionary, first as a member of the Mensheviks, then from 1914 on as a Bolshevik. In 1919 she became the first female government minister in Europe...
admitted in her memoirs she wrote all his home assignments and his thesis. She also authored some army reform ideas, which Dybenko ascribed to himself. Soon their marriage collapsed, Dybenko attempted suicide, and Kollontai arranged a diplomatic mission for herself, just to be as far as possible from him. Dybenko was married two times more.
After finishing the Academy, Dybenko was appointed Commander of the Corps No.5 of the Red Army, and restored as a member of the Communist Party. Dybenko served between 1925 and 1928 as a head of the Artillery Directorate and the Supply Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army.
In 1928 he was sent to command the Middle-Asia military district. To mask his ignorance in military matters, he always preferred "the Iron Fist method". He created a Border-Guard and fought against smugglers. He suppressed the local nationalists and Muslim devotees with notable cruelty. He did not hesitate to attack civilians in the peace time, and to set flames to entire populated villages.
In 1930 Dybenko was sent, with a numerous group of other generals, to Germany.
In 1933 Dybenko was appointed the Volga military district commander. According to Stalin's well known method, his enemy of old, corps commander Kutiakov, a renowned hero of the Civil War, was assigned as Dybenko's deputy. Both wrote many slanderous letters against each other. This slander caused the liquidation of Kutiakov in 1937. Kutiakov was arrested by NKVD men in Dybenko's office, with Dybenko's personal assistance, and soon was shot. Dybenko himself suffered no harm. The Kutiakov's slander contained mainly the truth about Dybenko's brutality, drunkenness and incompetence. These accusations were known very well in the top level of the Soviet army. Tukhachevsky and Uborevich openly criticized him. But he wrote an explanatory letter to Voroshilov
Voroshilov
Voroshilov may refer to:*Kliment Voroshilov , Marshal of the Soviet Union*Viktor Voroshilov, Soviet footballer*Vladimir Voroshilov , Russian TV personality*Voroshilov, former name of Ussuriysk, Primorsky Krai, Russia...
(then: the Defence Minister) and was pardoned. Later in 1937, Dybenko assisted the NKVD in preparing Tukhachevsky's arrest.
Dybenko became a member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, was promoted to Komandarm second class ("Four Rombs", at that time it was equivalent to a 4 star general), and appointed the Leningrad military district commander after Yona Yakir's downfall. (Leningrad military district was always one of the most important districts, second only to Kiev)
Wherever he was, he loved rich life. For example, while serving in 1935—1937 as the Volga military district commander, he annexed an island on the Volga river, 57 square kilometers large, just for hunting entertainment for himself and his friends
Dybenko personally led the purges in the Leningrad military district in 1936-1937. In 1938 he participated, as a judge, in the trial of the Tukhachevsky group.
Downfall
Dybenko was among the officers purged from the Party in 1938. At first, he was moved from his command of the Leningrad Military District officially for "lack of trust" and appointed Deputy People's Commissar of Forestry industry, as a preparation to his own arrest, in order to disconnect him from his followers. Five days later, he was arrested and accused of personal corruption, immoral behavior, neglecting his duties as commander of military district, and with espionage in favor of the United States. The factual basis of the espionage accusation was that while he contacted (on duty) American diplomats, and asked them favors for his sister, who lived in the USA. Dybenko denied the espionage accusations. In his letter to Stalin he wrote, "I could not be an American spy. I even do not speak Americanish". However, he did not deny the accusations of using state funds to organize sex and alcohol orgies. The NKVDNKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
tortured him by putting him in a small iron box.
Zinaida Viktorovna Dybenko (Дыбенко Зинаида Викторовна), Dybenko's third wife, was arrested, charged with being a "ЧСИР" - "a member of traitor's family" and with failure to inform the authorities about her husband being a traitor and a spy. She was sentenced to five years in a the "Akmolinsk's camp for the wives of traitors to the Motherland"
He was sentenced to death, and shot. Twenty years later, following the death of Stalin, Dybenko was rehabilitated.
Books by Dybenko
- The Depths of the Tzarist Navy (В недрах царского флота), 1919;
- The Rebels (Мятежники), 1923;
- October on Baltics (Октябрь на Балтике) 1934;
- The Baltic revolutionaries (Революционные балтийцы)
- From the Depth of the Tzarist Navy to the Great October (Из недр царского флота к Великому Октябрю) free online full text, russian
Sources and references
- The Truth About Kronstadt - A translation of Pravda o Kronshtadte, The Truth about Kronshtadt, part of a Bates CollegeBates CollegeBates College is a highly selective, private liberal arts college located in Lewiston, Maine, in the United States. and was most recently ranked 21st in the nation in the 2011 US News Best Liberal Arts Colleges rankings. The college was founded in 1855 by abolitionists...
master's thesis by Scott Zenkatsu Parker. - Dybenko (Russian) an orthodox communist version of Dybenko's biography.
- Dybenko: Rebel and Hangman (Russian) A very detailed Dybenko biography from an anticommunist source (www.mahno.ru), emphasizing the 1917–1921 years.
- "How the People's Commissar Dybenko crushed the Germans at Narva", SuvorovViktor SuvorovViktor Suvorov is the pen name for Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun , a former Soviet and now British writer of Russian and Ukrainian descent who writes primarily in Russian, as well as a former Soviet military intelligence spy who defected to the UK...
's version of Dybenko's biography (free full text, Russian)
http://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/an-interview-with-george-levy/#more-11872