Pavel Dybenko

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Pavel Dybenko
Pavel Dybenko

Pavel Yefimovich Dybenko (Russian: Павел Ефимович Дыбенко) (February 16, 1889 - July 29, 1938) was a Russian revolutionary and a leading Soviet officer.

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[edit] Until the military service

Pavel Dybenko was born in Lyudkovo village, Novozybkov uyezd, Chernigov guberniya, Imperial Russia (now in Bryansk Oblast, Russia) in an ethnic Ukrainian peasant family. Obtained a basic education. From 1907 onward, Dybenko was active in a Bolshevik group. He started working in the Treasury, but was fired as "untrustable". He moved to Riga and hired himself as a port labourer. He tried to avoid recruiting, but was arrested and recruited forcibly.

[edit] Towards the October 1917 revolt

In November 1911, he joined the Baltic Fleet. The first half a year 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 describe it in full.

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. Tsentrobalt organized anti-war riots in the Baltic fleet. Many officers perished with their families just for being officers. Vladimir Mayakovsky mentions these events in his "Ode to the revolution" (russian, full free text.)

  • Drunken mob yells
  • Helping greyhead admirals
  • Down the bridge
  • Feet up heads down
  • In Helsinfors (Helsinfors = Helsinki, Finland, then a part of Russian Empire, was the main base of the Baltic fleet

[edit] Dybenko role in the October Revolution

As the leader of Tsentrobalt, Dybenko played an enormous role in the revolt. It is the ten warships that entered the city, ten thousand Baltic fleet mariners that actually took the power in Petrograd and put down the temporary government. The same mariners dispersed by power the elected parliament of Russia, and used machine-gun fire against protesting demonstrators in Petrograd. Petrograd, former St. Petersburg, Later renamed into Leningrad. About a hundred demonstrators were killed, and several hundreds were wounded. Dybenko in his memoirs mentioned this event as "several shots in the air".

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.

Dybenko was appointed the People's Comissar (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 actually managed all professional affairs of the Navy.

On Feb 18, 1918, the German army advanced towards Petrograd. The Lenin-Trotzky government sent Dybenko to defend Petrograd by the force of the Baltic Fleet. The later communist propaganda claimed, that revolutionary mariners achieved there a great victory on February 23, 1918. The 23 February was declared "The birthday of the Red Army". This day is celebrated in Russia and Ukraine ever since as a national holiday. A special military decoration, "20 years to the Soviet Army" was instituted for this occasion on February 1938. However this medal was never given to Dybenko himself.

Alexandra Kollontay, People's Comissar Social affairs, Dybenko's girlfriend or wife 1917-1922
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Alexandra Kollontay, People's Comissar Social affairs, Dybenko's girlfriend or wife 1917-1922

The truth is that Dybenko and his mariners, fled the field. Their whereabouts were unknown for at least a month. Lenin wrote in his famous article on 25 February, 1918, in Pravda evening edition: A lesson humiliating but neccessarry : Refused to fight,... refused to defend the Narva line, ...failed to destroy everything as they retreated...

The Germans were in fact stopped by the ex-Tzarist general Nikolayev who organized some retreating Russian soldiers to fight. (Source: Kiselev in Kievsjkie Vedomosty, №38 (3135), 21 feb 2004)

The defeat at Narva caused the Bolshevic government to sign the Brest peace. Another outcome was the transfer of the Bolshevik capital from Petrograd to Moscow.

The government issued an order to arrest Dybenko and to send him to Moscow. 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 peace, and tried to organize mariners to act against it. He was arrested. Only the intervention his girlfriend Alexandra Kollontay, then a People's Commissar of social affairs, the only female government member, spared his life.

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 save him. They threatened to open gunfire against the Kremlin and terrorize the bolshevik government members.

In April 1918, Dybenko arrived with Kollontay in Samara, a city governed by local Leftist-SR party (Leftist-SR: Leftist-Socialist-Revolutionaries), along with Anarchists, Maximalists and some other non-Bolshevik groups, all opposing Bolsheviks and the Brest peace. Dybenko soon headed the local opposition, and from that remote town he published letters accusing Lenin in corruption, stealing 90 tons of gold, incompetence, terrorism, and being 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, and after the German capitulation and retreat of the German army, the situation there developed a chaos of "war of everybody against everybody"

[edit] 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 leftish political factors, especially with the Leftish-S.R., 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 forces which invaded Ukraine (particularly, the 1st trans-dniepr division. This division had 10000 soldiers, and included the anarchist brigades of Makhno and Grigoriev). Trotzky 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 Dniepropetrovsk, 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. Kollontay also joined him. For himself he reserved the appointment of the Army-and-Navy minister.

The regime which Dymenko established in Krymea was called "Dybenkism" by the leading Bolsheviks. Dybenkism meant some combination of anarchy, tyranny, banditism. Trotzky said then that the whole Krymean army is 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 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 Tzarytzin (Later: Stalingrad) and Tula. He was put on Court Martial for unjustified executions of soldiers of his, but was found not guilty.

In March 1920 Dybenko vas appointed commander of the Caucasian cavalry division, and in May 1920 - the Horseback division #2 of the South front. Due to Dybenko's lack of experience in horseback warcraft, 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.

[edit] After the civil war

Dybenko in 1922, wearing the three rombs insignia of CorpsComander, and three RedBanner decorations
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Dybenko in 1922, wearing the three rombs insignia of CorpsComander, and three RedBanner decorations

In March 1921 Dybenko led, under the command of Tukhachevsky, the bloody suppression of the naval rebellion in Kronstadt. 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 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, 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, the second- unclear).

Dybenko wrote several books, all memoirs from the pre-revolution and revolution time. The high quality of these books 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. His wife Alexandra Kollontay 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 Kollontay arranged a diplomatic mission for herself, just to be as far as possible from him.

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 Border-Guard and fought against smugglers. He suppressed the local nationalists and moslem devotees with notable cruelty. He did not hesitate to attack civilians in the peace time, and to set flames to whole villages.

In 1930 Dybenko was sent, with a numerous group of other generals, to Germany.

In 1933 Dybenko is appointed the Volga military district commander. According to Stalin's well known method, his enemy of old, corps commander Kutiakov, a renown 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. However 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 (then: the Defence Minister) and was pardoned.

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 4 stars general). and appointed the Leningrad military district commander. (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 Volga river, 57 square kilometer large, just for hunting entertainment for himself and his friends (source, russian)

Dybenko was a deputate (=member) of the Supreme Soviet. Dybenko personally led the purges in the Leningrad military district in 1936-1937. In 1938 he participated, as a judge, the trial of Tukhachevsky group.

[edit] The fall

Dybenko was among the officers purged from the Party in the 1938s. At first, he was appointed Deputy People's Commisar of Forestry industry, as a preparation to his own arrest, in order to disconnect him from his devotees. 5 days later he was arrested and accused of personal corruption, immoral behaviour, neglecting his duties as a military district commander, along with espionage in the favour of the United States. The factual basis of the espionage accusation was that he contacted American diplomats with no authority to do so, and asked them favours 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 decline the accusations in using state funds to organize sex and alcohol orgies. (Source: Volkogonov, Triumph and Tragedy, V2, P269). The arrest can be explained as an extreme means to fight the corruption in the Red Army top ranks.

So he was sentenced to death, and shot. Twenty years later, following the death of Stalin, Dybenko was rehabilitated.

[edit] 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

[edit] Sources and references

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