latviski
Resisting the Bolshevik revolution
The 'great bloodless' revolution had taken place accompanied by the slogan - remove all obstacles which might delay the union of the people's forces with the allies in the successful struggle for final victory. This was the centrepiece of the people's wishes and aspirations. Yet there was much naivety and intellectual confusion in the hope of the people and the army that one could push aside with a light hand all that was strongest and most unshakeable in one's consciousness; it was expected that with speeches and with agitation alone, without any compulsion, those subjected to the new authority would purely in the name of reason and the 'discipline of conscience' advance into the enemy fire with even greater enthusiasm than they had done earlier when compelled to do so by the dictates of the old order.
To begin with - for at least a month - it seemed that, whatever was the case elsewhere, in Latvian regiments it might turn out this way. Already in the first days of the Revolution there had appeared the socalled 'Order No.l', which in the long run was to threaten the previous good relationship among the troops, but which the riflemen very tactfully - perhaps it was like this in all Latvian regiments - seemed to ignore. However, then there was the slogan: transform the imperialist war into a civil war. Here a strange foreign element crept in. Also the composition of the riflemen, including the officers, had become noticeably different. From Trotsky's memoirs we know that, bearing in mind the events of 1905, Lenin devoted greater activity to winning over the Latvian rifle regiments, sending especially talented agitators to them. Bolshevik societies were organized in each company and command.
For Germany this was a great relief. Ludendorff said of this: 'How often had I hoped for a Russian revolution to alleviate our position, but always it has turned out to be a fool's
Briedis, of course, did not look helplessly on at what was happening around him. In order to isolate those riflemen in the regiment who did not wish to adopt the Bolshevik position from the importunities of the agitators, he organised the so-called Iron Company. Already because of its past, the 1st regiment did not have a good reputation with the Bolsheviks. Now this company annoyed and alarmed them. Also, when the regiment went up to its positions, fraternisation began even in this regiment; but it was almost immediately broken off. 'The officers were guilty', said the former 1st regiment rifleman and pre-war social democrat-Bolshevik, I. Adamsons. Particularly after the 17/30 May resolution of the Latvian Rifle Regiment's executive committee relations between officers and men began to worsen sharply. It is obvious that they tried especially to blacken Briedis, though this turned out to be difficult.
Briedis still had not lost confidence in reason. The officers elected him and one other to the All-Russian Union of Officers which met with the Commander-in-Chief at Mogilev in the middle (Old Style) or end (New Style) of May 1917. A. Skrodelis who took part as a Russian division representative, said that Colonel Briedis came up to him after a pessimistic speech and said: 'Lt. Skrodelis, it's not so hopeless. Just believe and it won't be so. Something elemental has started, but it will also come to an end.' The professional power-seekers knew that reason is powerless against instincts which have been set free and excited. Briedis was elected to the leading position in the Union.
Attempts, too, to organise defences after the fall of Riga
The collapse went even further. At the end of October came the dismissal of commanders and the election of new ones. In many units this had already taken place earlier and in reality the officers hadn't any power at all since the middle of summer. Everything was determined by committees. Briedis finally realised that continuing to fight against the Germans in such conditions was impossible. To save the officers from humiliation, he used the rights he still possessed to issue certificates transferring them to the reserve of officers at Vitebsk. I cannot really find an explanation of resignation, except that it was connected with the Bolshevik Revolution in Petrograd.
On 25 October/7 November the Bolshevik organisation received news of the outbreak of revolution in Petrograd and, along with it an instruction for the regiment to go to Cēsis. The 'revolutionary leadership' of the regiment tried to delay its departure. Over the next few days some of the 'reactionary' officers escaped; among them was the regimental commander, Briedis. Particular officers were arrested on the instructions of the regimental committee. G. Krēsliņš said that after their dismissal from their posts and the movement of the regiment to Cēsis, Briedis and Bolšteins were arrested and placed under house arrest; but a few days later it appeared they had been released. In Valmiera the officers had received documents placing them in the officers' reserve at Vitebsk, where Briedis and Bolšteins were. The main organiser in Vitebsk was Colonel Briedis. At Vitebsk it was made known that those who wished could join a 'union for the defence of freedom and the motherland'2; almost all the Latvian officers who were in Vitebsk joined the union and, divided up into groups of five, they departed.
K. Būmanis said that Briedis had divided the Latvian officers at Vitebsk into Petrograd and Moscow groups for action. In Briedis' speeches can be heard appeals to fight for the Constituent Assembly, for that body had promised autonomy for Latvia which could not be expected from the Bolsheviks.
As far as Briedis' arrest at that time is concerned, according to the Latvian
In such a way must stand out, both in the regiment and among riflemen in general, one who laid the most splendid foundation for his reputation.
The author himself visited General Goppers and Colonel Briedis when they, having set off and stopped in Valka, subsequently failed to turn up. I found them in a small, narrow hut; for some reason Briedis had been feeling ill and was in bed. He did not say anything. The Latvians were not on their own the majority of the guards - there were never so many of them as they proclaimed, and some units were Latvian in name only. Not a few of the simple riflemen, but also a greater part of the Latvian intelligentsia who took part in the war were on the opposite side - with the intention of fighting against the Bolsheviks, against a 'transformation of war into civil war' - and for the true aim of the revolution, the Constituent Assembly, which had already been democratically elected and expressed the wishes of the inhabitants at that time. On this side were not the privileged, but the oppressed; not only those who were comparatively well provided with worldly goods, but often those in want. Briedis strove to be active in this area. This side of the Latvians' struggle and the troubles they incurred has been much neglected, while on the Bolshevik side everything that took place has been lauded to the heavens and in the usual hyperbolic manner.
So, on 13 December 1917, collaborating with Goppers in Petrograd were gathered approximately 120 former officers from the Latvian riflemen who, as platoon and group commanders, must have been part of those regiments which had originally promised to defend the Constituent Assembly. At the last minute these regiments repudiated that decision. Here one has to ask what has become of these several thousand Russian officers who in November had been gathered together in reserve in Vitebsk? So too the group of Latvian officers must have scattered, each their own way.
At the end of January Goppers, who was supposed to have joined his family, was still staying in Moscow with several officers hoping to meet Briedis. He knew that about 40 Latvian officers were with him. Briedis had already been acquainted for more than a month with their circumstances and was hoping that a strong officers' organisation would be created to cleanse Moscow from
Conferences with the officers' groups pointed to even more comforting numbers of supporters. But when one began to check it turned out to be otherwise. In one group where there were 60 members on the books, only four could be located. Other groups too were not much more substantial. So to our surprise it was the Latvian group which, in the end, turned out to be the strongest. Thus checking the strengths gave a shattering picture. At the same time Briedis and Goppers explained to them one other incomprehensible circumstance. In the 'Central Staff' which had just been founded, nobody wanted anything to do with officers who belonged to the Socialist Revolutionaries, and also an otherwise more strongly organised group which supported the Constituent Assembly. Here, too, another factor came to the fore: it turned out that within the staff and outside it one got the impression of a group with a pro-German orientation. This group as well as the Bolsheviks was, through the mediation of a minister of the Tsar, conducting 'peace talks' and had even concluded 'peace,' whereupon, according to Briedis' information, they had received money from the Germans. Such a situation was completely unacceptable to Briedis and Goppers. Moreover, as Briedis had in all this time received only 3,000 roubles for the maintenance of the Latvian group from the representative of Alekseyev, he and Goppers had considered liquidating the whole enterprise. But suddenly it was as if some other possibility existed.
One evening, probably in the middle of March, Briedis called on Goppers in complete secrecy, dressed in civilian clothes (in which Goppers had never seen him) and invited Goppers to go with him, but not saying where. Going by an circuitous route Briedis took Goppers to a house where he introduced him to Savinkov. There is nothing in Goppers' narrative that tells us that Briedis had met Savinkov much earlier, but Briedis must somewhat earlier have been connected with that organisation which Savinkov
Savinkov's idea was: to found in Moscow a completely non-party association of officers who took, as their aim, the bringing about of the collapse of Bolshevik power and the continuing of the war against Germany. After the collapse of the Bolshevik regime a military dictatorship was to be set up with a working cabinet. Some popular general would be chosen as chief of the officers' association. All this was also in line with the views of Goppers and Briedis and, although Savinkov just then did not have the means to support such an association, they were happy to meet him. For the present the group of Latvian officers was the only hope and, indeed, the nucleus too for Savinkov's projected association. A miniature staff was set up, where Briedis took control of the intelligence section while Goppers was the general on duty. The overall command and coordination of all activities fell to Savinkov himself.
Their activities were made more difficult because of their conspiratorial nature; nevertheless Briedis entered into his duties with unusual speed and success. Already in the course of a month he was able to provide all sorts of interesting information, for he had men on all the Bolshevik staffs. Some of it was quite surprising - for instance, concerning the patrols which were instructed to capture Savinkov. Particularly interesting were data about the Bolshevik forces in Moscow at that moment. It turned out that the most reliable of the Bolshevik forces were two groups of sailors and the three red regiments of the 1st rifle brigade. They were few in numbers - about 400 bayonets each. The Latvian red troops would also not constitute a great problem. On the other hand, there were about 53,000 German troops, of whom about 7,000 had been sent from the front, while the remainder had come from German prisoners of war. In Moscow itself three German staffs were active and their intelligence was excellent for they maintained connections with the Bolsheviks and the anti-Bolsheviks. Against such large German forces in Moscow no success could be hoped for (unless the Germans wished it), and consequently the military activity of Savinkov's organisation was transferred to the provinces.
Briedis' activities in the conspiracy and at intelligence gathering were very successful, yet it was not at all as it had been during the war. Here it was different, especially in the case of those whom he had sent, or who had gone on their own initiative, to work in Bolshevik institutions, especially the Cheka. He always advised them to get in wherever they could and to take on responsible positions. But at the same time he had to be wary of such people.
On the other side they were not self-taught conspirators but professionals, who often themselves had once worked simultaneously for the Okhranka and for their own revolutionary organisations. It seemed that Briedis was not able to understand how an officer, and a Latvian officer to boot, could be a traitor. Such a man was Captain-Lieutenant A. Erdmanis (formerly a sailor, then an officer in the 2nd rifle regiment and later on the intelligence staff of the 12th Army), who, under the name of Birze and with the appropriate papers, had gained the trust of the British Military Mission. He had obviously enjoyed Briedis' trust too. When Erdmanis was arrested in Liepaja, they found on him documents which proved that he was also well in with the Cheka - for instance, he had a certificate issued by Dzerzhinski himself, stating that comrade Birze was to proceed without delay3 on a mission
Latvians targeted, Bolsheviks execute Briedis
In the middle of May a Sister of Mercy informed the commander of the Latvian riflemen in the Kremlin that a rising was expected in Moscow in the next few days, and a pitiless revenge was to be exacted of the Latvian riflemen in particular. She had been told this by a cadet, Ivanov, who had fallen in love with her and who was undergoing treatment in the Pokrovskii Hospital. He was very insistent that this Sister should leave Moscow for the present and thus escape the troubles and dangers. The Sister's name is not mentioned in the Cheka documents, but it is thought that she was a Latvian woman, for why otherwise should Ivanov have begged her to go away and why should she have gone and warned the Latvians?
The Sister's information was given to the Cheka, whereupon they immediately began an investigation of Ivanov. Under interrogation he confessed, naming various officers, among them the chief of the Moscow organisation, Pinka. He provided Pinka's address and the latter was arrested. Pinka, for his part, expressed a readiness to betray the whole organisation if his life was spared; and this promise was given. As the protocol shows, Pinka really did do this mentioning both the details of Savinkov's appearance and dress and the names of his closest collaborators, addresses, passwords and details of about 500 men and many weapons and where a billeting party was driven to from Moscow on 29 May. Of the Latvians Pinka mentioned only Goppers, but at least in the pulished protocol he did not mention Briedis or any other Latvian.P. Dardzāns tells how in June in Kazan he caught sight of Briedis in the street riding in a cab. Briedis said that he had come to organise a Latvian anti-Bolshevik group. Dardzāns replied that he should not meddle in Russian affairs, for all trust in the Russians had been lost at the front. 'You are right, Dardzāns', Briedis answered, 'but one must fight against scoundrels. Also we Latvians dare not lose heart.' Dardzāns could not find any answer to this, so he too allowed himself to be enrolled in the combat group. Since Briedis had nowhere to stay Dardzans offered to put him up. Soon several 1st regiment officers had gathered and were bedded side by side. After a few days Pinka too turned up with some very strange news. He said
Upon hearing this, one of Dardzāns' friends wasted no time in making off. Dardzāns had known Pinka as a very heroic officer, but he recalled having warned Briedis after this story, and thought that Briedis then made a mistake in returning to Moscow. As we now know, they would have arrested him in Kazan - surely he must have been under observation - and it only depended on the Chekists themselves at what time they would do it.
General Bangerskis also wrote that Briedis' and Goppers' actions in Moscow were foolhardy. When Bangerskis arrived in Moscow, he went to call on General Auzans in the Topographical Office of the Ministry of War. In Auzans' office he also met Goppers and Briedis, and it was there that they agreed to send a group of soldiers to Iaroslav and, indeed, elsewhere. Later in the flat Briedis told him that he was officially on railway duty, but considered himself to be at the same time the head of the intelligence section of the Union for the Defence of Freedom and the Motherland, and was in receipt of funds from Savinkov for his activities. Now that the establishment for the formation of the new Red Army had been announced, the possibility existed for the formation in certain units and staffs of select cadres which could, at the appropriate moments be given tasks to perform. In the first place attention should be paid to Iaroslavl' and the Volga region for the formation of units. At the same time he would do all he could to ensure that the riflemen should be sent across the Urals and should not be enrolled in the Red Army. Mrs Lianozova, Briedis' landlady, also took part in these lively discussions around the coffee table. Taking our leave we were surprised to find the flat doors ajar. Briedis checked the action of the handle but it was perfectly in order. Going down I heard a slight noise below the stairs. I went out of the door and quickly moved away, and then looked again. I was not mistaken for a dark figure immediately slipped out behind me. Fortunately there were passers-by in the street which gave me the opportunity of mingling with the crowd; having made several turns, I got on to a tram; then after a minute, I shifted to another tram and at that time evaded possible followers.'
R. Bauze, one of Latvia's major communists, 'Chief of the Political Section of the Latvian Rewoensovet',4 wrote: 'The executive committee of the riflemen began a bitter struggle against the nationalist and counterrevolutionary organisations. The Latvian Nationalist (Soldiers') Union was closed down and activists handed over to a revolutionary tribunal for their connections with counter-revolutionary organisations. On the instructions of the Iskolastrel,5 F. Briedis was arrested and shot.' No mention is made of any trial.
After the suppression of the Left-Social Revolutionary uprising of 6 July in Moscow many arrests were made. Briedis' secret staff had become known to the Bolsheviks. There, on 22 July 1918, he himself was arrested, as were the former adjutant of the 2nd regiment, the very serious and thorough Captain Rubiss, and several other Latvian officers. On the night of 28 August in the Butyrki prison Briedis and Rubiss were shot.
During the approximately five weeks that Briedis spent in captivity many attempts were made to free him: whether by bribing the guards to escape along with Briedis; or by organising an armed patrol which would free him by force as he was being transferred; or by attempting to influence the riflemen; or by making appeals to the Rewoensovet and other bodies, citing Briedis' exceptional military merits and asking for him to be pardoned. All of these proved to be vain. Besides, Erdmanis-Birze, whom the Defence Ministry was holding in custody in the prison in Liepaja, had been released by the Germans after the uprising of 16 April 1918.6 The Niedra government7 appointed him commander of the newly formed 2nd brigade and the protocol of the interrogation disappeared together with the Cheka documents which had been taken from him. After the defeat of von der Goltz and Niedra he lived, according to our information, in Paris. It has been written elsewhere that Mrs Lianozova was apparently an accomplice of his. We don't know how true this was or how much she knew about Erdmanis-Birze.
People who were connected with the rescue attempts mainly blame Erdmanis and he blames others. I interrogated Erdmanis but, as has already been said, the protocol disappeared after Erdmanis was set free by the Germans following the 16 April putsch in Liepaja. As far as I can remember, he said (which, of course, does not have any great significance) that it had all been
The Provisional National Council's Foreign Department in Petrograd, said J. Seskis, waited impatiently for the telegram concerning the results of the attempts to save him (Briedis). The telegram did not come. At this point I read one day in the Moscow Izvestiia that Briedis had been sentenced to death and the sentence had been carried out. So Briedis had been twice betrayed: first, as an anti-Bolshevik agitator, and second, in that it has been divulged that there had been plans to save him 'by stealing him away'.
In this matter, and also in the collection of the money and in the bribery version, the Cheka was immediately and closely implicated (for example, through Erdmanis, but in Briedis' opinion, still others were involved) but if anyone came upon this he too disappeared into the Cheka. It is very possible that all the suggestions about collecting the money and the 'plans' were inspired by those parties who wanted to skim off the resources of the anti-Bolshevik movement - of which there was not much - and at the same time to justify the speedy shooting of Briedis.
All those plans to use bribery and to free him (of which there are various versions after the model of the detective novel) are more than doubtful. Before which court then were the 'counter-revolutionaries' taken at that time? Also, Briedis would not have been handed over for transportation to a tiny group of riflemen. Besides, if one allows that at that time men could more easily be bought than at others, then the riflemen whom they wished to buy off were not either poor or hungry while in the Bolshevik service.
But that is how it is in the world! Also, one of the principal accessories to Briedis' death, Robert Bauze, perished like many others in the 'purges' of their own kind by the Communists in 1937. Such was their gratitude in this case.
The transformation of war into civil war, amidst countless other sacrifices demanded also, it seemed, the sacrifice of a most brilliant soldier (I do not think that this can be counted an exaggeration) who had come from our people, or indeed from other peoples which are much larger.
To such an extent is the life of the elect usually of short duration: indeed it seems to disappear in a flash.
Coda
David Guild's translation ends here. Ours continues.
He had looked into the eyes of Death herself too often, to have met her as a stranger.
*
Briedis is resurrected in Virza's↗ "Night Parade":
Across the swamp, which men flee, where rarely the wolf strays,—
This night, a great blizzard swirls, who knows, how long it will last.
And the spirits of the winds and storms whistle, the snow itself wails and wails,
And it swirls in the air and upon a land which fear and slumber have embraced.
And within this caterwauling blizzard, which, it seems, has been roiling since prehistory,
Are heard the breaths of lungs, breathing, and heard the shouts of commands.
Regiment after regiment appears. Are they materializing up from the earth or out of the sky?
The wind wails in their hollow eyes, and the whistling snow falls in.
Where are they heading, in this werewolf night, when all has hid in fear,
These macabre troops with their grenades, machine guns, and flintlocks?
And at their front, upon a horse, can be seen some young colonel,
From his forehead leers the hole, where the wicked shot has struck,
And he summons his adjutant, and whispers in his ear: "Go,
And check if eight regiments are here as ordered."
And the adjutant gallups upon his horse across the field, where the maelstrom rules.
And having returned, announces: "They are here, colonel, and await."
The colonel gestures slowly with his hand, and all then slither forth,
With their grenades, machine guns, flintlocks, they disappear into the snow and storm
They are blown away like snow in the field, nowhere to be seen.
Who could this leader be, who holds a parade in night and blizzard?
Across the swamp, which men flee, where rarely the wolf strays,—
This night, a great blizzard swirls, who know, how long it will last!
That soul-blizzard rises then in to the sky, at Christmas,
And wails and swirls across Latvia and shall wail eternal.
ESSELTE AKTIEBOLAG
STOCKHOLM 1963
| 1 | "Castle in the air." |
| 2 | Rather than the more common "tēvzeme," Briedis summons the more evocative "dzintarzeme," land of amber. |
| 3 | "that his car is not to be detained" |
| 4 | Revvoensovet was the acronym for Revoliutsionnyi voennyi sovet (Military Revolutionary Council).—D.G. (original footnote) |
| 5 | Iskolastrel was the acronym for Ispolnitel'nyi komitet latyshskikh strel'nikov (Executive Committee of the Latvian Riflemen).—D.G. (original footnote) |
| 6 | An account is in Georg von Rauch, The Baltic States: The Years of Independence, 1917-1940, London 1974, pp.60-61: 'The Latvian Government then tried to strengthen its own army by introducing conscription. But von der Goltz objected to this move - which was, of course, designed to reduce the imbalance between the German and Latvian armed strength - whereupon the Latvians appealed to the Western Allies. At this point a detachment of shock attached to the 'Baltische Landeswehr' decided to take matters into their own hands. Led by their youthful commander, Baron Hans von Manteuffel, who acted without von der Goltz's authority, these troops overthrew the Latvian Government on 16 April in the Liepaja putsch. Premier Ulmanis and most of his ministers managed to avoid arrest and sought sanctuary aboard a British warship'.—D.G. (original footnote) |
| 7 | After the putsch the leaders of the Baltic German community settled on Andrievs Niedra, a pastor and writer, and an adversary of Ulmanis of long standing, as a politician who might be willing to co-operate with them. Niedra's cabinet of six Latvians and three Germans commanded little support, for he was regarded as little more than a puppet of the German forces occupying Latvia. See further in von Rauch, op. cit., p.61.—D.G. (original footnote) |
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