Chapter 2

It was late, after midnight, and Rhykov still sat at his desk going over his supply problems. The rest of his staff had found places to sleep and only Olga, trying to get the erratic phone network working, remained on duty.

"It's dead," she announced, going into her boss and stretching, "I'm tired."

"Fuck!" Rhykov muttered, "get some sleep, I'll try myself, later."

"They say the lines are down, maybe the snow or sabotage?"

"This will always happen. We must set up a messenger system, with way points where they can change horses. A Corps of Signals, perhaps, and rope in some telephone engineers to repair the wire. Perhaps we could then base crews at these points, here and here..."

"Rhykov, you need to rest, you overwork yourself."

"I'm used to it."

"Rhykov?" she said, her voice changing subtly, "where are you going to sleep?" He shrugged, "I have a fire in the other room. I found some coal, perhaps you'd..."

"But where would you sleep?"

"We could share?" she said.

"That wouldn't be proper," Rhykov replied, "I will doss down in the corner here, or at my desk."

"Proper?" Olga said, raising her eyebrows, "Nestor Machno said that's a very bourgeois way of thinking. He said that men and women should be free to choose who they want, unencumbered by property considerations and..."

"He would," Rhykov muttered.

"What do you mean by that?"

"It sounds, Olga dear, like Nestor Machno knows all the tricks in the book to get women into his bed, besides paying for it like an honest man."

"You think an honest man pays?" she asked, a hint of emotion in her tone.

"One way or the other. Either he pays with good coin, or he gives away his heart and soul. The result is always the same, he's left only with spare change." Olga fell silent, thinking. After a long pause, she walked up beside Rhykov at his desk. "Something else?" he asked her.

"You have no room in your heart for love?"

"Olga... I can't give what I don't have." He looked upwards at her face. Her brown eyes stared fixedly at his.

"Nestor didn't love me either," her voice was stricken with emotion, her eyes moistening, "he just wanted to... pull down my pants when he wanted sex."

"Did he now? I'm sorry, Olga, it is sad but there're always some men who'll always take advantage of the innocent and inexperienced. They'll..."

"Oh, I wanted him to, Rhykov, he was always gentle with me. He made me feel special."

"Then he'd be off screwing someone else, Olga? Does that seem like he thought you were special? Or convenient?"

"I don't know," she replied, tears streaking her cheek. "You're different," she sobbed, "you treat me as an equal, with dignity. You don't force yourself... for... your own amusement."

"I don't stand on snails and I don't rape the innocent."

"It wouldn't be rape," she said, hastily.

"It would as far as I'm concerned. You are too young to know your own mind... no... hear me out. You are a very attractive girl, bright, intelligent, creative, and you flatter me that someone such as you would want to sleep with me. But you need to fall in love with someone nearer your own age, someone who has the love you seek aplenty to keep you warm during the Winter. I was born in destitution as a slave to my adoptive family. My heart was ripped out from an early age and all I have now is an instinct for survival, mine. The army taught me duty and comradeship, not love, and my survival depends on that. You are a comrade, Olga, and as such you are as near to me as it's possible. I would fight for you, stand by you on the field of battle. I will always come back for you if you're captured by the enemy, the same as I would for anyone of my unit. But don't ask me to be your lover. It would be like me fucking Sergei or one of the others."

"You fuck men?" she asked, aghast. He looked up and found she had a smile on her face, through the tears.

Rhykov chuckled, "not if there's sheep in the paddock."

The next morning, Rhykov awoke with a start. He was slumped in a corner of his office with a heavy greatcoat over him. Near his ear he could feel the warm caress of someone's breath.

Olga had squeezed in next to him against the wall and lay fast asleep against his back. Sighing, Rhykov, unsuccessfully, tried to dismiss from his mind the sensation of her two rubbery breasts underneath her loose uniform shirt.

In January 1918 Leon Trotsky and the peace delegates at Brest-Litovsk had broken off negotiations with the Central powers. Their demands for territory and reparations had been too extravagant and Trotsky had declared, 'no peace, no war.'

That this was a bizarre and confusing position to take was obvious to everyone, but then, the Bolsheviks believed they were on the verge of a World Revolution. In that context, they were certain the 'International Proletariat' would be inspired by their stand and rebel against their bourgeois governments.

The German proletariat, however, remained loyal to their Kaiser for the present and the German army failed to mutiny. Instead, they ground steadily on, into the Ukraine and the Russian Baltic States.

On February the 18th, Trotsky signed the Treaty on behalf of the Bolshevik Government in Moscow. The deal granted Germany and Austria control of the Ukraine and the Black Sea ports of Odessa and Sevastopol. The White Forces withdrew in the face of this professional army to the Don region. Likewise, the Machnovistas retreated back to the Carpathians.

On the other hand, the Nationalists of the Ukrainian Rada thrived under German patronage and declared independence, 'in partnership with the German Kaiser.'

The Kiev Soviet and the Ukrainian Red Guard units prepared to withdraw over the border into Russia. Komdiv Rhykov's orders were to proceed to Orel, some 800 kilometres away, to cover the Southern approaches to Moscow. Orel, in the Central Russian Highlands, the 'Sredne Russkaya Vozvyshennost, ' was a good place to draw a defence line and Rhykov had no quibble with Sovnarkom. It was on the railway, had good lines of retreat and advance, and could be supplied easily from the Centre. Most of all, it had plenty of high ground and a river line, the Oka. Strong positions around Orel could not be ignored or bypassed without risking all-important lines of supply.

The Kiev Division was to be under the authority of General Tukhachevsky, however, that General had more important fish to fry at the moment. In the meantime, Rhykov answered to none other than his friend, Ukrainian Kommissar Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko.

True to his word, Olga was pleased that Rhykov transported as many of the landless peasants as he could to the border. He even provided them with grain, in violation of his orders, although that grain had been stolen from them in the first place. She knew he would, she felt she had the measure of the man.

The Division left the Ukrainian Soviet at Belgorod, so they could continue as a 'Soviet in exile.' The Soviet promptly sent back cadres into Ukraine to 'educate the masses' and prepare the way for their return. They even managed to establish contacts with the Machnovistas and several of their representatives were co-opted onto the Soviet as 'associate delegates.' In future, the Red Army and the Black Guard would be working together against 'the common bourgeois enemy.'

It took the Kiev Division over a week to get to Orel. Snow storms and drifts, breakdowns and lack of good quality coal for the locomotives caused frequent delays. Red Guardsmen finally hacked down nearly a whole forest and crammed the wood into every crevice on the trains. Thus wood-fired, the trains arrived in Orel spitting showers of sparks with the locomotives blackened with soot.

Orel had been founded in the 16th century by Ivan the IVth as a fortress against the Tartars. It was arranged like a citadel, with roads leading out from the old fort in radii fashion. In 1917 it was an important railway junction and commanded all points, North, South, East and West.

Most of the 80,000 population had stayed at the outbreak of the Revolution. As an important town, the Orel Soviet had already laid out defence positions centred on the old fort. That fort had been reinforced with modern artillery and local Red forces had sandbagged and bolstered the old defences with barricades.

Other Red Guard Divisions had already arrived when the long trains carrying the Kiev Division arrived. Nearly 30,000 troops were quartered in the city and surrounding countryside. Komdiv Rhykov was immediately called to a conference by Ovseenko, who had overall control, together with the other senior officers.

"Comrades," he announced, "the defence of the Revolution is in our hands..." Rhykov sensed he was about to be bored to tears and patiently waited to be told where to dispose his Division. "Training!" shouted Ovseenko. Rhykov was shaken awake. "You must train your men hard..."

"They are trained," Rhykov protested, "most of my men are experienced soldiers! Give us something to do and an enemy to fight!"

"Of course, Comrade Rhykov," Ovseenko smiled indulgently, "we are all aware of the excellence of your Division, equal, if I may say, to our fine Latvian comrades." There was a faint murmur of agreement, "but many of our soldiers," he continued, "have not had the benefit of your leadership and experience..." Rhykov sensed he was being made a fool of and bristled. "Perhaps, therefore, you might consider taking charge of the Corps?" Rhykov subsided, the wind well and truly taken out of his sails.

"The Corps?" Olga bounced excitedly upon hearing the news, "you are to take on the whole Corps?"

"Now hold on," Rhykov pleaded, "you should see the bunch they're giving me..."

"Yes, but you'll soon lick them into shape."

"I wish I had your confidence," he muttered, "half of them don't even have rifles and I doubt not more than three out of five know their left foot from their right. Where the fuck do I start?"

"From the beginning," Olga replied, "make them feel like soldiers. You know how to do it. I've seen the way the Kievans look up to you. You give them confidence."

"Well, maybe," he said in that self-effacing way that always appealed to Olga, "but we had a core of trained Guardsmen that were able to pass on their knowledge to the recruits. This lot will need to learn how to march, deploy, fire a rifle..."

"So, who taught you?"

"Army instructors, the best there were."

"So, you have a Division of instructors, haven't you? The Kiev Division!"

"Sure, but will Ovseenko allow me to use them?"

"Ask him, he'll do anything you ask. Don't you know?"

"Know what?"

"That Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko worships the ground you walk on."

"What? Me? Why?" Rhykov said, aghast.

"Because, Komcor Rhykov, Ovseenko is not a very good soldier. Don't you see how he asks your advice, in subtle ways so you don't notice? Then he hands back your own words as your orders as if they came from him. Don't you see that?"

"He does? You sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. Ask any of your men? Who would they follow into battle, Antonov-Ovseenko or Rhykov? Ask them?"

"Well, I suppose..."

Rhykov wasn't sure whether he believed the girl. Nevertheless he decided to ask Ovseenko if he could use the Kiev Division as instructors for his Corps. The Kommissar readily agreed and that afternoon the orders arrived. When he returned to his headquarters he tried to avoid Olga's smug expression. She didn't even ask what the decision had been, she knew already.

In the months that followed, the Whites of the Volunteer Army consolidated their hold on the Don Region. Alexiev had fallen ill and had been replaced by General Kornilov. He, in turn, would be replaced by Deniken after Kornilov died of his wounds following a skirmish. It would be some months, towards the end of the year in fact, before they'd display any aggression. Meanwhile, they contented themselves with routing out alleged Bolsheviks throughout the territory under their control. This included the Jewish population, hounded out of their homes and massacred in one of the worse progroms for 100 years. Apologists would later claim that this wasn't perpetrated with the knowledge of Deniken. How he failed to notice this happening under his very nose is hard to believe, yet he refused to intervene.

But in Ufa, in the Western Urals, a conference of Anti-Bolshevik forces had resulted in a fight. One group, that led by Admiral Kolchak, had arrested the other, the Socialist Revolutionaries, and later executed them. He then formed an uneasy alliance with the Czech Legion disposed along, and in possession of, the Trans-Siberian Railway. But that alliance was toxic from the start and they'd eventually fall out altogether.