In March it was reported that four of the People's Commissaries had gone
south to organize troops for guerrilla warfare. This idea, however, was
soon abandoned. Trotzky insisted upon the necessity of having a strictly
disciplined army of 300,000 to 750,000 men, under regular officers. "We
cannot," he said, "preserve the illusion that European capital will
patiently suffer the fact that in Russia the power is in the hands of
the working class. * * * We are surrounded by enemies on all sides. If
it were proposed to France to return Alsace, the French Bourse would
sell Russia tomorrow." On April 2 M. Podvoisky, Assistant Commissary of
War, stated that Russia would form an army of 1,500,000 men, and that
the Red Army of Volunteers was steadily growing. The army organization
has been changed with a view to limiting the application of the elective
principle. According to some reports the Bolsheviki are hoping to have
an army of 500,000 by the Fall. Some of the leaders went so far as to
advocate compulsory military service. On April 10 Leon Trotzky was
appointed joint Minister of War and Marine.
On the previous day the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets
unanimously passed a resolution ruling that henceforth Russia's national
flag would be a red banner bearing the inscription: "_Rossiyskaya,
Sotzialisticheskaya Federativnaya Sovetskaya Respublika_," (Russian
Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.) Proposing the measure, the
Chairman said: "The Russian flag will have to wave over the embassies in
Berlin and Vienna and we cannot have the old tricolor, so I think it
most proper to adopt the red flag under which we fought and gained
victory."