§ 68. Should army officers be elected, or should they be appointed from above?

The army of the capitalist State, based upon universal military service, is mainly composed of peasants and workers, under the command of officers drawn from the nobility and the bourgeoisie. When in our old programme we demanded the election of officers, our aim was to ensure that the army command should be taken out of the hands of the exploiting classes. We were assuming that the army might be democratized while political power still remained in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Of course the idea was utterly unrealizable, for no bourgeoisie in the world could ever be expected to hand over without resistance the military apparatus of oppression. But in the struggle against militarism, in the campaign against the privileges of the officers' caste, our demand for the election of officers proved of enormous importance, and it was no less important owing to the way in which it contributed to the general disintegration of the imperialist armies.

The Red Army, on the other hand, is under proletarian control. The workers administer it through the central soviet organs, which they themselves elect. In all grades of army life, the proletariat is in control through the instrumentality of the communist commissars, who both at the front and at the rear are mainly drawn from among the workers. In these circumstances, the question of electing officers becomes a question of purely technical significance. The matter of real importance is that we should know what will make the army, in its present condition, the most efficient fighting force. From this point of view, will it be best to elect the officers, or to appoint them from above? When we take into consideration that our Red Army is mainly recruited from among the peasantry, when we recall the hardships to which it is exposed, its exhaustion by two wars, and the low level of class consciousness among the peasants who have joined the army - it will become obvious to us that the practice of electing officers cannot fail to exercise a disintegrating influence in our forces. Of course this does not exclude the possibility that in different circumstances the election of officers might do no harm; for instance, in volunteer units, firmly compacted out of men who all possess strong, revolutionary sentiments. Here, election would throw up practically the same officers as those who would have been appointed from above. As a general rule, however, the election of officers, although it may be regarded as an ideal method, would for practical reasons prove dangerous and harmful at the present juncture. But by the time the working masses who are now enrolled in the Red Army have risen to a level at which the election of officers will be useful and necessary, it is probable that there will be no further need for armies in the world.