Tallinn December 1st 1924

On 1 December 1924, as according to the then Estonian Defence minister, General Jaan Soots, “the existence of free Estonia was put to a severe test.”[1] Early that morning the small nation came under unconventional attack which was to be followed by a conventional invasion. The following will examine these events leading up to the situation and its significance for contemporary defense issues.

Between 1918 – 1920 Estonia successfully defended its independence against the invading Russian Bolshevik Red Army. Although the Estonian armed forces were often outnumbered in 5 to 3 to 1, the Red Army was driven out Estonian territory which then successfully defended.[2] The failure of the Red Army has parallels to failure its successor Russian armed forces in the Ukrainian nearly hundred years later, politicalized command system unable to make timely and accurate decisions, use of “meat tactics” against defended positions, and low morale of impressed troops and mercenaries. The Estonian War of Independence ended with the Treaty of Tartu negotiated in December 1919. The Estonians were supported by the British Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force in their independence struggle, both the British officials and Estonian political and military leaders realized that they could not ask Estonia’s small population, who had made great sacrifices, to engage in a forever war against Bolshevism. This differed from the policy other allied governments such as the United States which wanted the war against Bolshevism to continue and restoration of an “indivisible Russia.” What perhaps pushed the negotiations along was leverage of British sea power, Commander A.W.S. Agar on behalf of Admiral Walter Cowan, commander of the British Baltic Squadron, gave the message to the Bolshevik peace negotiators, if the Bolsheviks wanted to continue fighting the Royal Navy would destroy everything with a red flag that floated in the Gulf of Finland once navigation season opened again in spring 1920. That was the stick, the carrot was that if the Bolsheviks agreed to a fair peace, the Royal Navy would clear a channel of mines, trade could resume on the Baltic and food ships could reach Petrograd.[3]

The war ended, but the lesson to the Soviet leadership that in a future invasion of Estonia and the other Baltic Countries was that they would have to destabilize the governments, paralyze mobilization, and overrun the countries before assistance could arrive from the Royal Navy and other allied forces.[4] In 1920, the Red Army began to develop unconventional warfare doctrine. Leading this development was General Alexander Ivanovich Verhovsky, a well-known Red Army leader and military theorist. In 1924, the Red Army published a foundational doctrinal publication on the conduct of war authored by Verhovsky. This publication Red Army Manual - Regulations for Field War was produced as pocket sized grey book. Most of the manual borrowed heavily from the William Balck, the German army's foremost tactical writers in the period from Russo - Japanese War to 1914. What was very different from the Balck’s ideas on conventional warfare - infantry tactics and employment of cavalry and artillery, etc. – was Chapter Fourteen which dealt the organization and suppression of revolts.[5] This chapter outlined in detail, Soviet doctrine for unconventional warfare. Of course, this military doctrine was closely tied with political ideology, in 1924 - the Red Army saw its primary role as the instrument to spread Communism from Russia to the rest of the world. Verhovsky outlined a three phased integrated political – military strategy for offensive action against countries on borders of Soviet Russia. In the first phase of operations, for the purpose of destroying enemy morale and creating “political bases on hostile territory,” the following actions were to be taken to accomplish this:

-??????? A comprehensive propaganda campaign

-??????? Terrorist acts

-??????? Provocations – acts to incite and instigate harsh reaction from the enemy government[6]

Soviet operatives were to be sent in if not enough locals to carry out tasks in country could be found. Even in the early years of the Soviet regime, in operations following this strategy against smaller neighboring countries – the locals that carried out tasks were not necessarily from the ranks of ideological Communists, but in some cases members of organized crime who were simply hired. The second phase of operations was a large-scale insurrection timed with an invasion by the Red Army, according to Verhovsky, timing of this was of the “utmost importance.”[7]? As soon as the time was set - Communist organizations, coordinated with the Red Army invasion were to foment upheaval in industrial centers, to destroy communications and prevent effective mobilization of the hostile army. As the insurrection took place – the operatives within the country under attack were to send messages to Soviet Russia announcing a new Communist government and calling for “the fraternal assistance” of Red Army against “bourgeois reactionaries” or “fascists” giving the invasion a fa?ade of legitimacy in terms of international public opinion and under international law. The final phase was conventional military operations by Red Army against the enemy armed forces whose mobilization was paralyzed, morale degraded and rear-security disrupted.[8]

By1924 one addition to this strategy was the planned use of poison gas particularly within in the second phase of operations. With secret German assistance the Soviets were making great effort in the development poison gas production and stores.? Soviet OGPU operatives trained for infiltration into hostile countries received extensive training in staging poison gas attacks in enemy cities and using protective gear to escape after committing the attack. During third period, the Soviets were looking into entirely new ways and means of conducting war on a societal basis – no differentiation was made between military forces and civilian population in enemy countries.[9]

The development of this approach to operations already was in practice during the earliest days of the Bolshevik regime but early successes and setbacks, perhaps lead Vershovsky to develop military doctrine as a framework for their planning and execution. A case such an early hybrid unconventional – convention operation was Georgia. ??

The Georgia had declared independence on 26 May 1918 and was able to maintain its independence through 1920 with British assistance. Bolshevik Russia signed a non-aggression treaty with Georgia and once relations were normalized between the two powers, the Russian Bolsheviks immediately established an embassy with a large staff in Tbilisi became the center for convert activities and propaganda. In charge of the effort was Aron Sheinman, the Bolshevik envoy to Georgia. In autumn 1920, the Bolsheviks massed the 11th Red Army on the Georgian border waiting for Sheinman to organize the insurrection in Georgia. Bolshevik troops were short of food at the time and low in morale, the 11th Red Army could not wait much longer for an insurrection or stand a long period in inactivity. In late January 1921, the Bolshevik leadership recalled Sheinman to Moscow to speed up his activities, which since November 1920 bore little success. Reportedly Trotsky was furious for the lack of action. Sheinman, no doubt, received dire threats on what would happen to him for a continued lack of action, returned to Georgia and set plans in motion. Perhaps greatest problem Sheinman had that Georgians were largely an insular population and were unified in their desire for independence. Sheinman had to rely largely on minorities in Georgia to carry out tasks who did not bear allegiance to the Georgian nation.? On the night of 11 – 12 February 1921 insurrectionists launched attacks on Georgian military outposts in Lorri District near the Armenian and Azerbaijani borders. Armenia-based Red Army units quickly came to the aid of the insurrection. A Georgian revolutionary committee in the village of Shulaveri on the Armenian border declared itself the rightful government in Georgia and called for assistance from the Red Army against government in Tbilisi. The 11th Red Army invaded Georgia, the Georgians tried to mobilize their potential reserve force of 200,000 men in addition to the regular army of 40,000, however mobilization was slowed by various acts of sabotage. Tbilisi’s communications with the outside world, telephone, telegraph, and radio transmitters were cut due to acts of destruction. Railway traffic was cut due to the demolition of bridges. Despite not being able to mobilize or communicate with outside world, the Georgian army did put up a stubborn fight in defense of the approaches to Tbilisi, which they held for a week in the face of an overwhelming superiority of forces.[10] Nevertheless, Tbilisi fell and according to the New York Times on 21 February 1921,?

The most remarkable feature of the seizure of Tiflis [Tbilisi] was the suddenness of the assault of Soviet forces, which caught even the allied representatives by surprise.[11]

?Despite success against Georgia next Soviet operation which was against Estonia, would meet with failure. The Treaty of Tartu which ended the Estonian War of Independence granted the Soviet government the right of transit trade through the Port of Tallinn and over the Estonian railways which the Soviets paid preferred rates which were agreed upon with the Estonian government. As in the early twenties industry and transport in Russia was still in chaos, the Soviet government granted contracts to various industrial concerns in Tallinn for refurbishment of locomotives and railway rolling stock. To facilitate this work and transit trade – the Soviets maintained a large embassy in Tallinn and offices and warehouses for various Soviet enterprises. This Soviet presence in Estonia provided a highly active base for covert activity. The very active convert activities in Estonia by Communist operatives led to the arrest of 149 in summer 1924. The Estonian police discovered a plot for an insurrection in summer 1924 and hidden stockpiles of arms. As result of these discoveries, the 149 Communists were put on trial in autumn 1924. This trial proved to be a focal point for Soviet propaganda against the Estonian government. The propaganda narrative associated with trial stressed the oppression of the Estonian proletariat and a parallel narrative claimed that a fascist coup was coming in Estonia. As propaganda campaign went into full force, the Soviets drew up military plans against Estonia. The plan, as according to Verhovsky’s concepts, saw an insurrection in conjunction with a Red Army invasion of the country. According, to the plans drawn up by the Soviet General Staff, Communist operatives would carry out an insurrection in Tallinn with the following objectives:

1.)?? ??A takeover of government buildings (Ministry of War, police stations, etc.) transportation and communications (railway stations, main postal telegraph office, telephone exchange, etc.)

2.)?? Complete neutralization of the Tallinn garrison and prevention of arrival of relief forces

3.)?? Arrest of government and military leaders in Tallinn[12]

Once communications facilities were captured a message was to go out immediately announcing the formation of a Communist government and requesting assistance of the Red Army. The launch of the operation was planned to start at 0515 on 1 December 1924. Despite, Estonians having intelligence warnings on such an event the Tallinn Garrison only consisted of 300 to 400 men. According to Soviet plans the insurrection was to be carried out by approximately 200 men, about sixty them were infiltrated across the Estonian – Border in last days of November. An additional thirty –three were employees of Soviet transit – trade organizations and already in Tallinn, and six were employees of the Soviet embassy. The remaining were locally recruited including hired gunmen from organized crime. Prohibition of spirits in Finland had given rise to lucrative smuggling rackets and associated criminal activity in Estonia during the time. Days before the scheduled insurrection, Red Army troops were moved up to the Estonian border, reservists in the Petrograd Military District mobilized, and on 1 December the bulk of the Red Baltic Fleet left Kronstadt and was underway in the Gulf of Finland. At 0515 on 1 December, the Soviet operatives launched attacks on the military school, the tank unit, the military airfield, police stations and Ministry of War in Tallinn. The attacks failed and by mid-morning Estonian authorities were in control of all locations. There were sixty-three casualties to Estonian private citizens and government personnel, twelve of these were fatalities.[13]

?There were three reasons for failure of the Soviet operation, firstly – the Estonians had intelligence that such an attack was coming as Soviet code had been broken earlier and surveillance of such locations as the Soviet embassy show unusual activity before the insurrection. Furthermore, Estonian military intelligence had a human intelligence network that reached to highest levels of Soviet command. However, to preserve this network, counteractions had to have cover of being based other information sources. This network had its beginnings as the future Estonia Commander-in-Chief Jonathan Laidoner asked Captain Konrad Rotschild who was at head of an Estonian officers’ organization to create an Estonian intelligence network in the Red Army in autumn 1918. The network was later important in Estonian intelligence cooperation with the Japanese who needed effective information sources within the Soviet Union.[14] ?

Intelligence might partially explain to second reason for Soviet failure - quick reaction on all level by Estonian authorities. However, the greater factor in this was perhaps readiness, morale and an effective command structure which allowed initiative.

General Ernst P?dder, Commander of the 2nd Division, himself led a squad of troops in retaking the postal telegraph office where operatives were trying to send messages requesting assistance of the Red Army. Donald Day, foreign correspondent of the Chicago Daily Tribune who was in Tallinn on 1 December 1924, gave an account what he described as P?dder’s, “shot of the century,

"General P?dder was the first to enter the telegraph office. On the stairway was standing a man with a rifle who raised it leveled it at the general. He was standing on the second flight of stairs was at a left angle to us. General P?dder then made one of the best shots I ever saw. When he glimpsed the man aiming his gun he shot over his left shoulder. The bullet hit the red in the chin and penetrated up into his brain and he fell dead. I accompanied the officers when they went through the telegraph offices. They found five other reds there and shot them all dead. Two of them were busy sending messages to Russia asking for aid when they met death."[15]

Along with quick reaction in Tallinn, the Estonian Armored Train Regiment in Tapa, at center railway junction of the country also reacted quickly. The armored trains represented as potent mix of direct and indirect firepower and mobile assault troops armed with Lewis Light Machine Guns. The armored trains immediately went to the east to guard the frontier against full scale foreign attack and the west to cut fleeing operatives trying to cross the border and to maintain internal security. According to an officer of the armored train regiment, “no one wanted to stay behind – there was even a group of workmen who wanted to go along.”[16]

The third reason the Soviet operation failed was that most Estonians well remembered the horrors of Communist occupation of eastern and southeastern Estonia during the Estonian War of Independence, where the Bolsheviks murdered women and children, doctors, nurses and hospital patients. The ranks of the Bolshevik forces were an undisciplined mob containing rapists and looters.[17] Thus, working class Estonians had nearly no sympathy to Soviets nor would assist them in the insurrection. In pocession of the 140 operatives captured and the six killed were found Thompson Submachines, a weapon the Estonians did not have, and copies of Verhovsky’s manual.[18]

The Estonian government asked the US government to investigate how the Colt manufactured Thompson submachine guns had gotten into Soviet possession. The investigation revealed that the Thompson were not standard equipment of the US Army at the time and thus they did come US War Department stocks, but it was a favorite weapon of American organized crime at the time. The Thompsons in question seemed to have been confiscated from gangsters, after which the Treasury Department sold them at public auction. According to Bureau of Investigation, Special Agent, Frank O. Higgins, “the bidders [at the auction] being Hebrew speculators…who sell them to anybody on hand at the present moment.”[19] Some submachine guns went to legitimate users such as guard forces for oil fields and banana plantations abroad, but others were diverted to the Sinn Fein.[20]

Despite the Soviet use of these new weapons, the operation failed. The after-action report to the Soviet General Staff outlined the failures of the operation:

1.)?? Operatives had sufficient strength to carry out the operation, but their military organization was insufficient, principal failures were not capturing the military communication center and the tank unit headquarters

2.)?? The main prison was not seized – armed prisoners could have increased the number of fighters

3.)?? Propaganda work was ineffective and insufficient[21]

Other factors which contributed to the failure of the operation were that the Estonian forces were still at high fighting strength after the War of Independence and thus on high readiness to repel a Soviet invasion and British ships were still in Baltic waters forcing caution to the offensive operations of the Red Banner Fleet. In both cases of case Estonia and Georgia, Soviet reasons for undertaking the operations were geopolitical – Estonia had commanding maritime position on the Baltic Sea and Soviet control would open a commanding land flank against Latvia and Lithuania and for Georgia it would secure control of transport corridor to Batum on the Black Sea from which petroleum could be exported to western countries for foreign exchange.??

After the debacle in Estonia, the Soviets did not attempt any such operations until a considerably later time. The Soviets emphasized building their conventional military power which required western technology obtained through international trade to build their industrial base and Soviet covert activities during the period focused on infiltrating western governments with agents on the highest levels. Although, pressure continued on the border-states, outward attacks direct attacks on them would endanger the flow of western technology. For the Estonians, it was a wake-up call, the Kaitseliit – the voluntary territorial defense force resumed and expanded its activities. The Kaitseliit could serve as an immediate reaction force to such unconventional attacks. The events of 1 December also brought a call for greater Baltic cooperation, on 2 December 1924 some 5,000 people went in procession to Estonian envoy’s home in Riga declaring Latvia’s willingness to support Estonia in case of need.[22] ?It was also a call for further European cooperation and collective defense, as Georg Meri wrote in 1925:

"Estonia has adequately performed her trying role of an outpost of Western civilisation on the Eastern shore of the Baltic. But she needs encouragement – encouragement in times of peace, moral support which will counterbalance the feeling of insecurity, preventing reconstruction and settlement. And, above all, she would like to see concord among all nations of Europe in their attitude towards the common danger."[23]

In conclusion, the enduring lessons in defense against hybrid – unconventional – conventional military operations are the importance of good intelligence, military readiness, an effective command system and the morale resilience of the population.? ?

[1] Jaan Soots, “S?jaministri korraldus 1. detsembri m?lestamiseks,” [Order of the Minister of War to commemorate December 1st”] S?dur No. 49 (December 1925): 1050

[2] United Kingdom National Archives, FO 608 22652 "Goode to Bosanque 19 May 1919 – Situation of the Esthonian Army to January – May 1919"

[3] Augustus Agar. Baltic Episode: A Classic of Secret Service in Baltic Waters. (Annapolis MD: Naval Institute Press. 1963): 248

[4] United Kingdom National Archives, “KV 3 144 Russian intelligence organisation in the Baltic States 1924 – 1932.”

[5] Georg Meri “Communism in Reval,” The Contemporary Review (January – June 1925) np

[6] Georg Meri “Communism in Reval,” The Contemporary Review (January – June 1925) np

[7] Georg Meri “Communism in Reval,” The Contemporary Review (January – June 1925) np

[8] United Kingdom National Archives, “KV 3 144 Russian intelligence organisation in the Baltic States 1924 – 1932,” Georg Meri “Communism in Reval,” The Contemporary Review (January – June 1925) np

[9] United Kingdom National Archives, “KV 3 144 Russian intelligence organisation in the Baltic States 1924 – 1932.”

[10] Otar Janelidze. Russian Expansion in the Caucasus and Georgia. (Tbilisi: ?Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies. 2023): 8 – 9

[11]“Soviet Cavalry Captured Tiflis,” New York Times (21 February 1921): 1 ?

[12] Leonard Vahter, “Ill-Fated Communist Coup in Estonia,” The Baltic Review (November 1961): 25

[13] Leonard Vahter, “Ill-Fated Communist Coup in Estonia,” The Baltic Review (November 1961): 28 – 29, “Red Outbreak at Reval,” Times of London (2 December 1924): 1

[14] Pekka Erelt, “Mehed, kes vaikisid surmani,” [The men who kept silent until death] Eesti Ekspress (07 March 2007) [https://ekspress.delfi.ee/artikkel/69096885/mehed-kes-vaikisid-surmani] (Accessed 9 January 2023), Okabe Noburu. Choho no Kamisama to Yobareta Otoko. [The Man who was Called the God of Espionage] (Tokyo: PHP.2014): 96

[15] Donald Day Onward Christian Soldiers. (Torrance CA: Noontide Press. 1982), 156 – 157

[16] “Soomusrongirügement ja 1. detsembri 1924 sündmused,” [Armored Train Regiment and Events of 1 December 1924] S?dur No. 49 (December 1925): 1055

[17]J.C. Breckinridge, “Russia,“ Marine Corps Gazette (March 1921): 25, ?“Bolshevik Atrocities,” The Esthonian Review. (July 1919): 19

[18] Georg Meri “Communism in Reval,” The Contemporary Review (January – June 1925)

[19] US National Archives Record Group 256 M820 184 “Bureau of Investigation 6 March 1925”

[20] US National Archives Record Group 256 M820 184 “Bureau of Investigation 6 March 1925”

[21] Leonard Vahter, “Ill-Fated Communist Coup in Estonia,” The Baltic Review (November 1961): 30 - 31

[22] “Red Outbreak at Reval,” Times of London (2 December 1924): 1

[23] Georg Meri “Communism in Reval,” The Contemporary Review (January – June 1925) np

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