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There are, indeed there are such individual examples, such heroes in the ranks of the Red Army command. Glory to them!
IX. There are Officers—and Officers.
One swallow does not make spring, that is certain. Such heroes as the late Comrade Nicolayev unfortunately are stilt rare, they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. But it is a significant fact that even one such exceptional personality could be born and assert itself. Certain external conditions, certain moral conditions of the masses were required for that. Still, we have more such characters in our ranks, such as for instance Comrade Yegorev, one of our most active at the Southern front, an officer of the old Tsarist service, who for the last year and a half has carried on an heroic struggle and showed a rare depth of self-sacrifice and noble zeal under most trying conditions. But along the many fronts of the civil war, it is possible to call the names of hundreds of officers very different from Balachovitch, Yudenitch, Mannerheim, Koltchak and others,
And if you place on one side Koltchak, Denikin, Balachovitch, and on the other Lieutenant Schmidt and General Yegorev, you will at once see that there are officers and officers. You will see that there can be no greater hypocrisy
