Maria Bochkareva and the The Russian Women’s Battalion of Death

A few years into the war, the male Russian soldiers were beginning to be disillusioned with the fighting. There was a huge problem with soldiers’ desertion and mutiny. So, the idea was struck upon that an all-female battalion could be created, the purpose of which was to inspire the men and have a civilising effect on them and if that didn’t work, they would be shamed by the fact that women were fighting.

There was a massive response of women wanting to join Battalion of Death and they were called the Battalion of Death because they were willing to fight to the death. 2000 women applied to be a part of the first battalion that Bochkareva was charged with training. But this was whittled down to 300. Part of the reason they lost so many was that Bochkareva was a harsh ruler and many of the women wanted to start a council to represent their own interests, just as the male soldiers had, but Bochkareva said no. She lost 800 recruits this way. In another story about her, she apparently found one of her female soldiers being intimate with a male soldier, so the ran the woman through with a bayonet. Harsh!

Another logistical problem was uniforms, because of the war shortages, uniforms for a woman’s body type were non-existent, so the women persevered and just wore men’s uniforms. However, there was a particular problem with finding small enough boots to kit out the new battalion. Bochkareva also insisted that her troops all shave their heads, just like was regulation for the men. Having long hair in the trenches and the front line would have been a very dirty and itchy affair, so she probably had a really good point. And maybe she also thought that this would stop the fraternisation between the men and the women.

Before I go any further, I want to introduce you to another interesting player in this story, a female American journalist called Bessie Beatty, who worked for the San Francisco Bulletin. She travelled to Russia during the war and spent 10 days living in the trenches with Bochkareva and the Women’s Battalion of Death. She interviewed many of the women and upon return to America wrote a book called, “The Red Heart of Russia”. In her interviews of the women in the battalion she reported on the fact that these women came from all walks of life. Some were factory workers, some educated, there were professionals, clerks, peasants and dressmakers all with varied reasons for joining up.

So, once they were trained and ready to fight there was only one problem, that the male soldiers were a little bit confused about their presence. When the women’s battalion were ordered to attack, the male soldiers, instead of supporting them, held a meeting to decide whether they should join in or not. The women just went regardless and eventually half of the men decided to back them up and they ended up taking the first and second lines of their German enemies, until they ran out of ammo and had to retreat. But the German soldiers were mighty peeved at being defeated by women.

After the success of the first all-women’s battalion, this inspired the formation of 15 more units, about 5000 more women joined up. But this didn’t last for long.

Remember how I said there was a revolution brewing. This revolution at the end of 1917 was the end of the women’s battalions. You see, they were set up by the previous leaders, and the new government- the Bolsheviks- thought they were loyal to the previous government. In Bochekareva’s case they were quite correct, she really did not like the Bolshevik soldiers.

She fled Russia and went to America. While she was in America, she found someone to help to write her memoirs. Now the Bolsheviks were a communist system government, and of course both America and Australia were very anti-communist, so she had a captive audience for her memoirs, and she painted the Bolsheviks in an incredibly negative light. An Australian newspaper even published some extracts of her memoirs in 1919. They described her as a “Russian Joan of Arc transplanted into a Reign of Terror” and here are some of the things that she had to say about the Bolsheviks, “The hundred Bolshevik soldiers surrounded the officers, cursed them, beat them with the butts of their rifles…and handled them like dogs.” Further adding, “The Bolshevik soldiers then decided to gouge out the eyes of the five youths in punishment for their attempt to run away.” “He looked savage, and his hideous laughter sent shudders up my spine. The bloodthirsty brute!” And perhaps my favourite, “’Ho, ho, ho’ He laughed diabolically.” And “He paced the room like a lion thirsting for my blood”.

After she published her memoirs, she returned to Siberia and in 1920 the Bolsheviks captured and imprisoned her. She spent 4 months in jail before she was put on trial as an enemy of the state and executed by firing squad at the age of 30.