Many schemers came with plans to save Russia. I had [as my subordinate in the Imperial Russian Army], by the way, the current Bolshevik “commander-in-chief,” then a general, Pavel Sytin. He proposed the following measure to strengthen the front: to declare that land — of landowners, the state, the church — be given free of charge to the peasants, but exclusively to those who fight on the front. “I mentioned,” said Sytin, “this proposal to Kaledin [i.e., General Alexey Kaledin], but he grabbed his head [and said] 'What you preach, it's pure demagogy!'...” Sytin left without land and without ... [command of] a division. He later easily reconciled with the Bolshevik theory of communist land use.[1]
In December 1917 Sytin was elected as the commander of the Red Army's 18th Army Corps by the soldier congress. In March 1918, he became the commander of screening units in the Bryansk region in the Red Western Front, and in May 1918 he served as the head of the Soviet Russian delegation conducting peace negotiations with the Germans in Kharkov. In July 1918 he took command of the 2nd Oryol Infantry Division. In early September 1918 he became the leader of screening units in the Red Southern Front, and in September–October 1918 he commanded the Red Southern Front. The troops under his leadership fought major battles with the White Cossacks, holding back anti-Bolshevik forces in a vast space from Bryansk to Kizlyar, although the attempted advance of Red Southern Front troops along the Balashov axis was not successful due to poor preparation.
Sytin was recalled from the front and appointed head of the administrative affairs department of the Revolutionary Military Council. From 1920 to 1921, he was a military representative to the plenipotentiary of the Soviet Russia in the Democratic Republic of Georgia. In October 1922 he began duty as an instructor at the Military Academy of the Red Army. From 1924 to 1927 he worked in the Military Historical Administration for the study and use of the experience of war. In November 1927, he was assigned to the Revolutionary Military Council to undertake important assignments for the Soviet Union's armed forces. He retired in December 1934.
Later life
After he retired, Sytin became a researcher at the Central State Archive of the Red Army. During the Great Purge, he was arrested on 27 February 1938 and charged with participating in a counterrevolutionary organization. The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union sentenced him to death on 22 August 1938. He was shot and buried the same day at the Kommunarka shooting ground in the Moscow Region. He was rehabilitated on 16 March 1957.
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