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While assuming that the rule of the Russian Jacobins would be brief and the Russian Napoleon would emerge in the near future, most observers matched the great French predecessor with his military glory. Although Bonaparte had inherited the bellicose elan of the Convention, the Russian Jacobins were notorious for their military weakness. In the very beginning of the Bolsheviks’ rule, the majority of their opponents scarcely imagined that even if the Bolsheviks survived, that they would be able to accomplish the feat of raising an army, much less a powerful one. And a powerful army was important not only to conquer foreign territory but to preserve the unity of the country.