Russian Civil War

The Russian Civil War was fought from 1918 to 1922. Following the success of the Russian Revolution, the new Russian (Bolshevik) government decided to make peace with Germany, as they had promised the Russian people prior to the Revolution. This formal agreement, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, was ratified on March 6, 1918. The negotiated peace was the only option in the eyes of the Bolsheviks because the Russian army was in a chaos when the Germans began their advance in February 1918. The old Russian army had been re-organized in January into the "Workers' and Peasants' Red Army" and was still in disarray.

The majority of the fighting ended in 1920, but a notable resistance in certain areas continued until 1922 (e.g, Kronstadt Uprising, Tambov Rebellion, and the final resistance of the White movement in the Far East).

The Soviet government historiography traditionally didn't apply the qualifier "Russian" and used the term "Civil War and Military Intervention of 1917-1922". Accordingly, it included the Polish-Soviet War, resistance in Ukraine, as well as Basmachi resistance and foreign intervention in Central Asia in its definition.

Overview

The war was fought for the most part between the "Reds" who were mostly communists and revolutionaries, and the "Whites", a loose coalition of monarchists, conservatives, liberals, and socialists who opposed the Bolshevik Revolution. Nationalist and anarchist movements known as the "Greens", the anarchists alternatively known as the Black Army, played a much smaller part in the war, harrying both the Reds and the Whites, and sometimes even each other. In addition, the Entente and some other countries intervened on the side of the Whites, further aggravating the civil war.

The war was fought across three main fronts; the eastern, the southern and the north-western. It can also be roughly split into three periods.

The first period lasted from the Revolution until the Armistice. First, in late November of 1917 the new Bolshevik government declared that traditional Cossack lands were now to be run by the state. This provoked a revolt by Volunteer Army in the Don region, lead by General Kaledin. Then the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk resulted in direct Allied intervention in Russia and the arming of military forces opposed to the Bolshevik government.

Most of the fighting in this first period was sporadic, involving only small groups amid a fluid and rapidly shifting strategic scene. Among the antagonists were the Czech-Slovaks, known simply as the Czech Legion or White Czechs (????????, Byelochekhi), the Poles of the Polish 5th Rifle Division and the pro-Bolshevik Red Latvian riflemen (??????? ????????? ???????,Krasnye Latyshskiye strelki).

Lenin was surprised by the outbreak of civil war and initially underestimated the extent of the forces that rose against his new government.

The second period of the war was the key stage, which lasted from January to November of 1919. At first the White armies' advances from the south (under Denikin), the east (under Kolchak) and the northwest (under Yudenich) were successful, pushing back the new Red Army on all three fronts. But Leon Trotsky reformed the Red Army and pushed back Kolchak's forces (in June) and Denikin's and Yudenich's armies (in October). The fighting power of all the White armies was broken almost simultaneously in mid-November.

The final period of the war was the extended siege of the last White forces in the Crimea. Wrangel had gathered the remnants of the armies of Denikin, and they had fortified their positions in the Crimea. They held these positions until the Red Army returned from Poland where they had been fighting the Polish-Soviet war. When the full force of the Red Army was turned on them the Whites were soon overwhelmed, and the remaining troops were evacuated to Constantinople in November 1920.

Course of events

The first attempt to seize the power from the Bolsheviks was made by the Kerensky-Krasnov uprising in October, 1917. It was supported by the Junker mutiny in Petrograd, but quickly put down by the Red Guards.

1918 Bolshevik propaganda poster depicting Trotsky as Saint George slaying the reactionary dragon (Trotsky was People's Commissar of War, and organizer of the Red Army)The initial groups that fought against the Communists were local Cossack armies that had declared their loyalty to the Provisional Government. Prominent among them were Kaledin of the (Don Cossacks) and Semenov of the Siberian Cossacks. In November, General Alekseev, the old Tsarist Commander-in-Chief, began to organize a Volunteer Army (??????????????? ?????, Dobrovolcheskaya Armiya) in Novocherkassk. He was joined in December by Kornilov. These forces fought against the Bolshevik army all across the Ukraine. The Cossacks took Rostov in December 1917.

1918

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which pulled Russia out of the war and gave Germany control over vast stretches of western Russia, came as a nasty shock to the Allies. The British and the French had supported Russia on a massive scale with war materials and money. After the treaty, it looked like much of that material would fall into the hands of the Germans. As a result the United Kingdom and France sent troops into Russian ports. There were some minor confrontations with troops loyal to the Bolsheviks but little bloodshed.

Main article: Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War

White Army propaganda poster depicting Trotsky as a "Red devil". The text above the picture reads, "Peace and Liberty in Sovdepiya"It was not until the spring of 1918 that the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionary Party joined the armed struggle against the Bolsheviks. Initially they had been opposed to war with the Bolsheviks but the treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the establishment of harsh dictatorial measures changed their position. They could have been a serious threat, as they had some popular support and the authority of their election victory on the Russian Constituent Assembly in 1918; However, they needed an army. An early attempt by the Socialist-Revolutionary Party to recruit Latvian troops in July 1918 was a failure. Fortunately, the Czech Legion proved to be a more reliable group to aid their "democratic counter-revolution".

The Czech Legion had been part of the Russian army and by October 1917 numbered around 30,000 men. Most were ex-prisoners of war and deserters from the Austro-Hungarian army. Encouraged by Tomáš Masaryk, the legion was renamed the Czecho-Slovak Army Corps and hoped to continue fighting the Germans. An agreement with the new Bolshevik government to pass by sea through Vladivostok (so they could return to their homes in Czechoslovakia) collapsed over an attempt to disarm the Corps. Instead their soldiers disarmed the Bolshevik forces in June 1918 at Cheliabinsk. Within a month the Czech Legion controlled most of the Trans-Siberian Railroad from Lake Baikal to the Ural Mountains regions. By August they had extended their control even farther, taking over Ekaterinburg on July 26, 1918.

The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries supported peasant fighting against Soviet control of food supplies. In May 1918, with the support of the Czech Legion they took Samara and Saratov, establishing the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (?????, Komuch). By July the authority of Komuch extended over much of the area controlled by the Czech Legion. The Komuch implemented a socialist reform program but without the unpopular economic changes the Soviets were pursuing.

There were also conservative and nationalist "governments" being formed by the Bashkirs, the Kirghiz and the Tatars (see Idel-Ural State) as well as a Siberian Regional Government in Omsk. In September 1918 all the anti-Soviet governments met in Ufa and agreed to form a new Russian Provisional Government in Omsk, headed by a Directory of five: three Socialist-Revolutionaries (Avksentiev, Boldyrev and Zenzinov) and two Kadets, (V. A. Vinogradov and P. V. Vologodskii).

However, the new government quickly came under the influence the new War Minister, Rear-Admiral Kolchak. On November 18 a coup d'état established Kolchak as dictator. The members of the Directory were arrested and Kolchak was proclaimed "Supreme Ruler of Russia". Kolchak was apolitical and not involved in the coup. He proved to be ineffective as both a political and military leader (his training was all in naval warfare). He also did not get along with the leaders of Czech Legion, the strongest military force in the area.

To the Soviets the emergence of Admiral Kolchak was a political victory because it confirmed their opponents as anti-democratic reactionaries. Following a reorganization of the People's Army, Kolchak's forces captured Perm and Ufa in December of 1918. But this was to be the high water-mark for his army.

In July two Socialist-Revolutionaries; Blyumkin and Andreyev; assassinated the German ambassador in Moscow, Count Mirbach, in an attempt to provoke the Germans into renewing hostilities. Other Socialist-Revolutionaries attempted to rouse Red Army troops against the regime. The Soviets managed to put down these local uprisings, and Lenin personally apologized to the Germans for the assassination. There were mass arrests of Socialist-Revolutionaries. Following two further terrorist acts on August 30— the assassination of the Chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, Uritsky, and the wounding of Lenin—the "Red Terror" was unleashed in response. Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries were expelled from the Soviets and anyone suspected of counter-revolutionary activity could be imprisoned or executed without trial.

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