THE Russian Civil War it took place on Russian territory between 1918 and 1921, although many historians point out that the conflict began in late 1917. It was the result of the emergence of a movement to resist the Bolsheviks. This counterrevolutionary resistance, known as the “whites”, fought until its final defeat in 1921.
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A remarkable event in Russian history, this war made it possible to consolidation of the Bolsheviks in power of Russian territory. Through this conflict, the Bolsheviks managed to purge their opponents both within the Communist Party and, above all, outside it. The war left a balance of destruction and resulted in the death of about 10 million people.
![The Russian Civil War was responsible for the death of millions of peasants, victims of food shortages.[1]](/f/098bb914f1e3198834bdf37363b12825.jpg)
Background: Russian Revolution
The Russian Civil War is directly related to the Russian Revolution, 1917. That's because, in October 1917
, the Bolsheviks carried out the takeover of strategic locations in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg), the Russian capital at the time, and overthrew the provisional government that had been installed in Russia since the beginning of the year, when the tsarist monarchy fell.Under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, the Bolsheviks proclaimed a Government of Workers and Peasants and began the period of building a new state in Russia. In theory, the Bolshevik state arose to serve the interests of the soviets, but in practice, to As the socialist state was built by Lenin, the soviets were being pushed away from the power.
Along with the reconstruction of the Russian state, the Bolsheviks also pulled the country out of First World War, a conflict that for years has bled the Russian economy and contributed to increasing the suffering of the population. For this, the Bolsheviks signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, in which the Russians agreed to make huge land concessions to Germans and Turks.
As soon as the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia, opposition movements began to form inside the country. Opposition against the Bolsheviks was formed by different groups such as royalists, liberals, socialist-revolutionaries, peasants, anarchists, etc. The existence of these resistance movements was largely responsible for bringing Russia into civil war.
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Causes
THE immediate cause of the Russian Civil War was the opposition existing in much of Russian territory against the newly installed government of the Bolsheviks in the country. There was very strong opposition from different groups to the proposals advocated by the Bolsheviks and Lenin. This counterrevolutionary opposition was eventually reinforced as the Bolshevik government began to prove intransigent and closed to dissent.
Historians who study the conflict have disagreements about the fuse that started this war. Some historians suggest that the starting point was the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly of Russia, in January 1918, after the Social Revolutionaries (the group that formed the Provisional Government before the October Revolution) defeated the Bolsheviks in the election.
Others argue that signing the Brest-Lito Treatyvsk – Russia's surrender to the Germans in World War I – was the turning point, as it mobilized reactionary forces in Russia against the government, as these groups wanted to continue the war against the Germans.
Finally, other historians argue that the beginning of the civil war is related to rebel groups led by Kornilov, which since 1917 have been trying to seize power in Russia. Anyway, we can say that the element that groups all these scores made by historians is the same: the opposition that existed against the Bolsheviks.
combatants
![Leon Trotsky was appointed by Lenin to command the Red Army during the Russian Civil War.[2]](/f/0cfa893439f801c9a5dea45dbedc607f.jpg)
As mentioned, the Russian Civil War was marked by the actions of different groups. They were all opposed to the Bolsheviks (called the Reds in the war), but these oppositional movements were also fighting each other. Within white armies, for example, there were dissidents.
The groups that can be highlighted in the Russian Civil War are:
reds: The name of this group mentions the ArmyRed, the army hastily formed by the Bolsheviks to defeat the rebel forces.
white: Formed mainly by monarchists who wished to restore the tsarist monarchy existing in Russia before 1917.
greens: Formed by peasants who struggled to defend their own interests inside Russia. Greens fought both reds and whites.
black: Ukrainian anarchists who emerged in the interest of defending the existence of the Ukrainian soviets. They wanted to set up a stateless society that was self-managed by the soviets.
The Russian Civil War also involved the involvement of a number of foreign nations interested in overthrowing the Bolsheviks from power. The conflict was attended by French and British troops, for example. Other important countries that interfered in the conflict were the Japanese and the North Americans. Foreign troops often cooperated with whites throughout the conflict.
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white movement
As we mentioned, Owhite movement was not unified, and there was a range of interests in the different white groups that spread across Russian territory. What united them was opposition to the Bolsheviks, but throughout the war there were white groups that fought among themselves. As there was no unification among the whites and as they were spread over the vast Russian territory, the reds had an advantage in fighting them.
The whites, for the most part, were nostalgic for the tsarist monarchy and therefore they wished to restore it after it had been deprived of power. This group mobilized, for example, Cossacks (people from the southern region of Russia), nobility and some peasants, but throughout the war they had some support even from Socialist-Revolutionaries and Liberals.
The whites, on the other hand, did not have much support from the population in the interior of Russia, since they were not in favor of agrarian reform, which had been encouraged by the Bolsheviks, and did not defend self-determination movements that emerged in Russia during the civil war (the Reds supported these movements as long as they were within the power structure of the Bolsheviks themselves).
Finally, the fact that whites defended the tsarist monarchy was a point that naturally alienated many peasants, for tsarism had been imprinted on the collective memory of the peasants as a regime that had oppressed them for centuries.
Main fights
It is very common to approach the Russian Civil War as a conflict that lasted from 1918 to 1921, but there are historians who consider that the conflict began in late 1917. Anyway, the first highlight to be made is the formation of a rebel force, called the Volunteer Army, in the Don River region (in Ukraine) under the leadership of Alekseev and Kornilov.
Later, this group joined with a force of Cossacks installed in the Kuban region, also in the vicinity of the Don. Starting in 1919, the Volunteer Army gave rise to a group called Southern Russian Armed Forces, under the leadership of Antondenikin – who commanded the Volunteer Army after Alekseev and Kornilov died.
This Volunteer Army formed the greatest force of opposition to the Bolsheviks in the civil war and reached its height in mid-September 1919. Historian Daniel Orlovsky suggests that a strategic error was responsible for the weakening of this group. Their leader, Denikin, ordered the division of forces, which led to their defeat. In 1920, the survivors of this group ended up fleeing Russia, which practically ended the white resistance.
Opposition forces emerged in other parts of Russia, as groups of whites who came to control the region of Siberia, even forming a provisional government in that region in 1918. This government was soon renamed GovernmentSupreme and was led by Kolchak, but ceased to exist after its commander was killed by the secret police of the Bolsheviks.
The former capital of Russia was also the target of attack by white forces. General Nikolai Yudenitch ordered an attack on Petrograd, but it failed and ended up having to flee Russia to survive. The Bolshevik government also dealt with uprisings in regions such as Poland and the Baltic countries. Even in Moscow (the new capital) there was an uprising against the Bolsheviks – organized by the Socialist-Revolutionaries.
There was interference by British, French, American and Japanese troops in different regions of Russian territory. You japanese, for example, invaded territory in the Far East; you British people invaded Russian territories in the Central Asia region, and the french sent troops to the Crimean region.
The Bolsheviks had to deal with all these (and many more) challenges through the years of civil war. The country did not have a consistent military force to guarantee the victory of the revolution and, therefore, the Red Army was formed, which was handed over to the leadership of LeonTrotsky. At the turn of 1920 to 1921, the Bolsheviks managed to consolidate their victory.
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Why did the Bolsheviks win?
The Bolsheviks' victory is explained by several factors. First, it is important to consider that the Red Army controlled Russia's most central territories, which guaranteed them better mobility and facilitated the movement of resources.
The existence of an administrative structure in front of Russia facilitated the action of the Reds, as it guaranteed greater availability of new soldiers and easier access to the production of vital resources to sustain the troops. One of the marks of this war was the action of the Bolshevik government to appropriate the peasants' food production. This kept the troops fed, but led millions of peasants to starvation.
The Bolshevik ideology was very important for the victory because it had a great attraction for the workers, which ensured a popular support that the whites did not count on. Daniel Orlovsky further suggests that force commanders were terrible administrators and made decisions that contributed to alienating the Russian population from the whites.|2|.
On the ideological question, the Bolsheviks also achieved a great triumph when attacked by international forces. O foreign troops attack it allowed the Bolsheviks to exploit the discourse of the “imperialist attack against the revolution”. After winning the conflict, the Bolsheviks came out strengthened and managed to consolidate their power over the entire Russian territory. With that, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Consequences
The Russian Civil War contributed to increasing the suffering of the Russian population, already affected by centuries of tsarist oppression and years of involvement in the First World War. The Russian Civil War was responsible for millions of deaths, who were victimized by the fighting, for the hunger, by illnesses and for repressionviolent of the Bolsheviks against their opponents.
Estimates of those killed in this conflict vary widely. There are statistics that point to death ofabout 4.5 million people and other estimates that point to the death of 10 million people.
The country's economy was devastated after years of war and revolutionary unrest. The solution found by Lenin was to carry out an economic reopening of the Soviet Union and, contrary to what he believed, he returned the country to a market economy with the objective of attracting foreign investment that would enable the economic recovery of the parents. This became known as New Economic Policy.
Grades
|1| ORLOVSKY, Daniel S. Russia in war and revolution. In.: FREEZE, Gregory L. Russian history. Lisbon: Editions 70, 2017, p. 321.
|2| Idem, p. 322-323.
Image credit:
[1] Everett Historical and Shutterstock
[2] Olga Popova and Shutterstock
By Daniel Neves
Graduated in History
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/guerras/guerra-civil-russa.htm
