Russian Civil War
{{Infobox Military Conflict|conflict=Russian Civil War|partof=|date=1917-1922, [Mongolia, Persia|image=|caption=Red Army soldiers in the Russian Civil War|result=[Bolshevik victory
Establishment of the Soviet Union.] and Red Army
Chinese in Russian Revolution|combatant2= White Movement
Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War
Empire of Japan
Czechoslovakia
Kingdom of Greece
Kingdom of Serbia
Kingdom of Romania
United Kingdom
Foreign volunteers:
Polish people
Italian people|combatant3=Pro-independence movements in Russian Civil War
|commander1=Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Mikhail Frunze, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Semyon Budyonny, [Lavr Kornilov, Anton Denikin, Pyotr Wrangel, Nikolai Yudenich, Aleksandr Kolchak, [Nestor Makhno, Nikifor Grigoriev - [Eastern Front of the Russian Civil War - Northern Front of the Russian Civil War - Central Asian Front in the Russian Civil War - Far Eastern Front in the Russian Civil War-->
The Russian Civil War (1917-1922/3) was a multi-sided international conflict that took place in Russia following the collapse of the Russian Provisional Government and the Bolshevik takeover of St. Petersburg. The conflict rapidly intensified after the dissolution of the Russian Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks in January 1918, and the Bolsheviks signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany in March 1918.
The main hostilities took place between Bolshevik Red Army, and loosely-allied anti-Bolshevik forces, known as the White movement. Many foreign armies also participated, and additionally many foreigners volunteered to fight on one or other of the sides. The largest foreign intervention was Japan's, which involved 70,000 men, nominally in support of the Whites but to a large extent pursuing Japanese expansionist goals in the Russian Far East in operations which were detrimental to both sides. Other forces included various nationalist and regional movements such as the Ukrainian nationalist Green Army, other political movements such as the Ukrainian anarchist Black Army, and independent warlords such as Ungern von Sternberg. These forces sometimes fought against both Reds and Whites, sometimes sided with one of the two, and sometimes switched sides. Additionally the warring sides spilled over Russia's borders into Persia and Mongolia.
In Soviet historiography the end of the Civil War is dated to October 25, 1922 when the Red Army occupied Vladivostok, previously held by the Provisional Priamur Government. The last enclave of the White Forces was the Ayano-Maysky District on the Pacific coast, where General Anatoly Pepelyayev did not capitulate until June 17, 1923.
Overview The most intense fighting took place from 1918 to 1920.
Following the abdication of Nicholas II of Russia and the turbulent Russian Revolution of 1917 throughout 1917, the Russian Provisional Government was established. In October October Revolution occurred in which the Red Guards (Russia), armed groups of workers and deserting soldiers directed by the Bolshevik Party, seized control of Saint Petersburg (then known as Petrograd) and began an immediate armed takeover of cities and villages throughout the former Russian Empire. In January 1918, Lenin had the Constituent Assembly violently dissolved, proclaiming the Soviet (council)s as the new government of Russia.
The Bolsheviks decided to immediately make peace with the German Empire and the Central Powers, as they had promised the Russian people prior to the Revolution. His political enemies attributed this decision to Vladimir Lenin's sponsorship by the foreign office of William II, German Emperor, offered by the latter in hopes that with a revolution, Russia would withdraw from World War I, although no concrete evidence was ever found.
A cease fire was immediately announced and peace talks began. As a condition for peace, the proposed treaty by the Central Powers conceded huge portions of the former Russian Empire to German Empire and the Ottoman Empire, greatly upsetting nationalists and Conservatisms. Leon Trotsky, representing the Bolsheviks, refused at first to sign the treaty while continuing to observe a unilateral cease fire, following the policy of "No fighting, but no peace treaty".
In view of this, the Germans began an all out advance on the Eastern Front, encountering no resistance. Signing a formal peace treaty was the only option in the eyes of the Bolsheviks, because the Russian army was demobilized and the newly formed Red Guard were incapable of stopping the advance. They also understood that the impending counterrevolutionary resistance was more dangerous than the concessions of the treaty, which Lenin viewed as temporary in the light of aspirations for a world revolution. The Soviets acceded to a peace treaty and the formal agreement, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, was ratified on March 6, 1918.
In the wake of the October Revolution, the old Russian army had been demobilized and the volunteer based Red Guard was the Bolsheviks' main military arm. In January, Trotsky headed its reorganization into the "Workers' and Peasants' Red Army," in order to create a more professional fighting force. He instituted a forceful conscription program, frequently resorting to repressive tactics, and used former Tsarist officers as "military specialists".
The Bolsheviks banned all non-Bolshevik political activity around the same time. The Bolsheviks even banned other socialist groups when it became clear that the Bolsheviks could not hold a majority of the seats in any democratically elected governing body outside of St. Petersburg and Moscow. This was particularly visible in the elections to the Constituent Assembly where Bolsheviks constituted a minority of the vote (despite Bolshevik supervision at major urban polling centers).
While resistance to the Red Guard began on the very next day after the Bolshevik coup, the Brest-Litovsk treaty and the political ban became a catalyst John M. Thompson, A vision unfulfilled. Russia and the Soviet Union in the twentieth century (Lexington, MA; 1996) 159. for the formation of anti-Bolshevik groups both inside and outside Russia, pushing them into action against the new regime.
A loose confederation of anti-Bolshevik forces aligned against the Communist government, including land-owners, Republicanism, conservatives, middle-class citizens, reactionary, monarchist, liberals, army generals, non-Bolshevik socialists who still had grievances and democratic reformists, voluntarily united only in their opposition to Bolshevik rule. Their military forces, bolstered by foreign influence and led by General Yudenich, Admiral Kolchak and General Denikin, became known as the White movement (sometimes referred to as the "White Army"), and they controlled significant parts of the former Russian empire for most of the war.
A Ukrainians nationalist movement known as the Green Army and an anarchist movement known as the Black Guards played a much smaller part in the war, sometimes harrying both the Reds and the Whites, and sometimes even each other.
The Triple Entente, upset at the withdrawal of Russia from the war effort and worried about a possible Russo-German alliance, also expressed their dismay at the Bolsheviks. Winston Churchill declared that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle". Cover Story: Churchill's Greatness. Interview with Jeffrey Wallin. (The Churchill Centre) In addition, there was a concern, shared by many Central Powers as well, that the socialist revolutionary ideas would spread to the West. Hence, many of these countries expressed their support for the Whites, including the provision of troops and supplies.
In addition to all of the abovementioned support, volunteers from Italy and Poland also joined the Whites.
The majority of the fighting ended in 1920 with the defeat of General Pyotr Wrangel in the Crimea, 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 Russian Far East).
The Soviet historiography traditionally referred to the conflict as the "Civil War and Military Intervention of 1917-1922". This term also encompassed the Polish-Soviet War, resistance in Ukraine, as well as Basmachi Revolt and foreign intervention in Central Asia in its definition.
Geography and chronology [Image:Russian civil war West 1918-20.png|left|thumb|300px|{{legend-line|#ffbb55 solid 2px|Bolshevik control, Nov 1918--> {{legend-line|blue solid 2px|Maximum advances of 'White' forces--> {{legend-line|red solid 2px|Frontiers, 1921-->
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 in Don River, Russia region headed by General Kaledin, where the Volunteer Army began amassing support. The signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk also resulted in direct Allied intervention in Russia and the arming of military forces opposed to the Bolshevik government. There were also many German commanders who offered support against the Bolsheviks, fearing a confrontation with them was impending as well.
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 Czechoslovaks, known as the Czechoslovak Legion or White Czechs (Белочехи, Byelochekhi), the Poles of the Polish 5th Rifle Division and the pro-Bolshevik Latvian riflemen (Красные латышские стрелки, Krasnye Latyshskiye strelki).
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 Aleksandr Vasilevich Kolchak) and the northwest (under Nikolai Nikolaevich 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. Pyotr Nikolayevich 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.
While historiography generally considers the Russian Civil War to be over after the defeat of Wrangel's troops, organized military resistance continued up until the evacuation of General Diterikhs' troops in Vladivostok in October of 1922, after which the Soviet Union declared itself a state. Thereon after, military resistance to the Soviet government was not to resume on a massive scale until the emergence of the Russian Liberation Movement during World War II.
Course of events The first attempt to regain 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.
slaying the reactionary dragon (Trotsky was People's Commissar of War, and organizer of the Red Army). Note the dragon is wearing a top hat, which the Soviets associated with capitalism.
The initial groups that fought against the Communists were local Cossack armies that had declared their loyalty to the Russian Provisional Government, 1917. Prominent among them were Aleksei Maksimovich Kaledin of the Don Cossacks and Grigory Mikhailovich Semenov of the Siberian Cossacks. In November, General Mikhail Vasilevich Alekseev, the old Tsarist Commander-in-Chief, began to organize a Volunteer Army (Добровольческая Армия, Dobrovolcheskaya Armiya) in Novocherkassk. He was joined in December by Lavr Georgevich Kornilov. These forces fought against the Bolshevik army all across the Ukraine. The Cossacks took Rostov in December 1917.
1918 In July 1918, Lenin established the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic (RSFSR). The Bolsheviks, however, were facing mammoth problems — chief amongst which were impending bankruptcy, White opposition and impatience on the part of the people. The Bolsheviks had to fight for their very survival. The secret police (Cheka) conducted a reign of terror (the "Red Terror"), during which thousands were put to death. As one Bolshevik leader observed, "The Bourgeoisie put individuals to death; we exterminate whole classes." Even the abdicated Tsar and his family, in unthreatening captivity, were brutally murdered. Soviet novelist Boris Pasternak writes evocatively of this period in his book, Dr Zhivago, describing the many atrocities committed by both sides.
Rostov was captured in March 1918. In the course of the Ice March, the Cossack Volunteer Army was evacuated to the Kuban, where they joined with the Kuban Cossacks to mount an abortive assault on Ekaterinodar. General Kornilov was killed in the fighting on April 13, Operational command passed to General Denikin who spent the next few months rebuilding his Cossack army. In October, General Alekseev died of a heart attack and General Denikin was (in theory at least) now the top political leader for the White armies in Southern Russia.
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 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. Under this pretext, the United Kingdom and France sent troops into Russian ports. There were violent confrontations with troops loyal to the Bolsheviks.
It was not until spring of 1918 that the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionary Party joined the armed struggle against the Bolsheviks. Initially, they had been opposed to civil war, but the Brest-Litovsk treaty and the establishment of harsh dictatorial measures changed their position. They could well have been a serious threat, for they had some popular support and the authority of their election victory on the Russian Constituent Assembly in 1918, but they needed an army. An early attempt by the Socialist-Revolutionary Party to recruit Latvian troops in July 1918 was a failure. Fortunately, the Czechoslovak Legion proved to be a more reliable group in aid of their "democratic counter-revolution".
The Czech Legion had been part of the Russian army and numbered around 30,000 by October 1917. Most were former prisoner of war and deserters from the Austro-Hungarian Army. Encouraged by Tomáš Masaryk, the legion was renamed the Czechoslovak 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 unite with the Czechoslovak legions in France) collapsed over an attempt to disarm the Corps. Instead their soldiers disarmed the Bolshevik forces in June 1918 at Cheliabinsk. Within a month the Czechoslovak 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. Shortly before the fall of Ekaterinburg (on July 17 1918), the former Tsar and his family had been executed by the Ural Soviet to prevent them falling into the hands of the Whites.
The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries supported peasant fighting against Soviet control of food supplies. In May 1918, with the support of the Czechoslovak Legion, they took Samara Oblast and Saratov, establishing the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Комуч, Komuch). By July the authority of Komuch extended over much of the area controlled by the Czechoslovak Legion. The Komuch implemented a socialist reform program -- but without the unpopular economic changes which the Soviets were pursuing.
There were also conservative and nationalist "governments" being formed by the Bashkirs, the Kyrgyz 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 Constitutional Democratic Party, (V. A. Vinogradov and P. V. Vologodskii).
However, the new government quickly came under the influence the new War Minister, Rear-Admiral Aleksandr Vasilevich Kolchak. On November 18, a coup d'état established Kolchak as dictator. The members of the Directory were arrested and Kolchak proclaimed the "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 being all in naval warfare). Kolchak also did not get along with the leaders of Czechoslovak 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 reorganisation 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, Count Wilhelm Mirbach, in Moscow, 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 apologised to the Germans for the assassination. There were mass arrests of Socialist-Revolutionaries. Following two further terrorist acts on August 30 — these were the assassination of the Chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, Moisei 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.
1919 . The text above the picture reads, "Peace and Liberty in Sovdepiya"The stage was now set for the key year of the Civil War. The Bolshevik government was firmly in control of the core of Russia, from Petrograd through Moscow and south to Volgograd (now Volgograd). Against this government in the east, Admiral Kolchak had a small army and had some control over the Trans-Siberian Railroad. In the south Cossacks armies controlled much of the Don and the Ukraine. In the Caucasus, General Denikin had established an army. In the newly independent country of Estonia General Nikolai Nikolayevich Yudenich was organizing an army. Estonia was overtly hostile to the Bolsheviks and had been fighting with them since November 1918 (see Estonian War of Independence for details). The French occupied Odessa. The British occupied Murmansk. The British and the United States occupied Arkhangelsk and the Japanese occupied Vladivostok.
Trotsky ordered the Bolshevik army to recapture Ukraine first. This they did in a quick campaign in the winter-spring of 1919. The Cossacks had been unable to organize and capitalize on their successes at the end of 1917. Consequently, when the Soviet Union counter-offensive began in January 1919—under the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko—the Cossack forces rapidly fell apart. The Red Army captured Kiev on February 3 1919 and ten days later, with his army in chaos, General Kaledin committed suicide.
With Bolshevik forces seemingly triumphant in Ukraine, the French, having done almost no fighting, withdrew their troops from Odessa on April 8 1919.
While the war was going on in Ukraine, Trotsky sent another army against Kolchak's forces. This army, lead by the capable commander Tukhachevsky, recaptured Ekaterinburg on January 27 1919 and continued to push along the Trans-Siberian railroad. Both sides had victories and losses, but by the middle of summer the Red army was larger than the White army and was winning back lands it had lost earlier. The British and United States pulled their troops out of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk before the onset of winter, having accomplished little. The Red Army captured Omsk on November 14 1919. Admiral Kolchak lost control of his government shortly after this defeat and in fact, the White army in Siberia essentially ceased to exist by December.
Even though the United Kingdom withdrew its troops, it continued to give significant military aid (money, weapons, food, ammunition, and some military advisors) to the White armies during 1919, especially to General Yudenich.
In the early summer, the Caucasus Army (now under operational command of General Pyotr Wrangel) attacked north, trying to relieve the pressure on Kolchak's army or even link up with it. Wrangel's troops managed to capture Tsaritsyn on June 17 1919. Trotsky responded to this threat by sending Tukhachevsky with a new army against Wrangel's troops. The Caucasus army of Wrangel, faced with superior numbers, retreated south, leaving Tsaritsyn to the Bolsheviks.
Later in the summer, another Cossack force called the Don Army under the command of Cossack General Mamontov attacked into Ukraine. The Red army, stretched thin by fighting on all fronts, was forced out of Kiev on September 2 1919. Mamontov's Don Army continued north towards Voronezh but there they were defeated by Tukhachevsky's army on October 24. Tukhachevsky's army then turned towards yet another threat, the rebuilt Volunteer Army, and destroyed that army at Orel in October. The Red Army recaptured Kiev on December 17 and the defeated Cossacks fled back towards the Black Sea.
While the White Armies were being defeated in the south, the center and the east, there was still one more threat to the Bolshevik government. This threat came from General Yudenich who had spent the spring and summer organizing a small army in Estonia, with British support. In October of 1919 he tried to capture Petrograd in a sudden assault with a force of around 20,000 men. The attack was well executed, with night attacks and maneuvers to turn the flanks of the defending Red army. Yudenich also had six British tanks that caused panic whenever they appeared. By October 19 1919 Yudenich's troops had reached the outskirts of Petrograd. The Bolshevik leadership in Moscow was willing to give up Petrograd, but Trotsky refused to accept the loss and personally went to the city to organize the defenses. Trotsky did everything he could to defend the city including arming the industrial workers and ordering the transfer of military forces up from Moscow. Within a few weeks the Red army defending Petrograd had tripled in size and outnumbered Yudenich three to one. At this point Yudenich gave up his attack and withdrew his army back to Estonia. Upon his return to Estonia, his army was disarmed by order of the Estonian government. The Bolshevik forces that followed Yudenich were beaten back by the Estonian army. Following the Treaty of Tartu (Russian–Estonian) most of Yudenich's soldiers then went into exile.
These victories by the Bolsheviks over Mamontov's Cossack army at Voronezh, Yudenich at Petrograd, and Kolchak at Omsk—all in a one month period—transformed the war. Quite suddenly the Bolshevik government had triumphed over all its internal enemies; the job that remained now was mopping up.
1920 In Siberia, Admiral Kolchak's army had disintegrated. He himself gave up command after the loss of Omsk and designated Grigory Mikhailovich Semenov as the new leader of the White Army in Siberia. Not long after this he was arrested by a dissident faction (which was probably made up of nationalist Bashkirs) as he traveled towards Irkutsk (historian Richard Pipes thinks the French military liaison was involved in this). Kolchak was turned over to the Red army in February 1920 and executed two weeks later (likely on Lenin's order). Fighting in Siberia continued for the next year as armed gangs—essentially bandits—roamed the land. Semenov and his tattered band of Cossacks ultimately retreated into China.
The Czechoslovak Legion had no real interest in fighting in the Russian Civil War. They wanted to fight the German army, but with the end of World War I, that desire died. Uninspired by Kolchak (and not, in turn, trusted by him) they spent most of 1919 moving their troops east and having them shipped, boat by boat, back to Europe. They were aided in this effort by U.S. military units, under the command of General William S. Graves, who took control over the eastern end of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The Czechoslovak Legion managed to evacuate all their forces out from Vladivostok (as had been their original plan in 1918). They were gone by April 1920 which is when the U.S. troops also left Siberia.
Most of the White Armies were evacuated by British ships during the winter-spring of 1920. General Wrangel was the only holdout; his army remained an organized force in the Crimea throughout the summer of 1920. Then, trying to take advantage of the Red Army defeats at the end of the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1920, General Wrangel attacked north. This offensive was rapidly halted by the Red Army and his troops were forced to retreat back to the Crimea in November 1920. He was evacuated by the British out of the Crimea on November 14 1920 amidst horrific scenes of desperation and cruelty. Tens of thousands of Russians tried to escape from the Red army but were unable to find transport on the British ships.
1921—1922 After the defeat of Wrangel, the Red Army attacked its Makhnovist allies at the end of 1920. A naval mutiny at Kronstadt rebellion, and peasant revolts in Ukraine, Tambov, and Siberia broke out in 1921.
The Japanese, who had plans to annex the Amur Krai of Eastern Siberia, finally pulled their troops out as the Bolshevik forces gradually asserted control over all of Siberia. On 25 October 1922 Vladivostok fell to the Red Army and the Provisional Priamur Government was extinguished. General Anatoly Pepelyayev Yakut Revolt in the Ayano-Maysky District until June 1923. The regions of Kamchatka and Northern Sakhalin remained under Japanese occupation until their treaty with Soviet Union in 1925, when their forces were finally withdrawn.
Aftermath The results of the civil war were momentous. Russia had been at war for seven years, during which time some 20,000,000 of its people had lost their lives (to go with the 3,000,000 surrendered to Poland). The civil war had taken an estimated 15,000,000 of them, including at least 1,000,000 soldiers of the Russian Red Army and more than 500,000 White soldiers who died in battle. 50,000 Russian Communists were killed by the counter-revolutionary Whites, and 250,000 civilians were wiped out by the CHEKA. At the end of the Civil War, the Russian SFSR was exhausted and near ruin. The droughts of 1920 and 1921, as well as the Russian famine of 1921, worsened the disaster still further. Disease had reached pandemic proportions, with 3,000,000 dying of typhus alone in 1920. Millions more were also killed by widespread starvation, wholesale massacres by both sides, and even pogroms against Jews in Ukraine and southern Russia. The economic loss to the Russian SFSR was 50 billion rubles, or 35 billion in current U.S. Dollars. The economy was devastated; the industrial production value descended to one seventh of the value of 1913, and agriculture to one third.
Another 1,000,000 people, known as the White emigres, fled Russia - many with General Wrangel, some through the Far East, others fled west into the newly independent Baltic countries in order to escape the ravages of the war, the famine, or the rule of either warring faction. These émigrés included a large part of the educated and skilled population.
According to Pravda, "The workers of the towns and some of the villages choke in the throes of hunger. The railways barely crawl. The houses are crumbling. The towns are full of refuse. Epidemics spread and death strikes -- industry is ruined." Factories and bridges had been obliterated, cattle and raw materials pillaged, mines flooded and machines damaged -- all in the name of the Whites' bid to weaken the Bolsheviks.
The Communist Party assumed complete control, repressing by severe measures all strikes and riots. Once the Bolshevik rivals had been eliminated, they could turn their attentions to the building of a socialist state. War Communism saved the Soviet government during the Civil War, but much of the Russian economy ground to a standstill. It is estimated that the total output of mines and factories in 1921 had fallen to 20 % of the pre-World War level, and many crucial items experienced an even more drastic decline. For example, cotton production fell to 5 %, and iron to 2 % of pre-war levels.
The peasants responded to requisitions by refusing to till the land. By 1921, cultivated land had shrunk to 62 % of the pre-war area, and the harvest yield was only about 37 % of normal. The number of horses declined from 35 million in 1916 to 24 million in 1920, and cattle from 58 to 37 million. The exchange rate with the U.S. dollar declined from two Russian ruble in 1914 to 1,200 in 1920.
Although Russia eventually recovered and even experienced extremely rapid economic growth in the 1930s, the combined effect of World War I and the Civil War left a lasting scar in Russian society, and had permanent effects on the later history of the Soviet Union.
See also
Notes
External links
Establishment of the Soviet Union.] and Red Army
Chinese in Russian Revolution|combatant2= White Movement
Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War
Empire of Japan
Czechoslovakia
Kingdom of Greece
Kingdom of Serbia
Kingdom of Romania
United Kingdom
Foreign volunteers:
Polish people
Italian people|combatant3=Pro-independence movements in Russian Civil War
|commander1=Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Mikhail Frunze, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Semyon Budyonny, [Lavr Kornilov, Anton Denikin, Pyotr Wrangel, Nikolai Yudenich, Aleksandr Kolchak, [Nestor Makhno, Nikifor Grigoriev - [Eastern Front of the Russian Civil War - Northern Front of the Russian Civil War - Central Asian Front in the Russian Civil War - Far Eastern Front in the Russian Civil War-->
The Russian Civil War (1917-1922/3) was a multi-sided international conflict that took place in Russia following the collapse of the Russian Provisional Government and the Bolshevik takeover of St. Petersburg. The conflict rapidly intensified after the dissolution of the Russian Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks in January 1918, and the Bolsheviks signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany in March 1918.
The main hostilities took place between Bolshevik Red Army, and loosely-allied anti-Bolshevik forces, known as the White movement. Many foreign armies also participated, and additionally many foreigners volunteered to fight on one or other of the sides. The largest foreign intervention was Japan's, which involved 70,000 men, nominally in support of the Whites but to a large extent pursuing Japanese expansionist goals in the Russian Far East in operations which were detrimental to both sides. Other forces included various nationalist and regional movements such as the Ukrainian nationalist Green Army, other political movements such as the Ukrainian anarchist Black Army, and independent warlords such as Ungern von Sternberg. These forces sometimes fought against both Reds and Whites, sometimes sided with one of the two, and sometimes switched sides. Additionally the warring sides spilled over Russia's borders into Persia and Mongolia.
In Soviet historiography the end of the Civil War is dated to October 25, 1922 when the Red Army occupied Vladivostok, previously held by the Provisional Priamur Government. The last enclave of the White Forces was the Ayano-Maysky District on the Pacific coast, where General Anatoly Pepelyayev did not capitulate until June 17, 1923.
Overview The most intense fighting took place from 1918 to 1920.
Following the abdication of Nicholas II of Russia and the turbulent Russian Revolution of 1917 throughout 1917, the Russian Provisional Government was established. In October October Revolution occurred in which the Red Guards (Russia), armed groups of workers and deserting soldiers directed by the Bolshevik Party, seized control of Saint Petersburg (then known as Petrograd) and began an immediate armed takeover of cities and villages throughout the former Russian Empire. In January 1918, Lenin had the Constituent Assembly violently dissolved, proclaiming the Soviet (council)s as the new government of Russia.
The Bolsheviks decided to immediately make peace with the German Empire and the Central Powers, as they had promised the Russian people prior to the Revolution. His political enemies attributed this decision to Vladimir Lenin's sponsorship by the foreign office of William II, German Emperor, offered by the latter in hopes that with a revolution, Russia would withdraw from World War I, although no concrete evidence was ever found.
A cease fire was immediately announced and peace talks began. As a condition for peace, the proposed treaty by the Central Powers conceded huge portions of the former Russian Empire to German Empire and the Ottoman Empire, greatly upsetting nationalists and Conservatisms. Leon Trotsky, representing the Bolsheviks, refused at first to sign the treaty while continuing to observe a unilateral cease fire, following the policy of "No fighting, but no peace treaty".
In view of this, the Germans began an all out advance on the Eastern Front, encountering no resistance. Signing a formal peace treaty was the only option in the eyes of the Bolsheviks, because the Russian army was demobilized and the newly formed Red Guard were incapable of stopping the advance. They also understood that the impending counterrevolutionary resistance was more dangerous than the concessions of the treaty, which Lenin viewed as temporary in the light of aspirations for a world revolution. The Soviets acceded to a peace treaty and the formal agreement, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, was ratified on March 6, 1918.
In the wake of the October Revolution, the old Russian army had been demobilized and the volunteer based Red Guard was the Bolsheviks' main military arm. In January, Trotsky headed its reorganization into the "Workers' and Peasants' Red Army," in order to create a more professional fighting force. He instituted a forceful conscription program, frequently resorting to repressive tactics, and used former Tsarist officers as "military specialists".
The Bolsheviks banned all non-Bolshevik political activity around the same time. The Bolsheviks even banned other socialist groups when it became clear that the Bolsheviks could not hold a majority of the seats in any democratically elected governing body outside of St. Petersburg and Moscow. This was particularly visible in the elections to the Constituent Assembly where Bolsheviks constituted a minority of the vote (despite Bolshevik supervision at major urban polling centers).
While resistance to the Red Guard began on the very next day after the Bolshevik coup, the Brest-Litovsk treaty and the political ban became a catalyst John M. Thompson, A vision unfulfilled. Russia and the Soviet Union in the twentieth century (Lexington, MA; 1996) 159. for the formation of anti-Bolshevik groups both inside and outside Russia, pushing them into action against the new regime.
A loose confederation of anti-Bolshevik forces aligned against the Communist government, including land-owners, Republicanism, conservatives, middle-class citizens, reactionary, monarchist, liberals, army generals, non-Bolshevik socialists who still had grievances and democratic reformists, voluntarily united only in their opposition to Bolshevik rule. Their military forces, bolstered by foreign influence and led by General Yudenich, Admiral Kolchak and General Denikin, became known as the White movement (sometimes referred to as the "White Army"), and they controlled significant parts of the former Russian empire for most of the war.
A Ukrainians nationalist movement known as the Green Army and an anarchist movement known as the Black Guards played a much smaller part in the war, sometimes harrying both the Reds and the Whites, and sometimes even each other.
The Triple Entente, upset at the withdrawal of Russia from the war effort and worried about a possible Russo-German alliance, also expressed their dismay at the Bolsheviks. Winston Churchill declared that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle". Cover Story: Churchill's Greatness. Interview with Jeffrey Wallin. (The Churchill Centre) In addition, there was a concern, shared by many Central Powers as well, that the socialist revolutionary ideas would spread to the West. Hence, many of these countries expressed their support for the Whites, including the provision of troops and supplies.
In addition to all of the abovementioned support, volunteers from Italy and Poland also joined the Whites.
The majority of the fighting ended in 1920 with the defeat of General Pyotr Wrangel in the Crimea, 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 Russian Far East).
The Soviet historiography traditionally referred to the conflict as the "Civil War and Military Intervention of 1917-1922". This term also encompassed the Polish-Soviet War, resistance in Ukraine, as well as Basmachi Revolt and foreign intervention in Central Asia in its definition.
Geography and chronology [Image:Russian civil war West 1918-20.png|left|thumb|300px|{{legend-line|#ffbb55 solid 2px|Bolshevik control, Nov 1918--> {{legend-line|blue solid 2px|Maximum advances of 'White' forces--> {{legend-line|red solid 2px|Frontiers, 1921-->
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 in Don River, Russia region headed by General Kaledin, where the Volunteer Army began amassing support. The signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk also resulted in direct Allied intervention in Russia and the arming of military forces opposed to the Bolshevik government. There were also many German commanders who offered support against the Bolsheviks, fearing a confrontation with them was impending as well.
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 Czechoslovaks, known as the Czechoslovak Legion or White Czechs (Белочехи, Byelochekhi), the Poles of the Polish 5th Rifle Division and the pro-Bolshevik Latvian riflemen (Красные латышские стрелки, Krasnye Latyshskiye strelki).
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 Aleksandr Vasilevich Kolchak) and the northwest (under Nikolai Nikolaevich 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. Pyotr Nikolayevich 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.
While historiography generally considers the Russian Civil War to be over after the defeat of Wrangel's troops, organized military resistance continued up until the evacuation of General Diterikhs' troops in Vladivostok in October of 1922, after which the Soviet Union declared itself a state. Thereon after, military resistance to the Soviet government was not to resume on a massive scale until the emergence of the Russian Liberation Movement during World War II.
Course of events The first attempt to regain 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.
slaying the reactionary dragon (Trotsky was People's Commissar of War, and organizer of the Red Army). Note the dragon is wearing a top hat, which the Soviets associated with capitalism.
The initial groups that fought against the Communists were local Cossack armies that had declared their loyalty to the Russian Provisional Government, 1917. Prominent among them were Aleksei Maksimovich Kaledin of the Don Cossacks and Grigory Mikhailovich Semenov of the Siberian Cossacks. In November, General Mikhail Vasilevich Alekseev, the old Tsarist Commander-in-Chief, began to organize a Volunteer Army (Добровольческая Армия, Dobrovolcheskaya Armiya) in Novocherkassk. He was joined in December by Lavr Georgevich Kornilov. These forces fought against the Bolshevik army all across the Ukraine. The Cossacks took Rostov in December 1917.
1918 In July 1918, Lenin established the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic (RSFSR). The Bolsheviks, however, were facing mammoth problems — chief amongst which were impending bankruptcy, White opposition and impatience on the part of the people. The Bolsheviks had to fight for their very survival. The secret police (Cheka) conducted a reign of terror (the "Red Terror"), during which thousands were put to death. As one Bolshevik leader observed, "The Bourgeoisie put individuals to death; we exterminate whole classes." Even the abdicated Tsar and his family, in unthreatening captivity, were brutally murdered. Soviet novelist Boris Pasternak writes evocatively of this period in his book, Dr Zhivago, describing the many atrocities committed by both sides.
Rostov was captured in March 1918. In the course of the Ice March, the Cossack Volunteer Army was evacuated to the Kuban, where they joined with the Kuban Cossacks to mount an abortive assault on Ekaterinodar. General Kornilov was killed in the fighting on April 13, Operational command passed to General Denikin who spent the next few months rebuilding his Cossack army. In October, General Alekseev died of a heart attack and General Denikin was (in theory at least) now the top political leader for the White armies in Southern Russia.
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 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. Under this pretext, the United Kingdom and France sent troops into Russian ports. There were violent confrontations with troops loyal to the Bolsheviks.
It was not until spring of 1918 that the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionary Party joined the armed struggle against the Bolsheviks. Initially, they had been opposed to civil war, but the Brest-Litovsk treaty and the establishment of harsh dictatorial measures changed their position. They could well have been a serious threat, for they had some popular support and the authority of their election victory on the Russian Constituent Assembly in 1918, but they needed an army. An early attempt by the Socialist-Revolutionary Party to recruit Latvian troops in July 1918 was a failure. Fortunately, the Czechoslovak Legion proved to be a more reliable group in aid of their "democratic counter-revolution".
The Czech Legion had been part of the Russian army and numbered around 30,000 by October 1917. Most were former prisoner of war and deserters from the Austro-Hungarian Army. Encouraged by Tomáš Masaryk, the legion was renamed the Czechoslovak 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 unite with the Czechoslovak legions in France) collapsed over an attempt to disarm the Corps. Instead their soldiers disarmed the Bolshevik forces in June 1918 at Cheliabinsk. Within a month the Czechoslovak 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. Shortly before the fall of Ekaterinburg (on July 17 1918), the former Tsar and his family had been executed by the Ural Soviet to prevent them falling into the hands of the Whites.
The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries supported peasant fighting against Soviet control of food supplies. In May 1918, with the support of the Czechoslovak Legion, they took Samara Oblast and Saratov, establishing the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Комуч, Komuch). By July the authority of Komuch extended over much of the area controlled by the Czechoslovak Legion. The Komuch implemented a socialist reform program -- but without the unpopular economic changes which the Soviets were pursuing.
There were also conservative and nationalist "governments" being formed by the Bashkirs, the Kyrgyz 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 Constitutional Democratic Party, (V. A. Vinogradov and P. V. Vologodskii).
However, the new government quickly came under the influence the new War Minister, Rear-Admiral Aleksandr Vasilevich Kolchak. On November 18, a coup d'état established Kolchak as dictator. The members of the Directory were arrested and Kolchak proclaimed the "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 being all in naval warfare). Kolchak also did not get along with the leaders of Czechoslovak 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 reorganisation 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, Count Wilhelm Mirbach, in Moscow, 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 apologised to the Germans for the assassination. There were mass arrests of Socialist-Revolutionaries. Following two further terrorist acts on August 30 — these were the assassination of the Chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, Moisei 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.
1919 . The text above the picture reads, "Peace and Liberty in Sovdepiya"The stage was now set for the key year of the Civil War. The Bolshevik government was firmly in control of the core of Russia, from Petrograd through Moscow and south to Volgograd (now Volgograd). Against this government in the east, Admiral Kolchak had a small army and had some control over the Trans-Siberian Railroad. In the south Cossacks armies controlled much of the Don and the Ukraine. In the Caucasus, General Denikin had established an army. In the newly independent country of Estonia General Nikolai Nikolayevich Yudenich was organizing an army. Estonia was overtly hostile to the Bolsheviks and had been fighting with them since November 1918 (see Estonian War of Independence for details). The French occupied Odessa. The British occupied Murmansk. The British and the United States occupied Arkhangelsk and the Japanese occupied Vladivostok.
Trotsky ordered the Bolshevik army to recapture Ukraine first. This they did in a quick campaign in the winter-spring of 1919. The Cossacks had been unable to organize and capitalize on their successes at the end of 1917. Consequently, when the Soviet Union counter-offensive began in January 1919—under the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko—the Cossack forces rapidly fell apart. The Red Army captured Kiev on February 3 1919 and ten days later, with his army in chaos, General Kaledin committed suicide.
With Bolshevik forces seemingly triumphant in Ukraine, the French, having done almost no fighting, withdrew their troops from Odessa on April 8 1919.
While the war was going on in Ukraine, Trotsky sent another army against Kolchak's forces. This army, lead by the capable commander Tukhachevsky, recaptured Ekaterinburg on January 27 1919 and continued to push along the Trans-Siberian railroad. Both sides had victories and losses, but by the middle of summer the Red army was larger than the White army and was winning back lands it had lost earlier. The British and United States pulled their troops out of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk before the onset of winter, having accomplished little. The Red Army captured Omsk on November 14 1919. Admiral Kolchak lost control of his government shortly after this defeat and in fact, the White army in Siberia essentially ceased to exist by December.
Even though the United Kingdom withdrew its troops, it continued to give significant military aid (money, weapons, food, ammunition, and some military advisors) to the White armies during 1919, especially to General Yudenich.
In the early summer, the Caucasus Army (now under operational command of General Pyotr Wrangel) attacked north, trying to relieve the pressure on Kolchak's army or even link up with it. Wrangel's troops managed to capture Tsaritsyn on June 17 1919. Trotsky responded to this threat by sending Tukhachevsky with a new army against Wrangel's troops. The Caucasus army of Wrangel, faced with superior numbers, retreated south, leaving Tsaritsyn to the Bolsheviks.
Later in the summer, another Cossack force called the Don Army under the command of Cossack General Mamontov attacked into Ukraine. The Red army, stretched thin by fighting on all fronts, was forced out of Kiev on September 2 1919. Mamontov's Don Army continued north towards Voronezh but there they were defeated by Tukhachevsky's army on October 24. Tukhachevsky's army then turned towards yet another threat, the rebuilt Volunteer Army, and destroyed that army at Orel in October. The Red Army recaptured Kiev on December 17 and the defeated Cossacks fled back towards the Black Sea.
While the White Armies were being defeated in the south, the center and the east, there was still one more threat to the Bolshevik government. This threat came from General Yudenich who had spent the spring and summer organizing a small army in Estonia, with British support. In October of 1919 he tried to capture Petrograd in a sudden assault with a force of around 20,000 men. The attack was well executed, with night attacks and maneuvers to turn the flanks of the defending Red army. Yudenich also had six British tanks that caused panic whenever they appeared. By October 19 1919 Yudenich's troops had reached the outskirts of Petrograd. The Bolshevik leadership in Moscow was willing to give up Petrograd, but Trotsky refused to accept the loss and personally went to the city to organize the defenses. Trotsky did everything he could to defend the city including arming the industrial workers and ordering the transfer of military forces up from Moscow. Within a few weeks the Red army defending Petrograd had tripled in size and outnumbered Yudenich three to one. At this point Yudenich gave up his attack and withdrew his army back to Estonia. Upon his return to Estonia, his army was disarmed by order of the Estonian government. The Bolshevik forces that followed Yudenich were beaten back by the Estonian army. Following the Treaty of Tartu (Russian–Estonian) most of Yudenich's soldiers then went into exile.
These victories by the Bolsheviks over Mamontov's Cossack army at Voronezh, Yudenich at Petrograd, and Kolchak at Omsk—all in a one month period—transformed the war. Quite suddenly the Bolshevik government had triumphed over all its internal enemies; the job that remained now was mopping up.
1920 In Siberia, Admiral Kolchak's army had disintegrated. He himself gave up command after the loss of Omsk and designated Grigory Mikhailovich Semenov as the new leader of the White Army in Siberia. Not long after this he was arrested by a dissident faction (which was probably made up of nationalist Bashkirs) as he traveled towards Irkutsk (historian Richard Pipes thinks the French military liaison was involved in this). Kolchak was turned over to the Red army in February 1920 and executed two weeks later (likely on Lenin's order). Fighting in Siberia continued for the next year as armed gangs—essentially bandits—roamed the land. Semenov and his tattered band of Cossacks ultimately retreated into China.
The Czechoslovak Legion had no real interest in fighting in the Russian Civil War. They wanted to fight the German army, but with the end of World War I, that desire died. Uninspired by Kolchak (and not, in turn, trusted by him) they spent most of 1919 moving their troops east and having them shipped, boat by boat, back to Europe. They were aided in this effort by U.S. military units, under the command of General William S. Graves, who took control over the eastern end of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The Czechoslovak Legion managed to evacuate all their forces out from Vladivostok (as had been their original plan in 1918). They were gone by April 1920 which is when the U.S. troops also left Siberia.
Most of the White Armies were evacuated by British ships during the winter-spring of 1920. General Wrangel was the only holdout; his army remained an organized force in the Crimea throughout the summer of 1920. Then, trying to take advantage of the Red Army defeats at the end of the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1920, General Wrangel attacked north. This offensive was rapidly halted by the Red Army and his troops were forced to retreat back to the Crimea in November 1920. He was evacuated by the British out of the Crimea on November 14 1920 amidst horrific scenes of desperation and cruelty. Tens of thousands of Russians tried to escape from the Red army but were unable to find transport on the British ships.
1921—1922 After the defeat of Wrangel, the Red Army attacked its Makhnovist allies at the end of 1920. A naval mutiny at Kronstadt rebellion, and peasant revolts in Ukraine, Tambov, and Siberia broke out in 1921.
The Japanese, who had plans to annex the Amur Krai of Eastern Siberia, finally pulled their troops out as the Bolshevik forces gradually asserted control over all of Siberia. On 25 October 1922 Vladivostok fell to the Red Army and the Provisional Priamur Government was extinguished. General Anatoly Pepelyayev Yakut Revolt in the Ayano-Maysky District until June 1923. The regions of Kamchatka and Northern Sakhalin remained under Japanese occupation until their treaty with Soviet Union in 1925, when their forces were finally withdrawn.
Aftermath The results of the civil war were momentous. Russia had been at war for seven years, during which time some 20,000,000 of its people had lost their lives (to go with the 3,000,000 surrendered to Poland). The civil war had taken an estimated 15,000,000 of them, including at least 1,000,000 soldiers of the Russian Red Army and more than 500,000 White soldiers who died in battle. 50,000 Russian Communists were killed by the counter-revolutionary Whites, and 250,000 civilians were wiped out by the CHEKA. At the end of the Civil War, the Russian SFSR was exhausted and near ruin. The droughts of 1920 and 1921, as well as the Russian famine of 1921, worsened the disaster still further. Disease had reached pandemic proportions, with 3,000,000 dying of typhus alone in 1920. Millions more were also killed by widespread starvation, wholesale massacres by both sides, and even pogroms against Jews in Ukraine and southern Russia. The economic loss to the Russian SFSR was 50 billion rubles, or 35 billion in current U.S. Dollars. The economy was devastated; the industrial production value descended to one seventh of the value of 1913, and agriculture to one third.
Another 1,000,000 people, known as the White emigres, fled Russia - many with General Wrangel, some through the Far East, others fled west into the newly independent Baltic countries in order to escape the ravages of the war, the famine, or the rule of either warring faction. These émigrés included a large part of the educated and skilled population.
According to Pravda, "The workers of the towns and some of the villages choke in the throes of hunger. The railways barely crawl. The houses are crumbling. The towns are full of refuse. Epidemics spread and death strikes -- industry is ruined." Factories and bridges had been obliterated, cattle and raw materials pillaged, mines flooded and machines damaged -- all in the name of the Whites' bid to weaken the Bolsheviks.
The Communist Party assumed complete control, repressing by severe measures all strikes and riots. Once the Bolshevik rivals had been eliminated, they could turn their attentions to the building of a socialist state. War Communism saved the Soviet government during the Civil War, but much of the Russian economy ground to a standstill. It is estimated that the total output of mines and factories in 1921 had fallen to 20 % of the pre-World War level, and many crucial items experienced an even more drastic decline. For example, cotton production fell to 5 %, and iron to 2 % of pre-war levels.
The peasants responded to requisitions by refusing to till the land. By 1921, cultivated land had shrunk to 62 % of the pre-war area, and the harvest yield was only about 37 % of normal. The number of horses declined from 35 million in 1916 to 24 million in 1920, and cattle from 58 to 37 million. The exchange rate with the U.S. dollar declined from two Russian ruble in 1914 to 1,200 in 1920.
Although Russia eventually recovered and even experienced extremely rapid economic growth in the 1930s, the combined effect of World War I and the Civil War left a lasting scar in Russian society, and had permanent effects on the later history of the Soviet Union.
See also
- Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War
- North Russia Campaign
- Polar Bear Expedition
- American Expeditionary Force Siberia
- Siberian Intervention
- German Caucasus Expedition
- Latvian Riflemen
- Stalin in the Russian Civil War
- Nestor Makhno
- Russian Liberation Movement
- Red Terror
- White Terror
- White Movement
- Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine
- Green Army
- Red Army
- Azerbaijan Democratic Republic
- Democratic Republic of Armenia
- United Baltic Duchy
- Belarusian National Republic
- Bessarabian Soviet Socialist Republic
- Far Eastern Republic
- Idel-Ural State
- Doctor Zhivago (novel) - a novel about the Russian Civil War.
- Doctor Zhivago (film) - a film based on the novel.
- Reds (film) - a Hollywood movie set in the time period
Notes
- T.N. Dupuy, The Encyclopedia of Military History (many editions) Harper & Row Publishers.
- DK Atlas of World History, 1999, Dorling Kindersley Publishing.
External links
- Russian Revolution and Civil War archive at libcom.org/library
- "BBC History of the Russian Revolution" (February 3, 2007)
- "Russian Civil War" (Spartacus History, downloaded January 3, 2006)
- "Russian Civil War 1918-1920" (On War website, downloaded January 4, 2006)
- "Civil War of 1917 - 1922 at Encyclopedia of Russian History (February 3, 2007)
- "Russian Civil War Polities" (World Statesmen.org, downloaded February 16, 2007)
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