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The Civil War:

CIVIL WAR – 1918 – 1920

Causes:

  • Bols opp
  • Bols seized power by coup – no coalition/popular discontent
  • Opp had to fight back
  • SRs, Mens, Tsarists – angry about Treaty of B-L
  • Landlords/bourgeoisie who lost land were angry
  • Czech Legion
  • Czech prisoners-of-war took control of T-S railway – fought Germans as a separate unit until B-L under Masaryk
  • Trotsky double-crossed them unsuccessfully
  • He agreed they could go through Russia to the Western Front, but Red Army shot them, so Czech Legion captured Simbirsk and controlled T-S from Simbirsk to Vladivostok
    • Czech legion wanted independence
  • World opp
  • Bols set up Comintern – cause worldwide revolution
  • Other countries angry at Russia pulling out of WW1 and writing off foreign debt
  • Attacked from Arkhangelsk, Ukraine and Vladivostok
  • Lack of food
  • Loss of Ukraine in treaty = lack of food supply
  • Depravations left by WW1 – caused food shortage
  • Reds – consolidate hold of Russia
  • Whites – only way to challenge Bols
  • Greens – national independence

REDS

  • Bols Red Army
  • Generally well organised due to Trotsky
  • Red Guards, Kronstadt soldiers, volunteers
  • Conscripts usually unwilling to fight – peasants rather joined Greens
    • By 1921 – 4 million deserted
  • Indiscipline, poor supply, anti-Semitism present
  • Trotsky = Commissar of War – Mar 1918
    • Trotsky = outstanding military leader, inspiring and effective
    • Recaptured regions of Kazan and Simbirsk – Sep 1918
    • Had 600,000 soldiers in 1918, inc. 40,000 officers who served under N II
      • Criticised but Trotsky argued war would be impossible without experienced officers
      • Trotsky took families of old officers under arrest, so he was not betrayed
    • Methods:
    • Propaganda
    • Better Russia – common cause, prevent Tsarism returning
    • Communist Youth League (Komsomol) – people in 20s recruit others
    • Trotsky’s train has a propaganda printing press – immediate reaction to Whites
    • Bribes
    • Promotions, chocolate, tobacco, watches, brass bands to boost morale
    • No medals due to equality belief
    • Violence
    • Against own troops – Cheka, executed for cowardice, blocking detachments (fire at people who retreat)

WHITES

  • Led by General Yudenich, Denikin, Wrangel and Admiral Kolchak
  • Socialists, liberals, Tsarists, foreign powers, landlords, factory owners, religious people
    • Different aims
  • Did not co-ordinate efforts enough
  • Yudenich – Oct 1919 – captured area 50km away from Petrograd, outnumbered by Red Guard units, so he ordered his men to retreat and head for Estonia
  • Kolchak – Mar 1919 – captured Ufa, threat to Kazan and Samara, acts of repression caused formation of Western Siberian Peasants’ Red Army. Killed by own army – SRs kill him by firing squad – Feb 1920
  • Retreat of army – Great Siberian Ice March
    • 30,000 White Army soldiers + families + possessions, had to cross Lake Baikal
    • Froze to death in situ
    • Leader = Kappel, died Jan 1920
  • Denikin – withdrew to Crimea, retreated to Black Sea
    • Tukhachevsky led Reds, Denikin forced to leave Russia
  • Wrangel – made little impression on Frunze (Red leader), remaining army left Russia on ship from Crimea – Wrangel died 1928.

GREENS

  • Peasants formed groups to keep armed groups off their land and prevent requisitioning
  • Associated with SRs at times, support throughout Russia
    • Peasantry reluctant to actively fight in civil war
  • Why did they fight?
  • War Communism introduced in 1918 – requisitioned excess peasant grain
  • Units often harmed innocent villagers to get the grain
    • Cause widespread resentment of the Bols regime
    • Repression of any unrest alienated peasants – some devoted themselves to anti-Communist activities
  • 1920 – Reds won, groups of deserters consolidated in forests and opposed Bols
    • Usually without a plan/alternative option, just to rid countryside of Bols
  • Little information about leaders due to illiteracy and spontaneous nature of movements
  • Motivated individual led group of soldiers, collecting new soldiers on the way
    • Simple and reactionary goals, exaggerate Bols weaknesses
    • Succeeded in provoking a sense that the peasants could damage Bols control
    • Drew support from disillusioned urban and railroad workers who went back to villages
  • Tactics:
  • Concentrated leadership and distinct units – higher level of organisation than others
  • Antonov’s army in Tambov had medical staff and a complex communication and intelligence system
    • Employed women, children and the elderly
  • Forces ranged from 100s to 50,000
  • Greens stole war materials from defeated Red soldiers as well as weapons from Red deserters
  • Drove armed resistance to Soviet institutions in villages – bragged about peasant victories
  • Used highly mobile guerrilla warfare – attacked Soviet systems/Red detachments
  • Peasants cruelly punished soldiers and Communist officials
  • Co-operated with anarchists/left SRs (against Reds, no common goal)
  • Bols response
  • Tried to build up anti-Comm, anti-revolutionary image of Greens
  • Announced that Greens were just subsection of Whites (they weren’t)
  • Exaggerated influence of kulaks in Green armies
  • Believed they could easily defeat the Greens
  • Reds treated each as a specific instant of unrest – suppressed harshly and angered peasants
  • A big threat to Comm –may have influenced the abolition of War Comm
  • Reasons for failure
  • Green armies disappeared by summer 1922
  • Amounted to violence without an actual goal
  • Neglected to install themselves politically – not viable opposition, land taken by Reds
  • Tension within bands
  • Underfunded, low on supplies

Role of Trotsky in the Civil War:

  • Restored discipline in army – turned Reds into effective fighting force
  • Strict hierarchal lines – Tsarist officers returned to train and command units
    • Trotsky held family’s hostage to ensure loyalty
    • Lenin recognised this was the only solution – Stalin and Kamenev disagreed
  • Trotsky attached political commissar to each unit
    • Watch and report on officers – ensure political correctness
    • Fed back useful information to HQ
  • Soldiers’ committees and elections for officers ended – ranks etc. reintroduced
    • Resented by soldiers
  • Death penalty reintroduced – thought it was essential to ensure men would fight
  • Labour battalions – comprised of untrustworthy people, to help at the Front
  • Strengths – energy, passion, organisational abilities, inspired men with great speeches
    • Was not a military expert, but co-ordinated efforts, and was in charge
  • Had a train to constantly go to the Front – morale booster
    • HQ, troop transporter, munitions and uniform supplies
    • Propaganda machine – print anti-White propaganda as news came in
  • Blocking detachments – if someone retreated, they would be shot

Why were the Whites defeated?

  1. Lack of co-ordination of efforts
  • Different aims and political ideas
  • SRs, Men’s, Tsarists – want different things
  1. Yudenich
  • Nov 1919 – defeated
  • Flees to Estonia
  1. Kolchak
  • Dec 1919 – defeated
  • End of 1919 – UK, USA and French forces largely leaves
  • Kolchak’s army die in the Great Siberian Ice March
  1. Denikin
  • Apr 1920 – leaves Russia, but forces stay
  • Wrangel takes over
  1. Wrangel
  • Nov 1920 – defeated

Why did the Bols win?

  1. Whites were disunited
  • Whites hated each other (politically)
  • Geographical distance away from each other = can be defeated separately
  1. Whites were not a better option
  • Wide range of supporters – can’t have policies that please everyone]
  1. Trotsky
  • Good war leader and strategist
  • He defeated Yudenich before he arrived in Petrograd
  1. Reds = mostly keen soldiers
  • Keen Communists – fighting for a better world
  • Common cause – want to see instant change
  1. Control of the economy
  • War Communism – requisitioning grain, nationalising factories
  • Could get what they needed quickly and exert power
  1. Red Terror
  • Announced by Sverdlov
  • Violence by Reds, across whole civil war OR Sep – Oct 1918
  • 3 Sep 1918 – Izvestia – Will crush counter revolution with massive terror
  • 5 Sep 1918 – became law
    • Cheka conducted mass torture and killing
    • Bols claim 800 killed in Petrograd and 6,000 arrested
    • ACTUAL – 10,000< killed
    • Ends 15 Oct officially
    • However – Mar 1919 – 900 people in Putilov strike, Cheka go and shoot them
  • Scared people into behaving, guaranteed compliance and grain
  1. Reds had what they needed
  • Control of big cities and railways
    • Petrograd and Moscow = big cities, have lots of factories – goods for war
    • 300,000 in army
    • Trains ensured transport of goods, troops, ammunition etc.
    • Trotsky’s HQ = train
  1. Ineffective foreign interventions

Impact of Civil War

  • Tsar – Jul 16-17 – Tsar and Romanov family killed
  • Soldiers
  • People
  • 8 million deaths
  • Disease – 1 million die from typhoid and typhus by 1920
  • Famine – 1921
  • Due to requisitioning, supply issues and a drought
  • 1920 harvest = ½ of 1913 harvest
  • Pravda – 1 in 5 people starving
  • 5 million die, 10 million fed by American interventions, due to reports of cannibalism
  • Violence – villages exploited by Reds/Whites, killed villagers if enough resources weren’t supplied
  • Murder, rape, general repression
  • Pogrom = anti-Semitic violence
  • Cheka (secret police) – led by Felix Dzerzhinsky
  • Punished enemies of the people (anyone anti-Reds)
  • Arrested, imprisoned, tortured and sometimes murdered people
  • 1922 – show trials – humiliate enemies publicly
  • Economy
  • WAR COMMUNISM – 1918-1921
  • Requisitioning of peasant’s grain
  • Jun 1918 – Land, banks, shipping, railways and heavy industry nationalised
  • Nov 1920 – Large factories nationalised
  • 1921 – Foreign trade = state monopoly
  • Production reduced dramatically
  • 1920 – coal = 30% of 1913 value
  • Hyperinflation
  • Rouble loses value
  • Caused by shortage of goods and excess printing
  • 1920 – rouble is 1% of 1917 value
  • Communist Party
  • Government
  • Centralised
  • Renamed country
  • Economic changes
  • Church
  • Presented threat to Bolsheviks having overall control
  • Items from churches stolen
  • Occasionally church land was confiscated, and priests were shot

Foreign intervention:

– Britain/France

  • Care about relationship with new government
  • Disagree with Communists due to ‘domino effect’ idea and their withdrawal from WW1
  • Germany had a 1919 Spartacist revolution, might fall to Communism
  • Money lent to Russia was not returned
  • Never fully involved – no real motives, exhaustion from WW1
  • Occupy ports, blocked supplies, give some supplies to Whites
  • 1918 – British land forces enter Transcaucasia (southern Russia)
  • British and French warships entered Russian Baltic waters and Black Sea
  • French set up land base around Black Sea port of Odessa

– Japan

  • Imperial aims – want to gain territory, weakening Russia is appealing
  • Apr 1918 – troops in Eastern Russia (Vladivostok port) – joined by others in Aug

– USA

  • Send 13,000 troops to Archangelsk and Vladivostok
  • Feed starving population – 10 million, but 5 million still die

– Russian Empire

  • Countries take opportunity to send troops and gain independence
  • Lenin accepted then refused
  • G. Lithuania, Poland – nationalism

Why do they fail?

  1. Foreign countries don’t work together
  2. Different motives and aims
  • G. Japan – gain territory, UK – WW1 withdrawal, Czechoslovakia – independence
  1. Exhaustion from WW1 – no stomach for war
  2. Bols paint them as ‘foreign invaders’ in propaganda – increasing own position