Russian Civil War: Difference between revisions
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{{Short description|Multi-party war in the former Russian Empire ( |
{{Short description|Multi-party war in the former Russian Empire (1917–1922)}} |
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{{pp|small=yes}} |
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{{Other uses|Russian Civil War (disambiguation)}} |
{{Other uses|Russian Civil War (disambiguation)}} |
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{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}} |
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}} |
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{{Infobox military conflict |
{{Infobox military conflict |
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| conflict = Russian Civil War |
| conflict = Russian Civil War |
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| partof = the [[Russian Revolution]], |
| partof = the [[Russian Revolution]], [[revolutions of 1917–1923]], and the [[aftermath of World War I]] |
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| image = CWRArticleImage.jpg |
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| image = [[File:Russian Civil War montage.png|370px]] |
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| image_size = 300px |
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| caption = Clockwise from top left:{{flatlist| |
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| caption = Clockwise from top left:{{flatlist| |
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* Soldiers of the [[Don Army]] |
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* Soldiers of the [[ |
* Soldiers of the [[Don Army]] in 1919 |
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* A [[White movement|White Russian]] infantry division in 1920 |
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* Bolshevik suppression of the [[Kronstadt rebellion]] |
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* Soldiers of the [[1st Cavalry Army]] |
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* American troops in Vladivostok during the [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|Allied intervention]] |
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* |
* [[Leon Trotsky]] in 1918 |
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* Hanging of |
* Hanging of Yekaterinoslav workers by Austro-Hungarian troops in 1918 |
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* A review of Red Army troops in Moscow |
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}} |
}} |
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| date = 7 November 1917{{snd}} |
| date = 7 November 1917{{snd}}25 October 1922{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|pp=3, 230}} |
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| place = Former [[Russian Empire]] |
| place = Former [[Russian Empire]] |
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| result = Bolshevik victory (see {{slink||Aftermath}})<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Russian Civil War |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Civil-War |date=10 May 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Murphy |first1=Brian |title=Rostov in the Russian Civil War, 1917-1920: The Key to Victory |date=2 August 2004 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-27129-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CMp-AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA2 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Bullock |first1=David |title=The Russian Civil War 1918–22 |date=6 June 2014 |publisher=Bloomsbury |isbn=978-1-472-81032-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I52HCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1882 |via=Google Books}}</ref> |
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| result = *Bolshevik victory |
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| combatant1 = [[Bolsheviks]]:{{ubli |
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* Partial victory by independence movements (see {{slink|#Aftermath}}) |
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| {{flag icon|RSFSR|1918}} [[Russian SFSR]] |
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| combatants_header = Main belligerents |
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| {{nwr|{{flag icon|BSSR|1919}} [[Byelorussian SSR]]}} |
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| combatant1 = {{Ubl |
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| {{flag icon|UkSSR|1919}} [[Ukrainian SSR]] |
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|'''[[Bolshevik Party|Bolsheviks]]''': |
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| {{flag icon|Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic|1922}} [[Transcaucasian SFSR]] |
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| '''{{flagdeco|Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Russian SFSR]]'''<br>(1917–22) |
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|{{flagicon image|Red flag.svg}} Regional forces}} |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919-1929).svg}} [[Ukrainian SSR]]<br>({{flagicon image|Flag of Ukrainian People's Republic of the Soviets.svg|size=15px}} [[Ukrainian People's Republic of Soviets|1917–18]]; [[Ukrainian Soviet Republic|1918]];<br>1919–22) |
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| combatant2 = [[White movement]]:{{ubl|{{flagicon|Russia|1896}} [[Russian State]] |{{flagicon|Russia|1896}} [[South Russia (1919–1920)|South Russia]]}} |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919-1927).svg}} [[Byelorussian SSR]]<br>({{flagicon image|Flag_of_Byelorussian_SSR_(1919-1927).png|size=15px}} [[Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia|1919]]; {{flagicon image|Flag of the Lithuanian-Byelorussian SSR.svg|size=15px}} [[Socialist Soviet Republic of Lithuania and Belorussia|1919–20]];<br>1920–22) |
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| combatant3 = [[Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War|Separatists]]:{{ubli| |
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| {{flagicon image|Ru transcaucasia1922.png}} [[Transcaucasian SFSR]] (1922) |
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| {{flagdeco|Poland|1919}} [[Second Polish Republic|Poland]] |
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| '''{{flagicon image|Flag of the Soviet Union (1922–1923).svg}} [[Soviet Union]]'''<br>(after 1922) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Finland (1918–1920).svg}} [[Finland]] |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Ukrainian People's Republic 1917.svg}} [[Ukrainian People's Republic|Ukraine]] |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Belarus (1918, 1991–1995).svg}} [[Belarusian People's Republic|Belarus]] |
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| {{flagdeco|Estonia}} [[History of Estonia (1920–1939)|Estonia]] |
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| {{flag|Latvia}} |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Lithuania (1918–1940).svg}} [[Lithuania]] |
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| {{flagicon|Georgia|1918}} [[Georgian Democratic Republic|Georgia]] |
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| {{flagicon|Armenia|1918}} [[First Republic of Armenia|Armenia]] |
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| {{nwr|{{flagicon|Azerbaijan|1918}} [[Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan|Azerbaijan]]}} |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of the Mountain Republic.svg}} [[Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus|Northern Caucasus]] |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Turkestan.svg}} [[Basmachi movement]] |
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}} |
}} |
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| combatant1a = Anti-Bolshevik left:{{ubli |
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{{Collapsible list |
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| {{flagicon image|Red flag.svg}} [[Left Socialist-Revolutionaries|Left SRs]] |
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| framestyle=border:none; padding:0; <!--Hides borders and improves row spacing--> |
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| [[Green armies|Green Army]] |
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| title = Also{{nobold|:}} |
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| {{flagicon image| |
| {{nwr|{{flagicon image|Махновское знамя.svg}} [[Makhnovshchina]]}} |
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| {{flagicon image| |
| {{flagicon image|Red flag.svg}} [[Right Socialist-Revolutionaries|Right SRs]] and [[Mensheviks]] |
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| {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Donets-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic|D-KRSR]]<br>(1918) |
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| {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Harbin Soviet]]<br>(1917–18) |
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| {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Odessa Soviet Republic|Odessa SR]]<br>(1918) |
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| {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Taurida Soviet Socialist Republic|Taurida SSR]]<br>(1918) |
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| {{flagicon image|Baku Commune.png}} [[26 Baku Commissars|Baku Commune]]<br>(1918) |
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| {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Erzincan Soviet]] |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of the Commune of the Working People of Estonia.svg}} [[Commune of the Working People of Estonia|Estonian Commune]]<br>(1918–19) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of the Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic (1918–1920).svg}} [[Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic|Latvian SSR]]<br>(1918–20) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of the Lithuanian-Byelorussian SSR.svg}} [[Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (1918–19)|Lithuanian SSR]]<br>(1918–19) |
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| {{flagicon image|Iskolata karogs.svg}} [[Iskolat]]<br>(1917–18) |
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| {{flagdeco|Far Eastern Republic}} [[Far Eastern Republic]]<br>(1920–22) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of the Galician SSR.svg}} [[Galician Soviet Socialist Republic|Galician SSR]]<br>(1920) |
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| {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Polrewkom]]<br>(1920) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Persian Socialist Soviet Republic.svg}} [[Persian SSR]]<br>(1920–21) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (1922).svg}} [[Armenian SSR]]<br>(1920–22) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (1920).svg}} [[Azerbaijan SSR]]<br>(1920–22) |
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| {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Mughan Soviet Republic]] (1919) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (1921–1922).svg}} [[Georgian SSR]]<br>(1921–22) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of the SSR Abkhazia.svg}} [[Socialist Soviet Republic of Abkhazia|SSR Abkhazia]]<br>(after 1921) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Khiva 1920-1923.svg}} [[Khorezm People's Soviet Republic|Khorezm PSR]]<br>(after 1920) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of the Bukharan People's Soviet Republic.svg}} [[Bukharan People's Soviet Republic|Bukharan PSR]]<br>(after 1920) |
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}} |
}} |
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| combatant2a = [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|Allied intervention]]:{{ubli |
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---- |
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| {{flag|Empire of Japan|name=Japan}} |
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{{ubl |
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| {{flagcountry|United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland}} |
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| '''Supported by''': |
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| {{flag|United States|1912}} |
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| {{Flagicon image|Flag of the Chinese Communist Party (Pre-1996).svg}} [[Chinese in the Russian Revolution and in the Russian Civil War|Chinese communists]]<br>(1917–23) |
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| {{flagcountry|French Third Republic}} |
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| {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Latvian Riflemen#Red Latvian Riflemen|Red Latvian Riflemen]]<br>(1917–20) |
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| {{nwr|{{flagcountry|First Czechoslovak Republic|1918}}}} |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of the People's Republic of Mongolia (1921-1924).svg}} [[Mongolian People's Party]] (1920–23) |
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|{{flagicon image|Flag of United Kingdom.svg}} [[Murmansk Legion]]{{efn|[[Viena expedition#British Intervention]]}}<br>(1918–19)}} |
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| combatant2 = {{Ubl |
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|{{nowrap|'''{{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} [[Russian Republic (1917–1918)|Russian Republic]]'''{{Efn|''De facto'' deposed after the [[Bolshevik Coup]] of November 1917; formally abolished in January 1918 after the dissolution of the [[Russian Constituent Assembly|Constituent Assembly]]. The White movement then promised to convey a new constituent assembly and [[:ru:Непредрешение|reestablish the state accordingly with its decisions]].}}}}<br>(1917–18)}} |
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* [[File:Svoboda, Kadet symbol.svg|15px]] [[Constitutional Democratic Party|Kadets]] |
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* [[Union of October 17|Octobrists]] |
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* [[Progressive Party (Russia)|Progressive Party]] |
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---- |
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{{Ubl |
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|'''[[White movement]]'''{{nobold|:}} |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} [[General Command of the Armed Forces of South Russia|South Russia]]<br>(1917–19; [[South Russian Government|Mar–Apr]],<br>[[Government of South Russia|Apr–Nov 1920]]) |
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| '''{{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} [[Russian State]]'''<br>(1918–20) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} [[Provisional Priamurye Government|Priamurye]]<br>(after 1921) |
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}} |
}} |
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| combatant3a = [[Central Powers intervention in the Russian Civil War|Central Powers]]:{{ubli |
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{{Collapsible list |
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| {{flagcountry|German Empire|name=Germany}} |
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| framestyle=border:none; padding:0; <!--Hides borders and improves row spacing--> |
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| {{flagcountry|Austria-Hungary}} |
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| title = {{nowrap|Also{{nobold|:}}}} |
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| {{nwr|{{flagcountry|Ottoman Empire}}}} |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag_of_the_Ural_government_(1918).svg}} [[Provisional Regional Government of the Urals]]<br>(1918) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Provisional Siberian Government.svg}} [[Provisional Siberian Government (Omsk)|Omsk Siberian Government]] (1918) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Provisional Siberian Government.svg}} [[Provisional Siberian Government (Vladivostok)|Vladivostok Siberian Government]] (1918) |
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| {{flagdeco|Russia}} [[Transcaspian Government]] (1918–20) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Provisional Siberian Government.svg}} [[White movement in Transbaikal|Transbaikal Republic]]<br>(1917–20) |
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| {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly|Komuch]]<br>(1918) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} [[Supreme Administration of the Northern Region|North Russia]]<br>(1918, [[Provisional Government of the Northern Region|1918–20]]) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} [[Regional Government of Northwest Russia|Northwest Russia]] (1918–19) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of the Crimean Regional_Government.svg}} [[Crimean Regional Government|Crimea]]<br>(1918–19) |
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| {{flagdeco|Russia}} [[Provisional Military Dictatorship of Mughan]]<br>(1918–19) |
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| {{flagicon|Don Republic}} [[Don Republic]]<br>(1918–20) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Kuban People's Republic.svg}} [[Kuban People's Republic|Kuban Republic]]<br>(1918–20) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} [[Eastern Okraina]]<br>(1920) |
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| {{flagdeco|Russia}} [[Tambov Rebellion|Tambov Land]]<br>(1921) |
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}} |
}} |
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| commander1 = {{ubli |
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---- |
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| [[Vladimir Lenin]] |
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{{ubl |
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| [[Leon Trotsky]] |
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| framestyle=border:none; padding:0; <!--Hides borders and improves row spacing--> |
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| [[Sergey Kamenev]] |
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|'''Supported by''': |
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| [[Jukums Vācietis]] |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Alash Autonomy.svg}} [[Alash Autonomy|Alash-Orda]]<br>(1917–18) |
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| [[Yakov Sverdlov]]{{Natural Causes}} |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Bashkortostan (1918).svg}} [[Bashkiria (1917–1919)|Bashkurdistan]]<br>(1917–19) |
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| ''[[Leaders of the Russian Civil War#Bolsheviks|...further details]]'' |
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|[[File:Flag of Bogd Khaanate Mongolia.svg|23px]] [[Bogd Khanate|Mongolia]]<br>(1921) |
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|{{flagicon image|State flag of Persia (1907–1933).svg|23px}} [[Qajar Iran|Persia]]<br>(1919–20)}} |
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| combatant3 = {{ubl |
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| framestyle=border:none; padding:0; <!--Hides borders and improves row spacing--> |
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|'''[[Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War|Separatists]]''': |
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|{{flagdeco|Poland|1919}} [[Second Polish Republic|Poland]]<br>(1918–21) |
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|{{flagicon image|Flag of Ukrainian People's Republic 1917.svg}} [[Ukrainian People's Republic|Ukraine]]<br>(1917–18; 1918–20) |
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|{{flagicon image|Flag of Finland (1918–1920).svg}} [[Finland]]{{efn|Also assisted [[Estonians]], [[Karelians]] and [[Ingrian Finns|Ingrians]] during [[Heimosodat]] of 1918–1922.}}<br>(1917–18) |
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|{{flagicon image|Flag of Belarus (1918, 1991–1995).svg}} [[Belarusian People's Republic|Belarus]]<br>(1918–20) |
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|{{flagdeco|Estonia}} [[History of Estonia (1920–1939)|Estonia]]<br>(1918–20) |
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|{{flag|Latvia}}<br>(1918–20) |
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|{{flagicon image|Flag of Lithuania (1918–1940).svg}} [[Lithuania]]<br>(1918–20)}} |
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{{Collapsible list |
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| framestyle=border:none; padding:0; <!--Hides borders and improves row spacing--> |
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| title = Also{{nobold|:}} |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Alash Autonomy.svg}} [[Alash Autonomy|Alash-Orda]]<br>(1917–18)<br>{{flagicon image|White Banner of National Liberation.png}} [[Ürkün|Kyrgyz Rebel Army]]<br>(1916-1918) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Bashkortostan (1918).svg}} [[Bashkiria (1917–1919)|Bashkurdistan]]<br>(1917–19) |
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| 5={{flagicon image|Flag of Ukrainian People's Republic 1917.svg}} [[West Ukrainian People's Republic|West Ukraine]]<br>(1918–19) |
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| 6={{flagicon image|Flaga Litwy Środkowej.svg|23px}} [[Republic of Central Lithuania|Central Lithuania]]<br>(1920–22) |
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| 7={{flagicon image|Flag of the Moldavian Democratic Republic.svg|23px}} [[Moldavian Democratic Republic|Moldavia]]<br>(1917–18) |
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| 8= [[Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic|Transcaucasia]]<br>(1918) |
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| 9={{flagicon|Democratic Republic of Georgia}} [[Democratic Republic of Georgia|Georgia]]<br>(1918–21) |
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| 10={{flagicon image|Flag of the First Republic of Armenia.svg}} [[First Republic of Armenia|Armenia]]<br>(1918–20; [[Republic of Mountainous Armenia|1921]]) |
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| 11={{flagicon image|Flag of the Turkestan (Kokand) Autonomy.svg}} [[Turkestan Autonomy|Turkestan]]<br>(1917–18) |
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| 12={{flagicon image|Flag of the Centrocaspian Dictatorship.svg}} [[Centrocaspian Dictatorship|Centrocaspia]]<br>(1918) |
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| 13={{flagicon image|Flag of the Republic of Aras.svg}} [[Republic of Aras|Aras]]<br>(1918–19) |
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| 14={{flagicon image|Flag of North Caucasian Emirate.svg}} [[North Caucasian Emirate|Caucasian Emirate]]<br>(1919–20) |
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| 15={{flagicon image|Flag of Azerbaijan 1918.svg}} [[Azerbaijan Democratic Republic|Azerbaijan]]<br>(1918–20) |
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| 16={{flagicon image|Flag of the Mountain Republic.svg}} [[Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus|Northern Caucasus]]<br>(1917–21) |
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| 17={{flagicon image|Flag of Green Ukraine.svg}} [[Green Ukraine]]<br>(1918–22) |
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| 18=[[State of Buryat-Mongolia|Buryat-Mongolia]]<br>(1917–21) |
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| 19={{flagicon image|flag of the German Empire.svg}} [[Yakutia (1918)|Yakutia]]<br>(1918) |
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| 20={{flagicon image|Confederated Republic of Altai Flag.svg}} [[Karakorum Government|Altai]]<br>(1917–20; 1921–22) |
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| 23={{flagicon image|Karelian National Flag.svg}} [[Republic of Uhtua|Karelia]]<br>(1918–20; [[Olonets Government of Southern Karelia|1920]]; [[Karelian United Government|1920–23]]) |
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| 24={{flagicon image|Ingrian people.svg}} [[North Ingria]]<br>(1919–20) |
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| 27=[[File:Bandera del Turquestan.svg|23px]] [[Basmachi movement|Basmachi]]<br>(1918–22) |
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| 28=[[File:Flag of the Emirate of Bukhara.svg|23px]] [[Emirate of Bukhara|Bukhara]]<br>(1920) |
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| 29={{flagicon image|Flag of the Khanate of Khiva.svg}} [[Khanate of Khiva|Khiva]]<br>(1918–20)}} |
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---- |
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{{Ubl |
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|'''Supported by''': |
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|{{flagicon image|Flag of Sweden.svg}} [[Kingdom of Sweden|Sweden]]{{efn|[[Finnish Civil War]]}}<br>(1918) |
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|{{flagicon image|Flag of Hungary (1918-1919).svg}} [[First Hungarian Republic|Hungary]]{{efn|[[Polish-Soviet War]]}}<br>(1919–20) |
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|{{flagicon image|Flag of Afghanistan (1919–1921).svg}} [[Emirate of Afghanistan|Afghanistan]]{{efn|[[Basmachi movement]]}}<br>(until 1922) |
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}} |
}} |
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| |
| commander2 = {{ubli |
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| {{nwr|[[Alexander Kerensky]]{{Surrendered}}}} |
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|'''Anti-Bolshevik left''': |
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| [[Alexander Kolchak]]{{Executed}} |
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| {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Left Socialist-Revolutionaries|Left SRs]]{{Efn|Aligned with the Bolsheviks until March 1918, when they fell out over the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]]. Most Left SRs opposed the Bolsheviks afterward, but a minority of Left SRs remained allied to the Bolsheviks for years after.}}<br>(1917–21) |
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| [[Lavr Kornilov]]{{KIA}} |
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| [[Green armies|Green Army]]{{Efn|Aligned with the Bolsheviks until 1919; opposed after.}}<br>(1918–21) |
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| [[Anton Denikin]] |
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| {{flagicon image|Махновское знамя.svg}} [[Makhnovshchina]]{{Efn|Aligned with the Bolsheviks until 1920; opposed after.}}<br>(1918–21) |
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| [[Pyotr Wrangel]] |
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| {{flagicon image|Petropavlovsk-Krondstadt flag.svg}} [[Kronstadt rebels]]<br>(1921) |
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| ''[[Leaders of the Russian Civil War#White Movement|...further details]]'' |
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}} |
}} |
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| |
| commander3 = {{ubli |
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| {{flagicon|Poland|1919}} [[Józef Piłsudski]] |
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|'''[[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|Allied Powers]]''': |
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| {{nowrap|{{flagicon image|Flag of Finland (1918–1920).svg}} [[C. G. E. Mannerheim]]}} |
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| {{flagicon image|War flag of the Imperial Japanese Army (1868–1945).svg}} [[Japanese Empire]] {{Efn|Japan also stayed in North [[Sakhalin]] [[Soviet–Japanese Basic Convention|until 1925]].}}<br>(1918–22) |
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| ''[[Leaders of the Russian Civil War#Independence movements|...further details]]'' |
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| {{flagcountry|United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland}}<br>(1918–20) |
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| {{flag|United States|1912}}<br>(1918–20) |
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| {{flagcountry|French Third Republic}}<br>(1918–20) |
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| {{flagcountry|First Czechoslovak Republic|1918}}<br>(1918–20)}} |
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{{Collapsible list |
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| title = Also{{nobold|:}} |
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| framestyle=border:none; padding:0; <!--Hides borders and improves row spacing--> |
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| {{flagcountry|Kingdom of Greece|state}} |
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| {{flagicon|Kingdom of Serbia}} [[Kingdom of Serbia|Serbia]]<br>({{flagicon|Kingdom of Yugoslavia|size=15px}} [[Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes|after 1918]]) |
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| {{flagcountry|Kingdom of Romania}} |
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| {{flagcountry|Kingdom of Italy}} |
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| {{flagdeco|Republic of China (1912–1949)|1912}} [[Beiyang government|China]] |
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| {{flag|Canada|1907}}<br>(1918–19) |
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| {{flag|Australia}}<br>(1918–19) |
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| {{flag|British Raj|name=India}} |
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| {{flag|Union of South Africa|name=South Africa|1912}}}} |
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| combatant3a = {{Ubl |
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|{{nowrap|'''[[Central Powers intervention in the Russian Civil War|Central Powers]]''':}} |
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| {{nowrap|{{flagcountry|German Empire|name=Germany}}}}<br>(1917–18; {{flagicon|Weimar Republic|size=15px}} [[Weimar Republic|1919]]) |
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| {{nowrap|{{flagcountry|Austria-Hungary}}}}<br>(1917–18) |
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| {{nowrap|{{flagcountry|Ottoman Empire}}}}<br>(1917–18; [[Government of the Grand National Assembly|1920–21]]) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of the Iron Division Freikorps.svg}} [[Freikorps in the Baltic|Freikorps]]<br>(1918–19) |
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}} |
}} |
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| commander1a = {{ubli |
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{{Collapsible list |
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| {{flagicon image|Red flag.svg}} [[Maria Spiridonova]] |
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| framestyle=border:none; padding:0; <!--Hides borders and improves row spacing--> |
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| {{flagicon image|Махновское знамя.svg}} [[Nestor Makhno]] |
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| title = Also{{nobold|:}} |
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| ''[[Leaders of the Russian Civil War#Third party factions|...further details]]'' |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Poland.svg}} [[Kingdom of Poland (1917–1918)|Kingdom of Poland]]<br>(1917–18) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Finland (1918–1920).svg}} [[Kingdom of Finland (1918)|Kingdom of Finland]]<br>(1918) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Lithuania (1918–1940).svg}} [[Kingdom of Lithuania (1918)|Kingdom of Lithuania]]<br>(1918) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Belarus (1918, 1991–1995).svg}} [[Belarusian People's Republic|Belarus]]<br>(1918–19) |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of the Ukranian State.svg}} [[Ukrainian State]]<br>(1918) |
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| {{flagicon|Democratic Republic of Georgia}} [[Democratic Republic of Georgia|Georgia]]<br>(1918) |
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| {{flagicon image|Baltic German.svg}} [[Baltische Landeswehr|Landeswehr]]<br>(1918–20) |
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| {{flagicon image|WestRussianVolunteerArmy.svg|size=23px}} [[West Russian Volunteer Army|Bermontians]]<br>(1918–20){{efn|Official allegiance to the [[Russian State]]<br>Unofficial allegiance to the [[German Empire]]}} |
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}} |
}} |
||
| commander2a = {{ubli |
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| commander1 = {{flagdeco|Russian SFSR|1918}}{{flagicon image|Flag of the Soviet Union (1922–1923).svg}} [[Vladimir Lenin]]<br>{{flagdeco|Russian SFSR|1918}}{{flagicon image|Flag of the Soviet Union (1922–1923).svg}} [[Leon Trotsky]]<br />{{flagdeco|Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Yakov Sverdlov]]{{KIA|Spanish flu}}<br />{{flagdeco|Russian SFSR|1918}}{{flagicon image|Flag of the Soviet Union (1922–1923).svg}} [[Jukums Vācietis]]<br />{{nowrap|{{flagdeco|Russian SFSR|1918}}{{flagicon image|Flag of the Soviet Union (1922–1923).svg}} [[Sergey Kamenev]]}}<br />{{flagdeco|Russian SFSR|1918}}{{flagicon image|Flag of the Soviet Union (1922–1923).svg}} [[Nikolai Podvoisky]]<br />{{flagdeco|Russian SFSR|1918}}{{flagicon image|Flag of the Soviet Union (1922–1923).svg}} [[Nikolai Krylenko]]<br />{{flagdeco|Russian SFSR|1918}}{{flagicon image|Flag of the Soviet Union (1922–1923).svg}} [[Joseph Stalin]]<br />{{nowrap|{{flagicon image|Flag of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919-1929).svg}}{{flagicon image|Flag of the Soviet Union (1922–1923).svg}} [[Yukhym Medvedev]]}}<br>{{flagicon image|Flag_of_the_Byelorussian_Soviet_Socialist_Republic_(1919-1927).svg}}{{flagicon image|Flag of the Soviet Union (1922–1923).svg}} [[Vilhelm Knorin]]<br>{{flagicon image|Flag of Far Eastern Republic.svg}} [[Alexander Krasnoshchyokov]] |
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| ''[[Leaders of the Russian Civil War#Allied Expeditionary Forces|...further details]]'' |
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| commander2 = {{nowrap|{{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} [[Alexander Kerensky]]{{Surrendered}}}}<br>{{nowrap|{{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} [[Alexander Kolchak]]{{Executed}}}} <br />{{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} [[Lavr Kornilov]]{{KIA}} <br />{{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} [[Anton Denikin]]<br />{{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} [[Pyotr Wrangel]]<br />{{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} [[Nikolai Yudenich]]<br />{{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} [[Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov|Grigory Semyonov]]<br>{{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} [[Yevgeny Miller]]<br>{{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} [[Mikhail Diterikhs]]<br>{{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}}{{flagicon|Don Republic}} [[Pyotr Krasnov]]<br>{{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}}[[File:Flag of Bogd Khaanate Mongolia.svg|12px]] [[Roman von Ungern-Sternberg]]{{Executed}} |
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}} |
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| commander3 = {{nowrap|{{flagicon|Poland|1919}} [[Józef Piłsudski]]}}<br>{{flagicon image|Flag of Ukrainian People's Republic 1917.svg}} [[Symon Petliura]]<br>{{nowrap|{{flagicon image|Flag of Finland (1918–1920).svg}} [[C.G.E. Mannerheim]]}}<br>{{nowrap|{{flagicon|Belarusian Democratic Republic}} [[Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz|S. Bułak-Bałachowicz]]}}<br>{{flagdeco|Estonia}} [[Konstantin Päts]]<br>{{flagdeco|Latvia}} [[Jānis Čakste]]<br>{{nowrap|{{flagicon image|Flag of Lithuania (1918–1940).svg}} [[Antanas Smetona]]}}<br>{{flagicon image|Flag of the Moldavian Democratic Republic.svg|23px}} [[Ion Inculeț]]<br>{{flagicon|Democratic Republic of Georgia}} [[Noe Zhordania]]<br>{{flagicon image|Flag of the First Republic of Armenia.svg}} [[Alexander Khatisian|A. Khatisian]]<br>{{flagicon image|Flag of Azerbaijan 1918.svg}} [[Nasib bey Yusifbeyli|Nasib Yusifbeyli]]{{KIA}} <br>[[File:Bandera del Turquestan.svg|23px]] [[Enver Pasha]]{{KIA}} |
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| commander3a = {{ubl |
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| commander1a = {{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Vladimir Vol'skii|Vladimir Volsky]]<br>{{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Maria Spiridonova]]<br>{{flagicon image|Socialist red flag.svg}} [[Nykyfor Hryhoriv]]{{KIA|Killed in Action}}<br>{{flagicon image|Махновское знамя.svg}} [[Nestor Makhno]]<br>{{flagicon image|Petropavlovsk-Krondstadt flag.svg}} [[Stepan Maximovich Petrichenko|Stepan Petrichenko]]<br>[[Leaders of the Russian Civil War|...''and others'']] |
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| {{flagicon|German Empire}} [[Hermann von Eichhorn|H. von Eichhorn]]{{assassinated}} |
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| commander2a = {{flagicon image|War flag of the Imperial Japanese Army (1868–1945).svg}} [[Otani Kikuzo]]<br>{{flagdeco|United Kingdom}} [[Edmund Ironside, 1st Baron Ironside|Edmund Ironside]]<br>{{flagdeco|United States|1912}} [[William S. Graves]]<br>{{flagicon|Czechoslovakia|1918}} [[Radola Gajda]]<br>{{flagdeco|France|1830}} [[Maurice Janin]]<br>{{flagicon|Poland|1919}} [[Ludomir Junosza-Stępowski]]{{KIA}}<br>...''and others'' |
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| ''[[Leaders of the Russian Civil War#Central Powers intervention|...further details]]'' |
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| commander3a = {{flagicon|German Empire}} [[Hermann von Eichhorn|H. von Eichhorn]]{{KIA}}<br>{{flagicon|Ottoman Empire}} [[Nuri Killigil|Nuri Pasha]]<br>{{flagdeco|Belarus|1991|link=no}} [[Jan Sierada]]<br>{{flagicon image|Flag of the Ukranian State.svg}} [[Pavlo Skoropadskyi]]<br>{{nowrap|{{flagicon image|WestRussianVolunteerArmy.svg|size=23px}} [[Pavel Bermondt-Avalov|P. Bermondt-Avalov]]}}<br>...''and others'' |
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}} |
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| strength1 = {{Ubl |
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| strength1 = {{ubli |
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|[[File:Soviet Red Army Hammer and Plough.svg|15px]] [[Red Army]]:<br>5,498,000 (peak){{sfn|Erickson|1984|p=763}}{{efn|The Red Army peaked in October 1920 with 5,498,000: 2,587,000 in reserves, 391,000 in labor armies, 159,000 on the front and 1,780,000 drawing rations}}}} |
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| {{flagicon image|Soviet Red Army Hammer and Plough.svg}} [[Red Army]]: {{nwr|5,498,000 (peak){{sfn|Erickson|1984|p=763}}}} |
|||
---- |
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| {{flagicon image|Death to oppressors of workers.svg}} [[Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine|Makhnovtsi]]: 103,000 (peak)<ref>Belash, Victor & Belash, Aleksandr, ''Dorogi Nestora Makhno'', p. 340</ref> |
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{{Ubl |
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| {{flagicon image|Petropavlovsk-Krondstadt flag.svg}} [[Kronstadt rebellion|Kronstadt mutineers]]: 17,961 |
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|{{flagicon image|Death to oppressors of workers.svg}} [[Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine|Makhnovtsi]]:<br>103,000 (peak)<ref>Belash, Victor & Belash, Aleksandr, ''Dorogi Nestora Makhno'', p. 340</ref> |
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}} |
|||
|{{flagicon image|Darker_green_and_Black_flag.svg}} [[Green armies|Green Army]]:<br>70,000 (peak) |
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| strength2 = {{ubli |
|||
|{{flagicon image|Petropavlovsk-Krondstadt flag.svg}} [[Kronstadt rebellion|Kronstadt Mutineers]]:<br>17,961}} |
|||
| {{flagicon image|Volunteer Army Insignia.svg}} [[White Army]]: {{nwr|1,023,000 (peak)}} |
|||
| strength2 = {{Ubl |
|||
| {{flagicon image|Coat of arms of the Czechoslovak Legion.svg}} [[Czechoslovak Legion]]: {{nwr|50,000 (peak)}} |
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|[[File:Volunteer Army Insignia.svg|15px]] [[White Army]]:<br>1,023,000 (peak){{efn|683,000 active<br>340,000 reserve}}}} |
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| {{flagicon|Empire of Japan}} [[Imperial Japanese Army|Japanese Army]]: 70,000{{sfn|Humphreys|1996|p=26}}{{sfn|Tucker|Roberts|2005|p=547}} |
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{{Collapsible list |
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| {{flagicon|United Kingdom|1801}} [[British Army]]: 57,636<ref>Damien Wright, ''Churchill's Secret War with Lenin: British and Commonwealth Military Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1918–20'', Solihull, UK, 2017, pp. 394, 526–528, 530–535; Clifford Kinvig, ''Churchill's Crusade: The British Invasion of Russia 1918–1920'', London 2006, {{ISBN|1-852-85477-4}}, p. 297; Timothy Winegard, ''The First World Oil War'', University of Toronto Press (2016), p. 229</ref> |
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| bullets = no |
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| {{flagicon|United States|1912}} [[U.S. Army]]: 12,950 |
|||
| title = Local forces{{nobold|:}} |
|||
}} |
|||
| [[File:Volunteer Army Insignia.svg|15px]] [[Armed Forces of South Russia|AFSR]]: 270,000 (peak) |
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| strength3 = |
|||
| {{flagicon image|Flag of Siberia.svg}} [[Siberian Army]]: 60,000 (peak) |
|||
| casualties1 = {{flagicon image|Soviet Red Army Hammer and Plough.svg}} 1,212,824 (official estimate){{sfn|Krivosheev|Andronikov|Gurkin|Kruglov|1993|p=12-13}} |
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| [[File:Flag of the Ural government (1918).svg|23px]] [[People's Army of Komuch|Komuch Army]]: 30,000 (peak) |
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| casualties2 = {{ubli |
|||
| [[File:СЗА нарукавный знак.JPG|15px]] [[Northwestern Army (Russia)|Northwestern Army]]: 18,500 (peak) |
|||
| {{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} 1,500,000{{sfn|Smele|2016|p=160}}{{failed verification|date=December 2024}} |
|||
| [[File:Volunteer Army Insignia.svg|15px]] [[Northern Army (Russia)|Northern Army]]: 54,700 (peak) |
|||
| {{flagicon|Czechoslovakia|1918}} 4,000 killed |
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| [[File:Volunteer Army Insignia.svg|15px]] [[Western Army of the White Movement|Western Army]]: 48,000 (peak) |
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}} |
|||
| [[File:Volunteer Army Insignia.svg|15px]] [[Orenburg Independent Army|Orenburg Army]]: 25,000 (peak) |
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| casualties3 = {{ubli |
|||
| [[File:Volunteer Army Insignia.svg|15px]] [[Ural Army]]: 17,200 (peak)}} |
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| {{flagicon|Poland|1919}} 250,000 |
|||
---- |
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| {{flagicon image|Flag of Ukrainian People's Republic 1917.svg}} 125,000 |
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{{Ubl |
|||
}} |
|||
|{{flagicon image|War flag of the Imperial Japanese Army (1868–1945).svg}} [[Imperial Japanese Army|Japanese Army]]: 70,000 (peak) |
|||
| casualties4 = {{ubl|7–12 million total casualties|1–2 million refugees outside Russia}} |
|||
|[[File:Coat of arms of the Czechoslovak Legion.svg|15px]] [[Czechoslovak Legion]]: 50,000 (peak)}} |
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{{Collapsible list |
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| framestyle=border:none; padding:0; <!--Hides borders and improves row spacing--> |
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| title = Also{{nobold|:}} |
|||
|{{flagicon|United States|1912}} [[American Expeditionary Force, Siberia|AEF, Siberia]]:<br>7,950 |
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|{{flagicon|United Kingdom|1801}} [[British Army]]:<br>57,636<ref>Damien Wright, ''Churchill's Secret War with Lenin: British and Commonwealth Military Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1918–20'', Solihull, UK, 2017, pp. 394, 526–528, 530–535; Clifford Kinvig, ''Churchill's Crusade: The British Invasion of Russia 1918–1920'', London 2006, {{ISBN|1-85285-477-4}}, p. 297; Timothy Winegard, ''The First World Oil War'', University of Toronto Press (2016), p. 229</ref> |
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|{{flagicon|Kingdom of Romania}} [[Romanian Army]]:<br>50,000 |
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|{{flagicon|France|1830}} [[French Army]]:<br>15,600 |
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|{{army|Greece}}:<br>23,000 |
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|{{flagicon|Canada|1868}} [[Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force|CSEF]]:<br>~5,000 |
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|{{flagicon|United States|1912}} [[American Expeditionary Force, North Russia|AEF, North Russia]]:<br>5,000 |
|||
|{{flagicon image|Flag_of_Italy_(1860).svg}} [[Legione Redenta]]:<br>2,500 |
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|[[File:Beiyang star.svg|15px]] [[Beiyang Army]]:<br>2,300 |
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|{{flagicon|Kingdom of Serbia}} [[Serbian Army]]:<br>2,000 |
|||
|{{flagicon image|Flag of the Royal Indian Army.svg}} [[British Indian Army]]:<br>950 |
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|{{flagicon image|Flag of Australia (converted).svg}} [[Australian Army]]:<br>150}} |
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| strength3 = {{Ubl |
|||
|[[File:Orzełek II RP.svg|12px]] [[Polish Armed Forces (Second Polish Republic)|Polish Army]]: ~1,000,000 (peak) |
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|[[File:Coat of Arms of UNR.svg|15px]] [[Ukrainian People's Army|Ukrainian Army]]: 100,000 (peak) |
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|[[File:Coat of arms of Finland.svg|12px]] [[Finnish Army]]:<br>90,000 (peak)}} |
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{{Collapsible list |
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| framestyle=border:none; padding:0; <!--Hides borders and improves row spacing--> |
|||
| title = Also{{nobold|:}} |
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|[[File:Coat of arms of Belarusian People's Republic.svg|16px]] [[Belarusian Democratic Republic#History|Belarusian Army]]: 11,000 (peak) |
|||
---- |
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'''Supported by''': |
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|[[File:Infantry Colour of the Royal Hungarian Defence Forces (1939-1945).svg|15px]] [[Royal Hungarian Army|Hungarian Army]]:<br>30,000 (peak) |
|||
---- |
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|[[File:Coat of Arms of Latvian National Armed Forces.svg|15px]] [[Latvian National Armed Forces|Latvian Army]]:<br>69,232 (peak) |
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|[[File:Maavagi crest.svg|15px]] [[Estonian Defence Forces|Estonian Army]]:<br>86,000 (peak) |
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|[[File:Insignia of the Lithuanian Armed Forces.svg|15px]] [[Lithuanian Armed Forces|Lithuanian Army]]:<br>43,996 (peak) |
|||
---- |
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|{{flagicon image|Flag of Finland (1918–1920).svg}} [[White Guard (Finland)|Finnish Volunteers]]:<br>8,000 (peak) |
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|{{flagicon image|Flag of Karel.svg}} [[Forest Guerrillas]]:<br>2,000 (peak) |
|||
---- |
|||
|{{flagicon image|Flag of the Swedish Brigade (Ruotsalainen prikaati).svg}} [[Swedish Brigade]]:<br>1,000 (peak)}} |
|||
---- |
|||
{{Ubl |
|||
|{{flagicon image|Kaiserstandarte.svg}} [[German Army (German Empire)|German Army]]:<br>~547,000 (peak)}} |
|||
{{flagicon|Ottoman Empire}} [[Islamic Army of the Caucasus|Ottoman Army]]:<br>20,000 (peak) |
|||
{{Collapsible list |
|||
| framestyle=border:none; padding:0; <!--Hides borders and improves row spacing--> |
|||
| title = Also{{nobold|:}} |
|||
|{{flagicon image|Flag_of_Germany_(3-2_aspect_ratio).svg}} [[Weimar Republic|Saxon Volunteers]]:<br>10,000 (peak) |
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|{{flagicon|Ottoman Empire}} [[Turkish Land Forces|Turkish Army]]:<br>20,000 (peak) |
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|{{flagicon image|Flag of the Iron Division Freikorps.svg}} [[Freikorps in the Baltic|Iron Division]]:<br>14,000 (peak) |
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|{{flagicon image|Baltic German.svg}} [[Baltische Landeswehr|Landeswehr]]:<br>10,500 (peak) |
|||
|{{flagicon image|WestRussianVolunteerArmy.svg}} [[West Russian Volunteer Army|Bermontians]]:<br>50,000 (peak)}} |
|||
| casualties1 = {{Ubl |
|||
|{{flagicon image|Red Army flag.svg}} ~7,000,000{{sfn|Smele|2016|p=160}}}} |
|||
* 940,000 killed<br><ref>«Гражданская война в России» в БРЭ. Дата обращения: 14 октября 2020. Архивировано 24 марта 2021 года.</ref> |
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* 60,059 missing<br>{{citation needed |date=October 2020}} |
|||
* 616,605 died of disease/wounds<br>{{citation needed |date=October 2020}} |
|||
* 3,878 died in accidents/suicides<br>{{citation needed |date=October 2020}} |
|||
* 6,800,000 wounded/frostbitten{{sfn|Krivosheev|1997|p=7-38}} |
|||
| casualties2 = {{ubl |
|||
|{{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} ~1,500,000{{sfn|Smele|2016|p=160}}}} |
|||
* 127,000 killed<br>{{citation needed |date=October 2020}} |
|||
* 784,000 executed/dead<br>{{citation needed |date=October 2020}} |
|||
* 450,000 wounded/sick<br>{{citation needed |date=October 2020}} |
|||
---- |
|||
{{Ubl |
|||
|{{flagicon|Czechoslovakia|1918}} 13,000 killed |
|||
|{{flagicon image|War flag of the Imperial Japanese Army (1868–1945).svg}} 6,500 killed |
|||
|{{flagicon|United Kingdom}} 938+ killed<ref>{{cite book |last=Wright |first=Damien |title=Churchill's Secret War with Lenin: British and Commonwealth Military Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1918–20' |publisher=Helion and Company |location=Solihull, UK |date=2017 |pages=490–492, 498–500, 504 |isbn=978-1911512103}}; {{harvnb|Kinvig|2006|pp=289, 315}}; {{cite book |first=Timothy |last=Winegard |title=The First World Oil War |publisher=[[University of Toronto Press]] |date=2016 |page=208}}</ref> |
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|{{flagicon|United States|1912}} 596 killed |
|||
|{{flagicon|Romania}} 350 killed |
|||
| {{flagicon|Kingdom of Greece|state}} 179 killed}} |
|||
| casualties3 = {{Ubl |
|||
|{{flagicon|Poland|1919}} ~250,000}} |
|||
* 57,000 killed |
|||
* 113,000 wounded |
|||
* 50,000 POWs |
|||
{{Ubl |
|||
|{{flagicon image|Flag of Ukrainian People's Republic 1917.svg}} ~125,000}} |
|||
* 15,000 killed |
|||
{{Ubl |
|||
|{{flagicon image|Flag of Finland (1918–1920).svg}} ~5,000}} |
|||
* 3,500 killed |
|||
* 1,650 executed/dead |
|||
{{Ubl |
|||
|{{flagicon image|Flag of Belarus (1918, 1991–1995).svg}} ~3,000 killed |
|||
|{{flagicon|Estonia}} 3,888 killed |
|||
|{{flagicon|Latvia}} 3,046 killed |
|||
|{{flagicon image|Flag of Lithuania (1918–1940).svg}} 1,444 killed{{sfn|Eidintas|Žalys|Senn|1999|p=30}} |
|||
|{{flagicon|Sweden}} 55 killed<br>{{citation needed |date=February 2024}}}} |
|||
---- |
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{{Ubl |
|||
|{{flagicon|German Empire}} 500 killed}} |
|||
| casualties4 = '''7,000,000–12,000,000 total casualties, including<br>civilians and non-combatants'''<br> |
|||
1–2 million [[White émigré|refugees]] outside Russia |
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| campaignbox = {{Campaignbox Russian Civil War}} |
| campaignbox = {{Campaignbox Russian Civil War}} |
||
| territory = Establishment of the [[Soviet Union]] |
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}} |
}} |
||
The '''Russian Civil War'''{{ |
The '''Russian Civil War''' ({{langx|ru|Гражданская война в России|Grazhdanskaya voyna v Rossii}}) was a multi-party [[civil war]] in the former [[Russian Empire]] sparked by the overthrowing of the liberal-democratic [[Russian Provisional Government]] in the [[October Revolution]], as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. It resulted in the formation of the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic]] and later the [[Soviet Union]] in most of its territory. Its finale marked the end of the [[Russian Revolution]], which was one of the [[key events of the 20th century]]. |
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The [[List of Russian monarchs|Russian monarchy]] ended with the abdication of |
The [[List of Russian monarchs|Russian monarchy]] ended with the abdication of [[Nicholas II|Tsar Nicholas II]] during the [[February Revolution]], and Russia was in a state of political flux. A tense summer culminated in the [[October Revolution]], where the [[Bolsheviks]] overthrew the [[Russian Provisional Government|provisional government]] of the new [[Russian Republic]]. Bolshevik seizure of power was not universally accepted, and the country descended into civil war. The two largest combatants were the [[Red Army]], fighting for the establishment of a [[Bolshevik]]-led [[socialist state]] headed by [[Vladimir Lenin]], and the forces known as the [[White movement]] (and its [[White Army]]), led mainly by the [[Right-wing politics|right-leaning]] officers of the Russian Empire, united around the figure of [[Alexander Kolchak]]. In addition, rival militant socialists, notably the [[Anarchism in Ukraine|Ukrainian anarchists]] of the [[Makhnovshchina]] and [[Left Socialist-Revolutionaries]], were involved in conflict against the Bolsheviks. They, as well as non-ideological [[green armies]], opposed the Bolsheviks, the Whites and the foreign interventionists.<ref name="britannica">[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/513737/Russian-Civil-War Russian Civil War] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090826234907/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/513737/Russian-Civil-War |date=26 August 2009 }} [[Encyclopædia Britannica]] Online 2012</ref> Thirteen foreign states intervened against the Red Army, notably the [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|Allied intervention]], whose primary goal was re-establishing the [[Eastern Front (World War I)|Eastern Front]] of [[World War I]]. Three foreign states of the [[Central Powers]] also intervened, rivaling the Allied intervention with the main goal of retaining the territory they had received in the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]] with Soviet Russia. |
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The Bolsheviks initially consolidated control over most of the former empire. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was an emergency peace with the [[German Empire]], who had captured vast swathes of the Russian territory during the chaos of the revolution. In May 1918, [[Revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion|the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia revolted]] in Siberia. In reaction, the Allies began their [[North Russia intervention|North Russian]] and [[Siberian intervention]]s. That, combined with the creation of the [[Provisional All-Russian Government]], saw the reduction of Bolshevik-controlled territory to most of [[European Russia]] and parts of [[Central Asia]]. In 1919, the White Army launched several [[Spring offensive of the White Army|offensives from the east]] in March, [[Advance on Moscow (1919)|the south]] in July, and [[Battle of Petrograd|west]] in October. The advances were later checked by the [[Eastern Front counteroffensive]], the [[Southern Front counteroffensive]], and the defeat of the [[Northwestern Army (Russia)|Northwestern Army]]. |
The Bolsheviks initially consolidated control over most of the former empire. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was an emergency peace with the [[German Empire]], who had captured vast swathes of the Russian territory during the chaos of the revolution. In May 1918, [[Revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion|the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia revolted]] in Siberia. In reaction, the Allies began their [[North Russia intervention|North Russian]] and [[Siberian intervention]]s. That, combined with the creation of the [[Provisional All-Russian Government]], saw the reduction of Bolshevik-controlled territory to most of [[European Russia]] and parts of [[Central Asia]]. In 1919, the White Army launched several [[Spring offensive of the White Army|offensives from the east]] in March, [[Advance on Moscow (1919)|the south]] in July, and [[Battle of Petrograd|west]] in October. The advances were later checked by the [[Eastern Front counteroffensive]], the [[Southern Front counteroffensive]], and the defeat of the [[Northwestern Army (Russia)|Northwestern Army]]. |
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By 1919, the White armies were in retreat and by the start of 1920 were defeated on all three fronts.{{sfnm|1a1=Leggett|1y=1981|1p=184|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=402|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=206}} Although the Bolsheviks were victorious, the territorial extent of the Russian state had been reduced, for many non-Russian ethnic groups had used the disarray to push for national independence.{{sfn|Hall|2015|p=83}} In March 1921, during [[Polish–Soviet War|a related war against Poland]], the [[Peace of Riga]] was signed, splitting disputed territories in [[Belarusian Democratic Republic|Belarus]] and [[Ukrainian People's Republic|Ukraine]] between the [[Second Polish Republic|Republic of Poland]] and Soviet Russia |
By 1919, the White armies were in retreat and by the start of 1920 were defeated on all three fronts.{{sfnm|1a1=Leggett|1y=1981|1p=184|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=402|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=206}} Although the Bolsheviks were victorious, the territorial extent of the Russian state had been reduced, for many non-Russian ethnic groups had used the disarray to push for national independence.{{sfn|Hall|2015|p=83}} In March 1921, during [[Polish–Soviet War|a related war against Poland]], the [[Peace of Riga]] was signed, splitting disputed territories in [[Belarusian Democratic Republic|Belarus]] and [[Ukrainian People's Republic|Ukraine]] between the [[Second Polish Republic|Republic of Poland]] on one side and Soviet Russia and [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|Soviet Ukraine]] on the other. Soviet Russia invaded all the newly [[Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War|independent nations]] of the former empire or supported the Bolshevik and socialist forces there, although the success of such invasions was limited. [[Estonian War of Independence|Estonia]], [[Latvian War of Independence|Latvia]], and [[Lithuanian–Soviet War|Lithuania]] all repelled Soviet invasions, while [[Ukrainian–Soviet War|Ukraine]], Belarus (as a result of the [[Polish–Soviet War]]), [[Red Army invasion of Armenia|Armenia]], [[Red Army invasion of Azerbaijan|Azerbaijan]] and [[Red Army invasion of Georgia|Georgia]] were occupied by the Red Army.{{sfn|Lee|2003|pp=84, 88}}{{sfn|Goldstein|2013|p=50}} By 1921, the Bolsheviks had defeated the national movements in Ukraine and the [[Caucasus]], although [[Basmachi movement|anti-Bolshevik uprisings]] in Central Asia lasted until the late 1920s.{{sfn|Hall|2015|p=84}} |
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The armies under [[Alexander Kolchak|Kolchak]] were eventually forced on a [[Great Siberian Ice March|mass retreat eastward]]. Bolshevik forces advanced east, despite encountering resistance in [[Chita Operations|Chita]], [[Yakut revolt (1921)|Yakut]] and [[Soviet intervention in Mongolia|Mongolia]]. Soon the Red Army split the [[Don Army|Don]] and [[Volunteer Army|Volunteer armies]], forcing evacuations in [[Evacuation of Novorossiysk (1920)|Novorossiysk]] in March and [[Evacuation of the Crimea (1920)|Crimea]] in November 1920. After that, |
The armies under [[Alexander Kolchak|Kolchak]] were eventually forced on a [[Great Siberian Ice March|mass retreat eastward]]. Bolshevik forces advanced east, despite encountering resistance in [[Chita Operations|Chita]], [[Yakut revolt (1921)|Yakut]] and [[Soviet intervention in Mongolia|Mongolia]]. Soon the Red Army split the [[Don Army|Don]] and [[Volunteer Army|Volunteer armies]], forcing evacuations in [[Evacuation of Novorossiysk (1920)|Novorossiysk]] in March and [[Evacuation of the Crimea (1920)|Crimea]] in November 1920. After that, fighting was sporadic until the war ended with the capture of [[Vladivostok]] in October 1922, but anti-Bolshevik resistance continued with the Muslim [[Basmachi movement]] in Central Asia and [[Tungus Republic|Khabarovsk Krai]] until 1934. There were an estimated 7 to 12 million casualties during the war, mostly civilians.{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|p=287}} |
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==Background== |
==Background== |
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===World War I=== |
=== From World War I to the Russian Revolution === |
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{{ |
{{main|Russia in the First World War|Russian Revolution}} |
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The Russian Empire fought in World War I from 1914 alongside France and the United Kingdom ([[Triple Entente]]) against Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire ([[Central Powers]]). |
The Russian Empire fought in World War I from 1914 alongside France and the United Kingdom ([[Triple Entente]]) against Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire ([[Central Powers]]). |
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The [[February Revolution]] of 1917 resulted in the abdication of Emperor [[Nicholas II of Russia]]. As a result, the social-democratic [[Russian Provisional Government]] was established, and [[Soviet (council)|soviets]], elected councils of workers, soldiers, and peasants, were organized throughout the country, leading to a situation of [[dual power]]. The [[Russian Republic]] was proclaimed in September of the same year. |
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===February Revolution=== |
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{{Main|February Revolution}} |
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The February Revolution of 1917 resulted in the abdication of Emperor [[Nicholas II of Russia]]. As a result, the social-democratic [[Russian Provisional Government]] was established, and [[Soviet (council)|soviets]], elected councils of workers, soldiers, and peasants, were organized throughout the country, leading to a situation of [[dual power]]. The [[Russian Republic]] was proclaimed in September of the same year. |
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===October Revolution=== |
====October Revolution==== |
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{{Main|October Revolution}} |
{{Main|October Revolution}} |
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The Provisional Government, led by [[Socialist Revolutionary Party]] politician [[Alexander Kerensky]], was unable to solve the most pressing issues of the country, most importantly to end the war with the Central Powers. A [[Kornilov affair|failed military coup]] by General [[Lavr Kornilov]] in September 1917 led to a surge in support for the [[Bolsheviks]], who [[Bolshevization of the Soviets|took control of the soviets]], which until then had been controlled by the Socialist Revolutionaries. Promising an end to the war and "all power to the Soviets", the Bolsheviks then ended dual power by overthrowing the Provisional Government in late October, on the eve of the [[Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies]], in what would be the second Revolution of 1917. Despite the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, they lost to the Socialist Revolutionary Party in the [[1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election]], and the Constituent Assembly was dissolved by the Bolsheviks in retaliation. The Bolsheviks soon lost the support of other far-left allies, such as the [[Left Socialist-Revolutionaries]], after their acceptance of the terms of the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]] presented by the German Empire.<ref name="Stone-2011">{{Cite encyclopedia|author1-link=David R. Stone|last=Stone|first=David R.|title=Russian Civil War (1917–1920)|year=2011|encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of War|editor-last=Martel|editor-first=Gordon|publisher=Blackwell Publishing Ltd|language=en|doi=10.1002/9781444338232.wbeow533|isbn=978-1-4051-9037-4|s2cid=153317860 }}</ref> Conversely, a number of prominent members of the [[Left Socialist Revolutionaries]] had assumed positions in Lenin's government and |
The Provisional Government, led by [[Socialist Revolutionary Party]] politician [[Alexander Kerensky]], was unable to solve the most pressing issues of the country, most importantly to end the war with the Central Powers. A [[Kornilov affair|failed military coup]] by General [[Lavr Kornilov]] in September 1917 led to a surge in support for the [[Bolsheviks]], who [[Bolshevization of the Soviets|took control of the soviets]], which until then had been controlled by the Socialist Revolutionaries. Promising an end to the war and "all power to the Soviets", the Bolsheviks then ended dual power by overthrowing the Provisional Government in late October, on the eve of the [[Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies]], in what would be the second Revolution of 1917. The initial stage of the October Revolution which involved the assault on [[Petrograd]] occurred largely without any human [[Casualty (person)|casualties]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Shukman |first1=Harold |title=The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the Russian Revolution |date=5 December 1994 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-0-631-19525-2 |page=343 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ScabEAAAQBAJ&dq=october+revolution+bloodless&pg=PA343 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Bergman |first1=Jay |title=The French Revolutionary Tradition in Russian and Soviet Politics, Political Thought, and Culture |date=2019 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-884270-5 |page=224 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5UKjDwAAQBAJ&dq=october+revolution+bloodless&pg=PA224 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=McMeekin |first1=Sean |title=The Russian Revolution: A New History |date=30 May 2017 |publisher=Basic Books |isbn=978-0-465-09497-4 |pages=1–496 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aXmZDgAAQBAJ&dq=october+revolution+bloodless&pg=PT155 |language=en}}</ref> Despite the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, they lost to the Socialist Revolutionary Party in the [[1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election]], and the Constituent Assembly was dissolved by the Bolsheviks in retaliation. The Bolsheviks soon lost the support of other far-left allies, such as the [[Left Socialist-Revolutionaries]], after their acceptance of the terms of the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]] presented by the German Empire.<ref name="Stone-2011">{{Cite encyclopedia|author1-link=David R. Stone|last=Stone|first=David R.|title=Russian Civil War (1917–1920)|year=2011|encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of War|editor-last=Martel|editor-first=Gordon|publisher=Blackwell Publishing Ltd|language=en|doi=10.1002/9781444338232.wbeow533|isbn=978-1-4051-9037-4|s2cid=153317860 }}</ref> Conversely, a number of prominent members of the [[Left Socialist Revolutionaries]] had assumed positions in Lenin's government and led commissariats in several areas. This included agriculture ([[Andrei Kolegayev|Kolegaev]]), property ([[Vladimir Karelin|Karelin]]), justice ([[Isaac Steinberg|Steinberg]]), post offices and telegraphs ([[Prosh Proshian|Proshian]]) and local government (Trutovsky).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Abramovitch |first1=Raphael R. |title=The Soviet Revolution, 1917-1939 |date=1985 |publisher=International Universities Press |page=130 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L_q1WAmv7XkC&q=Steinberg+became+the+People%27s+Commissar+of+Justice,+Proshyan+became+the+People%27s+Commissar+for+Posts+and+Telegraphs |language=en}}</ref> The Bolsheviks also reserved a number of vacant seats in the Soviets and [[All-Russian Central Executive Committee|Central Executive]] for the [[Menshevik]] and [[Left Socialist Revolutionaries]] parties in proportion to their vote share at the Congress.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet Armed Trotsky 1879-1921 (1954) |date=1954 |publisher=Oxford University Press. |pages=330–336 |url=https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.507702/page/335/mode/1up?view=theater}}</ref> The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was also approved by the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and [[anarchists]], both groups were in favour of a more [[radical democracy]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Liebman |first1=Marcel |title=Leninism under Lenin |date=1975 |publisher=London : J. Cape |isbn=978-0-224-01072-6 |page=237 |url=https://archive.org/details/leninismunderlen0000lieb_f2h6/page/237/mode/1up}}</ref> |
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===Formation of the Red Army=== |
===Formation of the Red Army=== |
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The Red Army also utilized former Tsarist officers as "military specialists" (''voenspetsy'');<ref name="Overy 2004">{{harvnb|Overy|2004|p=446}} By the end of the civil war, one-third of all Red Army officers were ex-Tsarist ''voenspetsy''"</ref> sometimes their families were taken hostage in order to ensure their loyalty.<ref name="Williams, Beryl 1921">Williams, Beryl, ''The Russian Revolution 1917–1921'', Blackwell Publishing Ltd. (1987), {{ISBN|978-0-631-15083-1}}</ref> At the start of the civil war, former Tsarist officers formed three-quarters of the Red Army officer-corps.<ref name="Williams, Beryl 1921"/> By its end, 83% of all Red Army divisional and corps commanders were ex-Tsarist soldiers.<ref name="Overy 2004" /> |
The Red Army also utilized former Tsarist officers as "military specialists" (''voenspetsy'');<ref name="Overy 2004">{{harvnb|Overy|2004|p=446}} By the end of the civil war, one-third of all Red Army officers were ex-Tsarist ''voenspetsy''"</ref> sometimes their families were taken hostage in order to ensure their loyalty.<ref name="Williams, Beryl 1921">Williams, Beryl, ''The Russian Revolution 1917–1921'', Blackwell Publishing Ltd. (1987), {{ISBN|978-0-631-15083-1}}</ref> At the start of the civil war, former Tsarist officers formed three-quarters of the Red Army officer-corps.<ref name="Williams, Beryl 1921"/> By its end, 83% of all Red Army divisional and corps commanders were ex-Tsarist soldiers.<ref name="Overy 2004" /> |
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=== Constituent Assembly opposition === |
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===Anti-Bolshevik movement=== |
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{{Main|White movement|Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine|Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War}} |
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[[File:Колчак, Нокс и английские офицеры восточного фронта.jpg|thumb|left|Admiral [[Alexander Kolchak]] (seated) and General [[Alfred Knox]] (behind Kolchak) observing military exercise, 1919]] |
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The [[White movement]] ({{lang-rus|[[Reforms of Russian orthography#Post-revolution reform|pre–1918]] Бѣлое движеніе / post–1918 Белое движение|r= Beloye dvizheniye|p= ˈbʲɛləɪ dvʲɪˈʐenʲɪɪ}}){{efn|The old spelling was retained by the Whites to differentiate from the Reds.}} also known as the '''Whites''' ({{lang|ru|Белые}}, {{transl|ru|Beliye}}), was a loose confederation of [[Anti-communism|anti-communist]] forces that fought the communist [[Bolsheviks]], also known as the ''Reds'', in the Russian Civil War and that to a lesser extent continued operating as militarized associations of rebels both outside and within Russian borders in [[Siberia]] until roughly [[World War II]] (1939–1945). The movement's military arm was the [[White Army]] (Бѣлая армія / Белая армия, ''Belaya armiya''), also known as the White Guard (Бѣлая гвардія / Белая гвардия, ''Belaya gvardiya'') or White Guardsmen (Бѣлогвардейцы / Белогвардейцы, ''Belogvardeytsi''). |
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When the White Army was created, the structure of the [[Russian Army (1917)|Russian Army of the Provisional Government period]] was used, while almost every individual formation had its own characteristics. The military art of the White Army was based on the experience of World War I, which, however, left a strong imprint on the specifics of the Civil War.<ref>Military Encyclopedic Dictionary / Editorial Board: Alexander Gorkin, Vladimir Zolotarev et al. – Moscow: Great Russian Encyclopedia, RIPOL Classic, 2002 – 1664 Pages</ref> |
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During the Russian Civil War, the White movement functioned as a [[big tent]] political movement representing an array of political opinions in Russia united in their opposition to the Bolsheviks—from the republican-minded liberals and Kerenskyite social-democrats on the left through monarchists and supporters of a united multinational Russia to the ultra-nationalist [[Black Hundreds]] on the right. |
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====Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, early Constituent Assembly rebellions==== |
====Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, early Constituent Assembly rebellions==== |
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The [[Russian Constituent Assembly]] had been a demand of the Bolsheviks against the Provisional Government, which kept delaying it. After the October Revolution the elections were run by the body appointed by the previous Provisional Government. It was based on universal suffrage but used party lists from before the Left-Right SR split. The anti-Bolshevik Right SRs [[1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election|won the elections]] with the majority of the seats,{{sfn|Carr|1985|pages=111–112}} after which Lenin's ''Theses on the Constituent Assembly'' argued in ''[[Pravda]]'' that formal democracy was impossible because of class conflicts, conflicts with Ukraine and the Kadet-Kaledin uprising. He argued the Constituent Assembly must unconditionally accept sovereignty of the soviet government or it would be dealt with "by revolutionary means".{{sfn|Carr|1985|pages=113–115}} |
The [[Russian Constituent Assembly]] had been a demand of the Bolsheviks against the Provisional Government, which kept delaying it. After the October Revolution the elections were run by the body appointed by the previous Provisional Government. It was based on universal suffrage but used party lists from before the Left-Right SR split. The anti-Bolshevik Right SRs [[1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election|won the elections]] with the majority of the seats,{{sfn|Carr|1985|pages=111–112}} after which Lenin's ''Theses on the Constituent Assembly'' argued in ''[[Pravda]]'' that formal democracy was impossible because of class conflicts, conflicts with Ukraine and the Kadet-Kaledin uprising. He argued the Constituent Assembly must unconditionally accept sovereignty of the soviet government or it would be dealt with "by revolutionary means".{{sfn|Carr|1985|pages=113–115}} |
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[[File:Maria Spiridonova.jpg|thumb|right|[[Maria Spiridonova]]]] |
[[File:Maria Spiridonova.jpg|thumb|right|[[Maria Spiridonova]]]] |
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The Constituent Assembly met on January 18, 1918. The Right SR Chernov was elected president defeating the Bolshevik supported candidate, the Left SR [[Maria Spiridonova]] (she would later break with the Bolsheviks and after the decades of [[gulag]], she was shot on Stalin's orders in 1941). The Bolsheviks subsequently disbanded the Constituent Assembly and proceeded to rule the country as a [[one-party state]] with all opposition parties outlawed.<ref>[https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/kontseptsiya-sotsialisticheskoy-demokratii-opyt-realizatsii-v-sssr-i-sovremennye-perspektivy-v-sng Концепция социалистической демократии: опыт реализации в СССР и современные перспективы в СНГ]</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Bolsheviks: the intellectual and political history of the triumph of communism in Russia |author=Adam Bruno Ulam |publisher=Harvard University Press |page=397}}</ref> A simultaneous demonstration in favor of the Constituent Assembly was dispersed with force, but there was little protest afterwards.{{sfn|Carr|1985|pages=120–121}} |
The Constituent Assembly met on January 18, 1918. The Right SR Chernov was elected president defeating the Bolshevik supported candidate, the Left SR [[Maria Spiridonova]] (she would later break with the Bolsheviks and after the decades of [[gulag]], she was shot on Stalin's orders in 1941). The Bolsheviks subsequently disbanded the Constituent Assembly and proceeded to rule the country as a [[one-party state]] with all opposition parties outlawed in 1921.<ref>[https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/kontseptsiya-sotsialisticheskoy-demokratii-opyt-realizatsii-v-sssr-i-sovremennye-perspektivy-v-sng Концепция социалистической демократии: опыт реализации в СССР и современные перспективы в СНГ]</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Bolsheviks: the intellectual and political history of the triumph of communism in Russia |author=Adam Bruno Ulam |publisher=Harvard University Press |page=397}}</ref> A simultaneous demonstration in favor of the Constituent Assembly was dispersed with force, but there was little protest afterwards.{{sfn|Carr|1985|pages=120–121}} |
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The first large [[Cheka]] repression involving the killing of [[libertarian socialist]]s in Petrograd began in April 1918. On May 1, 1918, a pitched battle took place in Moscow between the anarchists and the Bolshevik police.<ref name="Berkman">{{cite journal |last1=Berkman |first1=Alexander |author-link1=Alexander Berkman |last2=Goldman |first2=Emma |author-link2=Emma Goldman |date=January 1922 |title=Bolsheviks Shooting Anarchists |journal=Freedom |volume=36 |issue=391 |page=4 |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-alexander-berkman-bolsheviks-shooting-anarchists |access-date=9 May 2023}}</ref> |
The first large [[Cheka]] repression involving the killing of [[libertarian socialist]]s in Petrograd began in April 1918. On May 1, 1918, a pitched battle took place in Moscow between the anarchists and the Bolshevik police.<ref name="Berkman">{{cite journal |last1=Berkman |first1=Alexander |author-link1=Alexander Berkman |last2=Goldman |first2=Emma |author-link2=Emma Goldman |date=January 1922 |title=Bolsheviks Shooting Anarchists |journal=Freedom |volume=36 |issue=391 |page=4 |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-alexander-berkman-bolsheviks-shooting-anarchists |access-date=9 May 2023}}</ref> |
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====Constituent Assembly uprising==== |
====Constituent Assembly uprising==== |
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The Union of Regeneration was founded in Moscow in April 1918 as an underground |
The Union of Regeneration was founded in Moscow in April 1918 as an underground organization of "democratic resistance" to the Bolsheviks, composed of the [[Popular Socialists (Russia)|Popular Socialists]] and "personal representatives" of Right Socialist Revolutionaries, [[Constitutional Democratic Party|Kadets]] and Defensists, among others. They were tasked with propping up anti-Bolshevik forces and to create a Russian state system based on "state consciousness, patriotism and civil liberties" with the goal to liberate the country from the "Germano-Bolshevik" yoke.<ref name=WS>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=73lLeNeICXUC |title=White Siberia: the politics of civil war |author=Norman G. O. Pereira |publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |date=1996 |isbn=978-0-7735-1349-5 |page=65}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2gd7F6t2lCcC |title=The lost opportunity: attempts at unification of the anti-Bolsheviks, 1917–1919 – Moscow, Kiev, Jassy, Odessa |author=Christopher Lazarski |publisher=University Press of America |place=Lanham |date=2008 |isbn=978-0-7618-4120-3 |pages=42–43}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mt9qzSvBrI4C |title=Dear comrades: Menshevik reports on the Bolshevik revolution and the civil war |author=Vladimir N. Brovkin |publisher=Hoover Press |date=1991 |isbn=978-0-8179-8981-1 |page=135}}</ref> |
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On May 7, 1918, the Eighth Party Council of the [[Socialist Revolutionary Party]] commenced in [[Moscow]] and recognized the Union's leading role, putting aside political ideology and class for the purpose of Russia's salvation. They decided to start an uprising against the Bolsheviks with the goal of reconvening the Russian Constituent Assembly.<ref name=WS /> While preparations were under way, the [[Czechoslovak Legion]]s overthrew Bolshevik rule in [[Siberia]], the [[Ural Mountains|Urals]] and the [[Volga River|Volga]] region in late May-early June 1918 and the center of SR activity shifted there. On June 8, 1918, five Constituent Assembly members formed the All-Russian [[Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly]] (''Komuch'') in [[Samara]] and declared it the new supreme authority in the country.<ref name="komuch">See Jonathan D. Smele. Op. cit., p.32 ("Op. cit." means to refer to a work cited earlier in the citations. this means you copied it from a citation list, and are citing something that you have not read. instead you should cite what you read and say it refers to this, or if you can get the original work and look at it then you can cite it directly.)</ref> The Social Revolutionary [[Provisional Siberian Government (Vladivostok)|Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia]] came to power on 29 June 1918, after the uprising in [[Vladivostok]]. |
On May 7, 1918, the Eighth Party Council of the [[Socialist Revolutionary Party]] commenced in [[Moscow]] and recognized the Union's leading role, putting aside political ideology and class for the purpose of Russia's salvation. They decided to start an uprising against the Bolsheviks with the goal of reconvening the Russian Constituent Assembly.<ref name=WS /> While preparations were under way, the [[Czechoslovak Legion]]s overthrew Bolshevik rule in [[Siberia]], the [[Ural Mountains|Urals]] and the [[Volga River|Volga]] region in late May-early June 1918 and the center of SR activity shifted there. On June 8, 1918, five Constituent Assembly members formed the All-Russian [[Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly]] (''Komuch'') in [[Samara]] and declared it the new supreme authority in the country.<ref name="komuch">See Jonathan D. Smele. Op. cit., p.32 ("Op. cit." means to refer to a work cited earlier in the citations. this means you copied it from a citation list, and are citing something that you have not read. instead you should cite what you read and say it refers to this, or if you can get the original work and look at it then you can cite it directly.)</ref> The Social Revolutionary [[Provisional Siberian Government (Vladivostok)|Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia]] came to power on 29 June 1918, after the uprising in [[Vladivostok]]. |
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=== White movement and foreign interventions === |
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==== From "democratic counter-revolution" to the White movement ==== |
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At the [[5th All-Russia Congress of Soviets]] of July 4, 1918, the [[Left Socialist-Revolutionaries]] had 352 delegates compared to 745 Bolsheviks out of 1132 total. The Left SRs raised disagreements on the suppression of rival parties, the death penalty, and mainly, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The Bolsheviks excluded the Right SRs and Mensheviks from the government on 14 June for associating with counterrevolutionaries and seeking to "organize armed attacks against the workers and peasants" (though Mensheviks had not supported them), while the Left SRs advocated forming a government of all socialist parties. The Left SRs agreed with extrajudicial execution of political opponents to stop the counterrevolution, but opposed having the government legally pronouncing death sentences, an unusual position that is best understood within the context of the group's terrorist past. The Left SRs strongly opposed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and opposed Trotsky's insistence that no one try to attack German troops in Ukraine.{{sfn|Carr|1985|pages=161–164}} |
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{{Main|White movement}} |
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[[File:Колчак, Нокс и английские офицеры восточного фронта.jpg|thumb|left|Admiral [[Alexander Kolchak]] (seated) and General [[Alfred Knox]] (behind Kolchak) observing military exercise, 1919]] |
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The main Russian military and political force opposing the Bolsheviks was known as the [[White movement]], or simply the Whites; its armed formations were known as the [[White Army]]. |
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According to historian [[Marcel Liebman]], Lenin's wartime measures such as banning opposition parties was prompted by the fact that several political parties either [[left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks|took up arms]] against the new [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic]], or participated in sabotage, collaboration with the deposed Tsarists, or made [[Assassination attempts on Vladimir Lenin|assassination attempts against Lenin]] and other Bolshevik leaders.<ref name="Leninism Under Lenin">{{cite book |last1=Liebman |first1=Marcel |title=Leninism Under Lenin |date=1985 |publisher=Merlin Press |isbn=978-0-85036-261-9 |pages=1–348 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OQjzAAAAMAAJ |language=en}}</ref> Liebman noted that opposition parties such as the Cadets and [[Mensheviks]] who were democratically elected to the Soviets in some areas, then proceeded to use their mandate to welcome in Tsarist and [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|foreign capitalist military forces]].<ref name="Leninism Under Lenin"/> In one incident in Baku, the British military, once invited in, proceeded to execute members of the Bolshevik Party who had peacefully stood down from the Soviet when they failed to win the elections. As a result, the Bolsheviks banned each opposition party when it turned against the Soviet government. In some cases, bans were lifted. This banning of parties did not have the same repressive character as later bans enforced under the [[Stalinist]] regime.<ref name="Leninism Under Lenin"/> |
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Some historians distinguish the White movement from the so-called "democratic counter-revolution"<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/nationalities-papers/article/abs/democratic-counterrevolution-of-1918-in-siberia/902F77B1E6F60CF8CC8EDFCB66A3894|title=Democratic counterrevolution of 1918 in Siberia |author=<!--Not stated--> |date= |website=www.cambridge.org |publisher= |access-date= |quote=}}{{Dead link|date=December 2024 |fix-attempted=yes |url=}}</ref><ref name="rev">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_4SuDQAAQBAJ | isbn=978-0-19-873482-6 | title=Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890 to 1928 | date=2017 | publisher=Oxford University Press }}</ref> led mainly by the [[Right Socialist-Revolutionaries|Right SRs]] and the [[Mensheviks]] that adhered to the values of [[parliamentary democracy]] and maintained anti-Bolshevik counter-governments ([[Komuch]], [[Ufa Directory]]) on the basis with alliance with the right-wing parties of Russia until November 1918. Until this period, [[parliamentary democracy]] was the main tendency of the anti-Bolshevik forces on the East (but not the South) of Russia, but since then, the White movement unified on an [[Right-wing dictatorship|authoritarian-right]] platform around the figure of [[Alexander Kolchak]] who [[Kolchak Coup|rose to power through a military coup]] as its principal leader and his [[Russian Government (1918—1919)|All-Russian government]].<ref name="rev"/><ref name="shubin1">{{cite web | title=Великая Российская революция. 10 вопросов|language=ru| url=https://historyrussia.org/images/documents/shubin-10-voprosov-revolution.pdf|author1=А. В. Шубин|author-link1=Alexander Vladlenovich Shubin}}</ref><ref name="shubin">{{cite book| title=1918 год. Революция, кровью омытая|language=ru|author1=А. В. Шубин|author-link1=Alexander Vladlenovich Shubin|isbn=978-5-8291-2317-8}}</ref> After the Kolchak coup, the Right SRs and the Mensheviks went to opposition to the Whites and co-operated with both factions of the Civil War on a tactical level, while also attempting to overthrow White administrations or establish themselves as "the third force" of the war: for example, they attempted to stage an anti-Kolchak mutiny in November 1919 with the help of the Czech general [[Radola Gajda]], and in 1920, they formed an organisation called 'Political Centre' and successfully overthrew the White administration in Irkutsk.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nzhq85nPrdsC | isbn=978-0-521-47771-0 | title=A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony 1581-1990 | date=8 September 1994 | publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref> |
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====Repression==== |
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In December 1917, [[Felix Dzerzhinsky]] was appointed to the duty of rooting out [[counter-revolutionary]] threats to the [[Government of the Soviet Union|Soviet government]]. He was the director of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (aka [[Cheka]]), a predecessor of the KGB that served as the [[secret police]] for the Soviets.<ref name="Bird-2018" /> |
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Although the White movement included a variety of political opinions, from the liberals through monarchists to the ultra-nationalist [[Black Hundreds]],<ref>Osborne, R. (2023, April 14). ''[https://study.com/academy/lesson/white-army-history-facts-russian.html White Army of Russia | History, Significance & Composition]''. Study.com. "Loosely commanded by former imperial admiral Alexander Kolchack, the White Army was composed of volunteers, conscripts, liberals, conservatives, monarchists, religious fundamentalists, and any group that opposed Bolshevik rule"</ref> and did not have universally-accepted leader or doctrine, the main force behind the movement were the conservative officers, and the resulting movement shared many traits with widespread right-wing counter-revolutionary movements of the time, namely [[nationalism]], [[racism]], distrust of liberal and democratic politics, [[clericalism]], contempt for the common man and dislike of industrial civilization;<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kenez |first=Peter |year=1980 |title=The Ideology of the White Movement |journal=Soviet Studies |volume=32 |issue=32 |pages=58–83 |doi=10.1080/09668138008411280}}</ref> although not all of the participants of the movement wanted a restoration of [[Tsarism]], it generally preferred it to the revolution, and its main goal became to establish an order which would share the main features of the imperial one;<ref name="shubin"/><ref>{{cite book|title=Red Advance, White Defeat: Civil War in South Russia 1919–1920|author1=Peter Kenez|author-link1=Peter Kenez|isbn=9781955835176|year=2008|publisher=New Acdemia+ORM |quote= Not all the participants in the White movement wanted to recreate tsarist Russia. [...] Nevertheless, the Civil War divided those who preferred tsarist Russia to the society which they feared their country was heading toward, and those who hated the old and had confidence that they could build a more just and rational society. After three years of struggle the Whites lost the war, proving that the traditional order had too few defenders... The defeat of the Whites was the final and conclusive defeat of Imperial Russia.}}</ref> its positive program was largely summarized in the slogan of "united and indivisible Russia" which meant the restoration of imperial state borders (excluding Poland and Finland)<ref name="un1">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGib6O8vocoC | isbn=978-0-521-03025-0 | title=The People in Arms: Military Myth and National Mobilization Since the French Revolution | date=2 November 2006 | publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref><ref name="un2">{{Cite book| url=https://academic.oup.com/book/10472/chapter-abstract/158344535 | doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199250219.003.0001 | chapter=Civil War | title=The White Russian Army in Exile 1920-1941 | date=2002 | last1=Robinson | first1=Paul | pages=1–15 | publisher=Oxford University Press | isbn=978-0-19-925021-9 }}</ref><ref name="un">{{cite web | url=https://www.hoover.org/research/wake-empire | title=In the Wake of Empire }}</ref> and its denial of the [[right to self-determination]] and the resulting hostility towards the [[Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War|movements for national independence]];<ref name="shubin1"/> the movement is associated with [[Pogroms during the Russian Civil War|pogroms]] and [[antisemitism]], although its relations with the Jews were more complex, as at first, for example, Jewish properitors supported the anti-Bolsheviks, but later the movement became known for its antisemic pogroms and discrimination against the Jews.<ref>{{cite book|title=Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920|author1=Oleg Budnitskii|isbn=9780812208146|year=2012|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press}}</ref> |
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From early 1918, the Bolsheviks started physical elimination of opposition, other socialist and revolutionary fractions. [[Anarchism|Anarchists]] were among the first: |
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When the White Army was created, the structure of the [[Russian Army (1917)|Russian Army of the Provisional Government period]] was used, while almost every individual formation had its own characteristics. The military art of the White Army was based on the experience of World War I, which, however, left a strong imprint on the specifics of the Civil War.<ref>Military Encyclopedic Dictionary / Editorial Board: Alexander Gorkin, Vladimir Zolotarev et al. – Moscow: Great Russian Encyclopedia, RIPOL Classic, 2002 – 1664 Pages</ref> |
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{{Blockquote|text=Of all the revolutionary elements in Russia it is the Anarchists who now suffer the most ruthless and systematic persecution. Their suppression by the Bolsheviki began already in 1918, when — in the month of April of that year — the Communist Government attacked, without provocation or warning, the Anarchist Club of Moscow and by the use of machine guns and artillery "liquidated" the whole organisation. It was the beginning of Anarchist hounding, but it was sporadic in character, breaking out now and then, quite planless, and frequently self-contradictory.|author=[[Alexander Berkman]], [[Emma Goldman]]|title="Bolsheviks Shooting Anarchists"<ref name="Berkman"/>}} |
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====Allied intervention==== |
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On 11 August 1918, prior to the events that would officially catalyze the [[Red Terror]], [[Vladimir Lenin]] had [[Lenin's Hanging Order|sent telegrams]] "to introduce mass terror" in [[Nizhny Novgorod]] in response to a suspected civilian uprising there, and to "crush" landowners in [[Penza]] who resisted, sometimes violently, the requisitioning of their grain by military detachments:<ref>{{harvp|Werth|Bartosek|Panne|Margolin|1999|loc=Chapter 4: The Red Terror.}}</ref> |
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{{Main|Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War}} |
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The Western Allies armed and supported the Whites. They were worried about a possible Russo-German alliance, the prospect of the Bolsheviks making good on their threats to default on Imperial Russia's massive [[External debt|foreign debts]] and the possibility that Communist revolutionary ideas would spread (a concern shared by many Central Powers). Hence, many of the countries expressed their support for the Whites, including the provision of troops and supplies. [[Winston Churchill]] declared that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle".<ref>[http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=282 Cover Story: Churchill's Greatness.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061004110408/http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=282 |date=2006-10-04}} Interview with Jeffrey Wallin. (The Churchill Centre)</ref> The British and French had supported [[Russia during World War I]] on a massive scale with war materials. |
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After the treaty, it looked like much of that material would fall into the hands of the Germans. To meet that danger, the [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|Allies intervened]] with Great Britain and France sending troops into Russian ports. There were violent clashes with the Bolsheviks. Britain intervened in support of the White forces to defeat the Bolsheviks and prevent the spread of communism across Europe.<ref>Howard Fuller, "Great Britain and Russia's Civil War: The Necessity for a Definite and Coherent Policy". ''Journal of Slavic Military Studies'' 32.4 (2019): 553–559.</ref> |
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{{blockquote|Comrades! The [[kulak]] uprising in your five districts must be crushed without pity ... You must make example of these people. |
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: (1) Hang (I mean hang publicly, so that people see it) at least 100 kulaks, rich bastards, and known bloodsuckers. |
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: (2) Publish their names. |
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: (3) Seize all their grain. |
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: (4) Single out the hostages per my instructions in yesterday's telegram. |
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==== Central Powers anti-Bolshevik intervention ==== |
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Do all this so that for miles (versts) around people see it all, understand it, tremble, and tell themselves that we are killing the bloodthirsty kulaks and that we will continue to do so ... |
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{{main|Central Powers intervention in the Russian Civil War}} |
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The Central Powers also supported the anti-Bolshevik forces and the whites; after the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]], the main goals of the intervention were to maintain the newly conquered territories and prevent a re-establishment of the Eastern Front. After the defeat of the Central Powers, many armies that stayed mostly helped the [[Russian White Guard]] eradicate communists in the Baltics until their eventual withdrawal and defeat. Pro-German factions fought against the newly independent Baltic states until their defeat by the Baltic States, backed by the victorious [[Allies of World War I|Allies]]. |
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====Pro-independence movements and German protectorates==== |
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Yours, Lenin. |
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{{main|Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War}} |
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[[File:Map Treaty Brest-Litovsk.jpg|thumb|Borders of the buffer states drawn by the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]]]] |
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The German Empire created several short-lived [[buffer state]]s within its sphere of influence after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: the [[United Baltic Duchy]], [[Duchy of Courland and Semigallia (1918)|Duchy of Courland and Semigallia]], [[Kingdom of Lithuania (1918)|Kingdom of Lithuania]], [[Kingdom of Poland (1916–1918)|Kingdom of Poland]],<ref>{{Cite book|title=Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identity and Cultural Differences|last=Keith Bullivant, Geoffrey J. Giles and Walter Pape|publisher=Rodopi|year=1999|isbn=90-420-0678-1|pages=28–29}}</ref> the [[Belarusian People's Republic]], and the [[Ukrainian State]]. Following Germany's Armistice in World War I in November 1918, the states were abolished.<ref>Mieczysław B. Biskupski, "War and the Diplomacy of Polish Independence, 1914–18." ''Polish Review'' (1990): 5–17. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/25778473 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200127202015/https://www.jstor.org/stable/25778473 |date=27 January 2020 }}</ref><ref>Timothy Snyder, ''The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999'' (Yale UP, 2004)</ref> |
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Finland was the first republic that [[Finnish Declaration of Independence|declared its independence from Russia]] in December 1917 and established itself in the ensuing [[Finnish Civil War]] between nationalist German-supported [[White Guard (Finland)|White Guards]] and socialist Bolshevik-supported [[Red Guards (Finland)|Red Guards]] from January–May 1918.<ref>{{Cite journal|doi= 10.1080/03585522.1978.10407894|title= Revolutionary ferment in Finland and the origins of the civil war 1917–1918|year= 1978|last1= Kirby|first1= D. G.|journal= Scandinavian Economic History Review|volume= 26 |pages= 15–35|doi-access= free}}</ref> The [[Second Polish Republic]], [[History of Lithuania|Lithuania]], [[History of Latvia|Latvia]] and [[History of Estonia|Estonia]] formed their own armies immediately after the abolition of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and the start of the [[Soviet westward offensive of 1918–1919|Soviet westward offensive]] and subsequent [[Polish-Soviet War]] in November 1918.<ref>Anatol Lieven, ''The Baltic revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the path to independence'' (Yale UP, 1993) pp. 54–61. [https://www.amazon.com/Baltic-Revolution-Estonia-Lithuania-Independence/dp/0300055528/ excerpt] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210316223710/https://www.amazon.com/Baltic-Revolution-Estonia-Lithuania-Independence/dp/0300055528/ |date=16 March 2021 }}</ref> |
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P.S. Find tougher people.|source=[[Lenin's Hanging Order]]}} |
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=== Opposition and repression in Soviet Russia === |
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In a mid-August 1920 letter, having received information that in Estonia and Latvia, with which Soviet Russia had concluded peace treaties, volunteers were being enrolled in anti-Bolshevik detachments, Lenin wrote to E. M. Sklyansky, deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic:<ref name="litvinalkbterror">{{ill|Alter Litvin|ru|Литвин, Алтер Львович}} ''Красный и Белый террор в России в 1917—1922 годах [Red and White terror in Russia in 1917-1922]'' {{in lang|ru}}, {{ISBN|5-87849-164-8}}.</ref> |
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==== Exclusion of Mensheviks and SRs ==== |
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At the [[Fifth All–Russian Congress of Soviets]] of July 4, 1918, the [[Left Socialist-Revolutionaries]] had 352 delegates compared to 745 Bolsheviks out of 1132 total. The Left SRs raised disagreements on the suppression of rival parties, the death penalty, and mainly, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The Bolsheviks excluded the Right SRs and Mensheviks from the government on 14 June for associating with counterrevolutionaries and seeking to "organize armed attacks against the workers and peasants" (though Mensheviks did not exist as a united movement and were split into the [[Menshevik-Internationalists|left-wing "internationalist"]] and more right-wing factions), while the Left SRs advocated forming a government of all socialist parties. The Left SRs agreed with extrajudicial execution of political opponents to stop the counterrevolution, but opposed having the government legally pronouncing death sentences, an unusual position that is best understood within the context of the group's terrorist past. The Left SRs strongly opposed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and opposed Trotsky's insistence that no one try to attack German troops in Ukraine.{{sfn|Carr|1985|pages=161–164}} |
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According to historian [[Marcel Liebman]], Lenin's wartime measures such as banning opposition parties was prompted by the fact that several political parties either [[left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks|took up arms]] against the new [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic]], or participated in sabotage, collaboration with the deposed Tsarists, or made [[Assassination attempts on Vladimir Lenin|assassination attempts against Lenin]] and other Bolshevik leaders.<ref name="Leninism Under Lenin">{{cite book |last1=Liebman |first1=Marcel |title=Leninism Under Lenin |date=1985 |publisher=Merlin Press |isbn=978-0-85036-261-9 |pages=1–348 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OQjzAAAAMAAJ |language=en}}</ref> Liebman noted that opposition parties such as the Cadets and [[Mensheviks]] who were democratically elected to the Soviets in some areas, then proceeded to use their mandate to welcome in Tsarist and [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|foreign capitalist military forces]].<ref name="Leninism Under Lenin"/> [[26 Baku Commissars|In one incident in Baku]], the British military, once invited in, proceeded to execute members of the Bolshevik Party who had peacefully stood down from the Soviet when they failed to win the elections. As a result, the Bolsheviks banned each opposition party when it turned against the Soviet government. In some cases, bans were lifted. This banning of parties did not have the same repressive character as later bans enforced under the [[Stalinist]] regime.<ref name="Leninism Under Lenin"/> |
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====Repression==== |
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In December 1917, [[Felix Dzerzhinsky]] was appointed to the duty of rooting out [[counter-revolutionary]] threats to the [[Government of the Soviet Union|Soviet government]]. He was the director of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (aka [[Cheka]]), a predecessor of the KGB that served as the [[secret police]] for the Soviets.<ref name="Bird-2018" /> |
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The Bolsheviks had begun to see the anarchists as a legitimate threat and associate criminality such as [[robberies]], [[expropriations]] and [[murders]] with anarchist associations. Subsequently, the [[Council of People's Commissars]] (Sovnarkom) decided to liquidate criminal recklessness associated with anarchists and disarm all anarchist groups in the face of their militancy.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Goodwin |first1=James |title=Confronting Dostoevsky's Demons: Anarchism and the Specter of Bakunin in Twentieth-century Russia |date=2010 |publisher=Peter Lang |isbn=978-1-4331-0883-9 |page=48 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pun07YW3t7sC&dq=anarchists+criminal+elements+cheka+april&pg=PA48 |language=en}}</ref> |
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From early 1918, the Bolsheviks started physical elimination of opposition, other socialist and revolutionary fractions. [[Anarchism|Anarchists]] were among the first: |
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{{Blockquote|text=Of all the revolutionary elements in Russia it is the Anarchists who now suffer the most ruthless and systematic persecution. Their suppression by the Bolsheviki began already in 1918, when — in the month of April of that year — the Communist Government attacked, without provocation or warning, the Anarchist Club of Moscow and by the use of machine guns and artillery "liquidated" the whole organisation. It was the beginning of Anarchist hounding, but it was sporadic in character, breaking out now and then, quite planless, and frequently self-contradictory.|author=[[Alexander Berkman]], [[Emma Goldman]]|title="Bolsheviks Shooting Anarchists"<ref name="Berkman"/>}} |
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Prior to the events that would officially catalyze the [[Red Terror]],<ref name="black">{{harvp|Werth|Bartosek|Panne|Margolin|1999|loc=Chapter 4: The Red Terror.}}</ref> [[Vladimir Lenin]] issued orders and made speeches which included harsh expressions and descriptions of brutal measures to be taken against the "class enemies", which, however, often were not actual orders or were not carried out as such. For example, in a telegram which became known as "[[Lenin's hanging order]]" he demanded and "crush" landowners in [[Penza]] and to publicly hang "at least 100 kulaks, rich bastards, and known bloodsuckers"<ref name="black"/> in response to an uprising there; yet, only the 13 organizers of the murder of local authorities and the uprising were arrested, while the uprising ended as propaganda activities were held there;<ref name="log"/> in 1920, having received information that in Estonia and Latvia, with which Soviet Russia had concluded peace treaties, volunteers were being enrolled in anti-Bolshevik detachments, Lenin offered to "advance by 10–20 miles (versts) and hang kulaks, priests, landowners" "while pretending to be greens",<ref name="litvinalkbterror">[[:ru:Литвин, Алтер Львович|Alter Litvin]] ''Красный и Белый террор в России в 1917—1922 годах [Red and White terror in Russia in 1917-1922]'' {{in lang|ru}}, {{ISBN|5-87849-164-8}}.</ref> but instead, his government confined itself to sending diplomatic notes.<ref name="log">[[:ru:Логинов, Владлен Терентьевич|Vladlen Loginov]]. Послесловие / ''В.И.Ленин. Неизвестные документы. 1891-1922''. {{in lang|ru}}, {{ISBN|5-8243-0154-9}}.</ref> |
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{{blockquote|Great plan! Finish it with Dzerzhinsky. While pretending to be the "greens" (we will blame them later), we will advance by 10–20 miles (versts) and hang kulaks, priests, landowners. Prize: 100.000 rubles for each hanged man.}} |
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[[Leonid Kannegisser]], a young [[military cadet]] of the [[Imperial Russian Army]], assassinated [[Moisey Uritsky]] on August 17, 1918, outside the Petrograd Cheka headquarters in retaliation for the execution of his friend and other officers.<ref>[http://www.lib.ru/POLITOLOG/MELGUNOW/terror.txt Melgunov, S.P. ''Red Terror'' in Russia] {{in lang|ru}}</ref> |
[[Leonid Kannegisser]], a young [[military cadet]] of the [[Imperial Russian Army]], assassinated [[Moisey Uritsky]] on August 17, 1918, outside the Petrograd Cheka headquarters in retaliation for the execution of his friend and other officers.<ref>[http://www.lib.ru/POLITOLOG/MELGUNOW/terror.txt Melgunov, S.P. ''Red Terror'' in Russia] {{in lang|ru}}</ref> |
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The policies of "food dictatorship" proclaimed by the Bolsheviks in May 1918 sparked violent resistance in numerous districts of [[European Russia]]: revolts and clashes between the peasants and the [[Red Army]] were reported in [[Voronezh]], [[Tambov]], [[Penza]], [[Saratov]] and in the districts of [[Kostroma Oblast|Kostroma]], [[Moscow Oblast|Moscow]], [[Novgorod Oblast|Novgorod]], [[Leningrad Oblast|Petrograd]], [[Pskov Oblast|Pskov]] and [[Smolensk Oblast|Smolensk]]. The revolts were bloodily crushed by the Bolsheviks: in the Voronezh Oblast, the Red Guards killed sixteen peasants during the pacification of the village, while another village was shelled with artillery in order to force the peasants to surrender and in the Novgorod Oblast the rebelling peasants were dispersed with machine-gun fire from a train sent by a detachment of Latvian Red Army soldiers.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Scott Baldwin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5ueUEE8jVRsC |title=Captives of Revolution: The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolshevik Dictatorship, 1918–1923 |date=2011-04-15 |publisher=[[University of Pittsburgh Press]] |isbn=978-0-8229-7779-7 |pages=68–70 |language=en}}</ref> While the Bolsheviks immediately denounced the rebellion as orchestrated by the SRs, there is actually no evidence that they were involved into peasant violence, which they deemed as counterproductive.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Scott Baldwin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5ueUEE8jVRsC |title=Captives of Revolution: The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolshevik Dictatorship, 1918–1923 |date=2011-04-15 |publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press |isbn=978-0-8229-7779-7 |pages=68 |language=en}}</ref> |
The policies of "food dictatorship" proclaimed by the Bolsheviks in May 1918 sparked violent resistance in numerous districts of [[European Russia]]: revolts and clashes between the peasants and the [[Red Army]] were reported in [[Voronezh]], [[Tambov]], [[Penza]], [[Saratov]] and in the districts of [[Kostroma Oblast|Kostroma]], [[Moscow Oblast|Moscow]], [[Novgorod Oblast|Novgorod]], [[Leningrad Oblast|Petrograd]], [[Pskov Oblast|Pskov]] and [[Smolensk Oblast|Smolensk]]. The revolts were bloodily crushed by the Bolsheviks: in the Voronezh Oblast, the Red Guards killed sixteen peasants during the pacification of the village, while another village was shelled with artillery in order to force the peasants to surrender and in the Novgorod Oblast the rebelling peasants were dispersed with machine-gun fire from a train sent by a detachment of Latvian Red Army soldiers.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Scott Baldwin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5ueUEE8jVRsC |title=Captives of Revolution: The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolshevik Dictatorship, 1918–1923 |date=2011-04-15 |publisher=[[University of Pittsburgh Press]] |isbn=978-0-8229-7779-7 |pages=68–70 |language=en}}</ref> While the Bolsheviks immediately denounced the rebellion as orchestrated by the SRs, there is actually no evidence that they were involved into peasant violence, which they deemed as counterproductive.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Scott Baldwin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5ueUEE8jVRsC |title=Captives of Revolution: The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolshevik Dictatorship, 1918–1923 |date=2011-04-15 |publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press |isbn=978-0-8229-7779-7 |pages=68 |language=en}}</ref> |
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===Allied intervention=== |
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{{Main|Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War}} |
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The Western Allies armed and supported opponents of the Bolsheviks. They were worried about a possible Russo-German alliance, the prospect of the Bolsheviks making good on their threats to default on Imperial Russia's massive [[External debt|foreign debts]] and the possibility that Communist revolutionary ideas would spread (a concern shared by many Central Powers). Hence, many of the countries expressed their support for the Whites, including the provision of troops and supplies. [[Winston Churchill]] declared that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle".<ref>[http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=282 Cover Story: Churchill's Greatness.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061004110408/http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=282 |date=2006-10-04}} Interview with Jeffrey Wallin. (The Churchill Centre)</ref> The British and French had supported [[Russia during World War I]] on a massive scale with war materials. |
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After the treaty, it looked like much of that material would fall into the hands of the Germans. To meet that danger, the [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|Allies intervened]] with Great Britain and France sending troops into Russian ports. There were violent clashes with the Bolsheviks. Britain intervened in support of the White forces to defeat the Bolsheviks and prevent the spread of communism across Europe.<ref>Howard Fuller, "Great Britain and Russia's Civil War: The Necessity for a Definite and Coherent Policy". ''Journal of Slavic Military Studies'' 32.4 (2019): 553–559.</ref> |
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===Buffer states=== |
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[[File:Map Treaty Brest-Litovsk.jpg|thumb|Borders of the buffer states drawn by the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]]]] |
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The German Empire created several short-lived [[buffer state]]s within its sphere of influence after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: the [[United Baltic Duchy]], [[Duchy of Courland and Semigallia (1918)|Duchy of Courland and Semigallia]], [[Kingdom of Lithuania (1918)|Kingdom of Lithuania]], [[Kingdom of Poland (1916–1918)|Kingdom of Poland]],<ref>{{Cite book|title=Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identity and Cultural Differences|last=Keith Bullivant, Geoffrey J. Giles and Walter Pape|publisher=Rodopi|year=1999|isbn=90-420-0678-1|pages=28–29}}</ref> the [[Belarusian People's Republic]], and the [[Ukrainian State]]. Following Germany's Armistice in World War I in November 1918, the states were abolished.<ref>Mieczysław B. Biskupski, "War and the Diplomacy of Polish Independence, 1914–18." ''Polish Review'' (1990): 5–17. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/25778473 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200127202015/https://www.jstor.org/stable/25778473 |date=27 January 2020 }}</ref><ref>Timothy Snyder, ''The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999'' (Yale UP, 2004)</ref> |
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Finland was the first republic that [[Finnish Declaration of Independence|declared its independence from Russia]] in December 1917 and established itself in the ensuing [[Finnish Civil War]] between pro-independence [[White Guard (Finland)|White Guards]] and pro-Russian Bolshevik [[Red Guards (Finland)|Red Guards]] from January–May 1918.<ref>{{Cite journal|doi= 10.1080/03585522.1978.10407894|title= Revolutionary ferment in Finland and the origins of the civil war 1917–1918|year= 1978|last1= Kirby|first1= D. G.|journal= Scandinavian Economic History Review|volume= 26 |pages= 15–35|doi-access= free}}</ref> The [[Second Polish Republic]], [[History of Lithuania|Lithuania]], [[History of Latvia|Latvia]] and [[History of Estonia|Estonia]] formed their own armies immediately after the abolition of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and the start of the [[Soviet westward offensive of 1918–1919|Soviet westward offensive]] and subsequent [[Polish-Soviet War]] in November 1918.<ref>Anatol Lieven, ''The Baltic revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the path to independence'' (Yale UP, 1993) pp. 54–61. [https://www.amazon.com/Baltic-Revolution-Estonia-Lithuania-Independence/dp/0300055528/ excerpt] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210316223710/https://www.amazon.com/Baltic-Revolution-Estonia-Lithuania-Independence/dp/0300055528/ |date=16 March 2021 }}</ref> |
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==Geography and chronology== |
==Geography and chronology== |
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On 16 December 1917 an armistice was signed between Russia and the Central Powers in [[Brest-Litovsk]] and peace talks began.{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|p=42}} As a condition for peace, the proposed treaty by the Central Powers conceded huge portions of the former Russian Empire to the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire, greatly upsetting [[nationalist]]s and [[Conservatism|conservatives]]. 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 war, no peace".{{sfn|Smith|Tucker|2014|pp=554–555}} |
On 16 December 1917 an armistice was signed between Russia and the Central Powers in [[Brest-Litovsk]] and peace talks began.{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|p=42}} As a condition for peace, the proposed treaty by the Central Powers conceded huge portions of the former Russian Empire to the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire, greatly upsetting [[nationalist]]s and [[Conservatism|conservatives]]. 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 war, no peace".{{sfn|Smith|Tucker|2014|pp=554–555}} |
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Therefore, on 18 February 1918, the Germans began [[Operation Faustschlag]] on the Eastern Front, encountering virtually no resistance in a campaign that lasted 11 days.{{sfn|Smith|Tucker|2014|pp=554–555}} 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 could not stop the advance |
Therefore, on 18 February 1918, the Germans began [[Operation Faustschlag]] on the Eastern Front, encountering virtually no resistance in a campaign that lasted 11 days.{{sfn|Smith|Tucker|2014|pp=554–555}} 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 could not stop the advance. The Soviets acceded to a peace treaty, and the formal agreement, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, was ratified on 3 March. The Soviets viewed the treaty as merely a necessary and expedient means to end the war. |
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===Ukraine, South Russia, and Caucasus (1918)=== |
===Ukraine, South Russia, and Caucasus (1918)=== |
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[[File:Dismembered Russia — Some Fragments (NYT article, Feb. 17, 1918).png|thumb|February 1918 article from ''[[The New York Times]]'' showing a map of the Russian Imperial territories claimed by the [[Ukrainian People's Republic]] at the time, before the annexation of the Austro-Hungarian lands of the [[West Ukrainian People's Republic]]]] |
[[File:Dismembered Russia — Some Fragments (NYT article, Feb. 17, 1918).png|thumb|February 1918 article from ''[[The New York Times]]'' showing a map of the Russian Imperial territories claimed by the [[Ukrainian People's Republic]] at the time, before the annexation of the Austro-Hungarian lands of the [[West Ukrainian People's Republic]]]] |
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In Ukraine, the German-Austrian Operation Faustschlag had by April 1918 removed the Bolsheviks from Ukraine.<ref name="30076britbrit">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-30076/Ukraine |title=Ukraine – World War I and the struggle for independence |access-date=2008-01-30 |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |archive-date=15 June 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080615144832/http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-30076/Ukraine |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="UkrainianWeek16042018UwIbbb">{{citation |last=Tynchenko |first=Yaros |title=The Ukrainian Navy and the Crimean Issue in 1917–18 |url=http://ukrainianweek.com/History/105648 |work=[[The Ukrainian Week]] |date=23 March 2018 |access-date=October 14, 2018 |archive-date=11 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191111180649/https://ukrainianweek.com/History/105648 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="retrospective2014031918b">[https://iht-retrospective.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/29/1918-germany-takes-control-of-crimea/ Germany Takes Control of Crimea] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190930205920/https://iht-retrospective.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/29/1918-germany-takes-control-of-crimea/ |date=30 September 2019 }}, [[New York Herald]] (18 May 1918)</ref><ref name="harvard11181181bbb">[https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/11181181 War Without Fronts: Atamans and Commissars in Ukraine, 1917–1919] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190403174842/https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/11181181|date=3 April 2019}} by |
In Ukraine, the German-Austrian Operation Faustschlag had by April 1918 removed the Bolsheviks from Ukraine.<ref name="30076britbrit">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-30076/Ukraine |title=Ukraine – World War I and the struggle for independence |access-date=2008-01-30 |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |archive-date=15 June 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080615144832/http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-30076/Ukraine |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="UkrainianWeek16042018UwIbbb">{{citation |last=Tynchenko |first=Yaros |title=The Ukrainian Navy and the Crimean Issue in 1917–18 |url=http://ukrainianweek.com/History/105648 |work=[[The Ukrainian Week]] |date=23 March 2018 |access-date=October 14, 2018 |archive-date=11 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191111180649/https://ukrainianweek.com/History/105648 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="retrospective2014031918b">[https://iht-retrospective.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/29/1918-germany-takes-control-of-crimea/ Germany Takes Control of Crimea] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190930205920/https://iht-retrospective.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/29/1918-germany-takes-control-of-crimea/ |date=30 September 2019 }}, [[New York Herald]] (18 May 1918)</ref><ref name="harvard11181181bbb">[https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/11181181 War Without Fronts: Atamans and Commissars in Ukraine, 1917–1919] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190403174842/https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/11181181|date=3 April 2019}} by Mikhail Akulov, [[Harvard University]], August 2013 (page 102 and 103)</ref> The German and Austro-Hungarian victories in Ukraine were caused by the apathy of the locals and the inferior fighting skills of Bolsheviks troops to their Austro-Hungarian and German counterparts.<ref name="harvard11181181bbb"/> |
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Under Soviet pressure, the Volunteer Army embarked on the epic Ice March from [[Krasnodar|Yekaterinodar]] to [[Kuban]] on 22 February 1918, where they joined with the Kuban Cossacks to mount an abortive assault on Yekaterinodar.{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|p=29}} The Soviets recaptured Rostov on the next day.{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|p=29}} Kornilov was killed in the fighting on 13 April, and Denikin took over command. Fighting off its pursuers without respite, the army succeeded in breaking its way through back towards the Don by May, where the Cossack uprising against the Bolsheviks had started.{{sfn|Kenez|2004a|pp=115–118}} |
Under Soviet pressure, the Volunteer Army embarked on the epic Ice March from [[Krasnodar|Yekaterinodar]] to [[Kuban]] on 22 February 1918, where they joined with the Kuban Cossacks to mount an abortive assault on Yekaterinodar.{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|p=29}} The Soviets recaptured Rostov on the next day.{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|p=29}} Kornilov was killed in the fighting on 13 April, and Denikin took over command. Fighting off its pursuers without respite, the army succeeded in breaking its way through back towards the Don by May, where the Cossack uprising against the Bolsheviks had started.{{sfn|Kenez|2004a|pp=115–118}} |
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==== Barrier troops ==== |
==== Barrier troops ==== |
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In the Red Army, the concept of barrier troops first arose in August 1918 with the formation of the заградительные отряды (''zagraditelnye otriady''), translated as "blocking troops" or "anti-retreat detachments" ({{ |
In the Red Army, the concept of barrier troops first arose in August 1918 with the formation of the заградительные отряды (''zagraditelnye otriady''), translated as "blocking troops" or "anti-retreat detachments" ({{langx|ru| заградотряды, заградительные отряды, отряды заграждения}}).<ref name=volko>Dmitri Volkogonov, ''Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary'', transl. and edited by Harold Shukman, HarperCollins Publishers, London (1996), p. 180</ref> The barrier troops comprised personnel drawn from the Cheka punitive detachments or from regular Red Army infantry regiments. <!-- The Red Army numbered some 2.9 million troops at the start of World War II.<ref>{{Cite book|title= Stalin and Stalinism|last= McCauley|first= Martin|publisher= Routledge|year= 2013|location= New York, New York|pages= 2099}}</ref> --> |
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The first use of the barrier troops by the Red Army occurred in the late summer and fall of 1918 in the [[Eastern Front (RSFSR)|Eastern front]] during the Russian Civil War, when Leon Trotsky authorized [[Mikhail Tukhachevsky]], the commander of the [[1st Army (RSFSR)|1st Army]], to station blocking detachments behind unreliable Red Army infantry regiments in the 1st Red Army, with orders to shoot if front-line troops either deserted or retreated without permission.<ref name=volko/> |
The first use of the barrier troops by the Red Army occurred in the late summer and fall of 1918 in the [[Eastern Front (RSFSR)|Eastern front]] during the Russian Civil War, when Leon Trotsky authorized [[Mikhail Tukhachevsky]], the commander of the [[1st Army (RSFSR)|1st Army]], to station blocking detachments behind unreliable Red Army infantry regiments in the 1st Red Army, with orders to shoot if front-line troops either deserted or retreated without permission.<ref name=volko/> |
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In December 1918, Trotsky ordered that detachments of additional barrier troops be raised for attachment to each infantry formation in the Red Army. On December 18 he cabled: <blockquote>How do things stand with the blocking units? As far as I am aware they have not been included in our establishment and it appears they have no personnel. It is absolutely essential that we have at least an embryonic network of blocking units and that we work out a procedure for bringing them up to strength and deploying them.<ref name=volko/></blockquote> |
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In 1919, 616 "hardcore" deserters of the total 837,000 draft dodgers and deserters were executed following Trotsky's dracionan measures.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Reese |first1=Roger R. |title=Russia's Army: A History from the Napoleonic Wars to the War in Ukraine |date=3 October 2023 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=978-0-8061-9356-4 |page=109 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hWS2EAAAQBAJ&dq=trotsky+desertion+612&pg=PA109 |language=en}}</ref> According to Figes, "a majority of deserters (most registered as "weak-willed") were handed back to the military authorities, and formed into units for transfer to one of the rear armies or directly to the front". Even those registered as "malicious" deserters were returned to the ranks when the demand for reinforcements became desperate". Forges also noted that the Red Army instituted [[amnesty]] weeks to prohibit punitive measures against desertion which encouraged the voluntary return of 98,000-132,000 deserters to the army.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Figes |first1=Orlando |title=The Red Army and Mass Mobilization during the Russian Civil War 1918-1920 |journal=Past & Present |date=1990 |volume=129 |issue=129 |pages=168–211 |doi=10.1093/past/129.1.168 |jstor=650938 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/650938 |issn=0031-2746}}</ref> |
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In 1919, 616 "hardcore" deserters of the total 837,000 draft dodgers and deserters were executed following Trotsky's draconian measures.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Reese |first1=Roger R. |title=Russia's Army: A History from the Napoleonic Wars to the War in Ukraine |date=3 October 2023 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=978-0-8061-9356-4 |page=109 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hWS2EAAAQBAJ&dq=trotsky+desertion+612&pg=PA109 |language=en}}</ref> According to Figes, "a majority of deserters (most registered as "weak-willed") were handed back to the military authorities, and formed into units for transfer to one of the rear armies or directly to the front". Even those registered as "malicious" deserters were returned to the ranks when the demand for reinforcements became desperate". Forges also noted that the Red Army instituted [[amnesty]] weeks to prohibit punitive measures against desertion which encouraged the voluntary return of 98,000-132,000 deserters to the army.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Figes |first1=Orlando |title=The Red Army and Mass Mobilization during the Russian Civil War 1918-1920 |journal=Past & Present |date=1990 |issue=129 |pages=168–211 |doi=10.1093/past/129.1.168 |jstor=650938 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/650938 |issn=0031-2746}}</ref> |
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In December 1918, Trotsky ordered that detachments of additional barrier troops be raised for attachment to each infantry formation in the Red Army. On December 18 he cabled: <blockquote>How do things stand with the blocking units? As far as I am aware they have not been included in our establishment and it appears they have no personnel. It is absolutely essential that we have at least an embryonic network of blocking units and that we work out a procedure for bringing them up to strength and deploying them.<ref name=volko/></blockquote> The barrier troops were also used to enforce Bolshevik control over food supplies in areas controlled by the Red Army as part of Lenin's [[war communism]] policies, a role which soon earned them the hatred of the Russian civilian population.<ref>Lih, Lars T., ''Bread and Authority in Russia, 1914–1921'', University of California Press (1990), p. 131</ref> These policies led to the [[Russian famine of 1921–1922]], which killed about five million people.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=War Communism|encyclopedia=[[Encyclopaedia Britannica]] |author=((The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica)) |date=8 June 2023 |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/War-Communism}}{{dubious|date=December 2023}}</ref>{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|p=[https://archive.org/details/russiancivilwar00evan/page/287 287]}} |
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The barrier troops were also used to enforce Bolshevik control over food supplies in areas controlled by the Red Army as part of Lenin's [[war communism]] policies, a role which soon earned them the hatred of the Russian civilian population.<ref>Lih, Lars T., ''Bread and Authority in Russia, 1914–1921'', University of California Press (1990), p. 131</ref> |
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These policies in part led to the [[Russian famine of 1921–1922]], which killed about five million people.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=War Communism|encyclopedia=[[Encyclopaedia Britannica]] |author=((The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica)) |date=8 June 2023 |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/War-Communism}}{{dubious|date=December 2023}}</ref>{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|p=[https://archive.org/details/russiancivilwar00evan/page/287 287]}} However, the famine was preceded by bad [[harvests]], harsh winter, [[drought]] especially in the [[Volga region|Volga Valley]] which was exacerbated by a range of factors including the war, the presence of the White Army and the methods of war communism.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Götz |first1=Norbert |last2=Brewis |first2=Georgina |last3=Werther |first3=Steffen |title=Humanitarianism in the Modern World: The Moral Economy of Famine Relief |date=23 July 2020 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-49352-9 |page=44 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wILoDwAAQBAJ&dq=war+communism+1921+famine&pg=PA44 |language=en}}</ref> The outbreaks of diseases such as [[cholera]] and [[typhus]] were also contributing factors to the famine casualties.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Heinzen |first1=James W. |title=Inventing a Soviet Countryside: State Power and the Transformation of Rural Russia, 1917-1929 |date=1 February 2004 |publisher=University of Pittsburgh Pre |isbn=978-0-8229-7078-1 |page=52 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qICRs_f68KQC&dq=cholera+russian+famine+1921&pg=PA52 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Raleigh |first1=Donald J. |title=Experiencing Russia's Civil War: Politics, Society, and Revolutionary Culture in Saratov, 1917-1922 |date=11 May 2021 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-4374-9 |page=202 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U00gEAAAQBAJ&dq=cholera+russian+famine+1921&pg=PA202 |language=en}}</ref> |
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===Central Asia (1918)=== |
===Central Asia (1918)=== |
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===South Russia (1919)=== |
===South Russia (1919)=== |
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[[File:За единую Россію.jpg|thumb|190px|right|Anti-Bolshevik propaganda poster "For united Russia" representing Soviet Russia as a fallen communist dragon and the White Cause as a crusading knight]] |
[[File:За единую Россію.jpg|thumb|190px|right|Anti-Bolshevik propaganda poster "For united Russia" representing Soviet Russia as a fallen communist dragon and the White Cause as a crusading knight]] |
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[[File:Polish-soviet propaganda poster 1920.jpg|thumb |
[[File:Polish-soviet propaganda poster 1920.jpg|thumb|210px|Anti-Polish Soviet propaganda poster, 1920]] |
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The Cossacks had been unable to organise and capitalise on their successes at the end of 1918. By 1919 they had begun to run short of supplies. Consequently, when the Soviet Russian counteroffensive began in January 1919 under the Bolshevik commander [[Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko|Antonov-Ovseenko]], the Cossack forces rapidly fell apart. The Red Army captured Kiev on 3 February 1919.{{Sfn|Kenez|1977|p={{page needed|date=August 2023}}}} |
The Cossacks had been unable to organise and capitalise on their successes at the end of 1918. By 1919 they had begun to run short of supplies. Consequently, when the Soviet Russian counteroffensive began in January 1919 under the Bolshevik commander [[Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko|Antonov-Ovseenko]], the Cossack forces rapidly fell apart. The Red Army captured Kiev on 3 February 1919.{{Sfn|Kenez|1977|p={{page needed|date=August 2023}}}} |
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Denikin's military strength continued to grow in 1919, with significant munitions supplied by the British. In January, Denikin's Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR) completed the elimination of Red forces in the northern Caucasus and moved north, in an effort to [[Battle for the Donbas (1919)|protect the Don district]].{{sfn|Kenez|2004b|pp=20–35}} |
[[Anton Denikin|Denikin]]'s military strength continued to grow in 1919, with significant munitions supplied by the [[British Empire|British empire]]. In January, Denikin's Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR) completed the elimination of Red forces in the northern Caucasus and moved north, in an effort to [[Battle for the Donbas (1919)|protect the Don district]].{{sfn|Kenez|2004b|pp=20–35}} |
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On 18 December 1918, French forces landed in [[Odessa]] and Crimea, but evacuated Odessa on 6 April 1919, and the Crimea by the end of the month. According to Chamberlin, "France gave far less practical aid to the Whites than did England; its sole independent venture in intervention, at Odessa, ended in a complete fiasco."{{sfn|Chamberlin|1935|pp=151, 165–167}} |
On 18 December 1918, French forces landed in [[Odessa]] and Crimea, but evacuated Odessa on 6 April 1919, and the Crimea by the end of the month. According to Chamberlin, "France gave far less practical aid to the Whites than did England; its sole independent venture in intervention, at Odessa, ended in a complete fiasco."{{sfn|Chamberlin|1935|pp=151, 165–167}} |
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Denikin's forces constituted a real threat and for a time threatened to reach Moscow. The Red Army, stretched thin by fighting on all fronts, was forced out of Kiev on 30 August. [[Kursk]] and [[Oryol|Orel]] were taken, on 20 September and 14 October, respectively. The latter, only {{Convert|205|mi|km}} from Moscow, was the closest the AFSR would come to its target.{{Sfn|Kenez|1977|p=44}} The Cossack [[Don Army]] under the command of General [[Vladimir Sidorin]] continued north towards [[Voronezh]], but [[Semyon Budyonny]]'s cavalrymen defeated them there on 24 October. That allowed the Red Army to cross the [[Don River (Russia)|Don River]], threatening to split the Don and Volunteer Armies. Fierce fighting took place at the key rail junction of Kastornoye, which was taken on 15 November. Kursk was retaken two days later.{{Sfn|Kenez|1977|p=218}} |
Denikin's forces constituted a real threat and for a time threatened to reach Moscow. The Red Army, stretched thin by fighting on all fronts, was forced out of Kiev on 30 August. [[Kursk]] and [[Oryol|Orel]] were taken, on 20 September and 14 October, respectively. The latter, only {{Convert|205|mi|km}} from Moscow, was the closest the AFSR would come to its target.{{Sfn|Kenez|1977|p=44}} The Cossack [[Don Army]] under the command of General [[Vladimir Sidorin]] continued north towards [[Voronezh]], but [[Semyon Budyonny]]'s cavalrymen defeated them there on 24 October. That allowed the Red Army to cross the [[Don River (Russia)|Don River]], threatening to split the Don and Volunteer Armies. Fierce fighting took place at the key rail junction of Kastornoye, which was taken on 15 November. Kursk was retaken two days later.{{Sfn|Kenez|1977|p=218}} |
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[[File:Klinom Krasnym Bej Belych.JPG|thumb|[[Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge]], a |
[[File:Klinom Krasnym Bej Belych.JPG|thumb|''[[Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge]]'', a Bolshevik [[Constructivism (art)|Constructivist]] propaganda poster by [[El Lissitzky]] that abstractly represents the defeat of the Whites by the Red Army]] |
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Kenez states, "In October Denikin ruled more than forty million people and controlled the economically most valuable parts of the Russian Empire." Yet, "The White armies, which had fought victoriously during the summer and early fall, fell back in disorder in November and December." Denikin's front line was overstretched, while his reserves dealt with Makhno's anarchists in the rear. Between September and October, the Reds mobilized one hundred thousand new soldiers and adopted the Trotsky-[[Jukums Vācietis| |
Kenez states, "In October Denikin ruled more than forty million people and controlled the economically most valuable parts of the Russian Empire." Yet, "The White armies, which had fought victoriously during the summer and early fall, fell back in disorder in November and December." Denikin's front line was overstretched, while his reserves dealt with Makhno's anarchists in the rear. Between September and October, the Reds mobilized one hundred thousand new soldiers and adopted the Trotsky-[[Jukums Vācietis|Vācietis]] strategy with the Ninth and Tenth armies forming V. I. Shorin's Southeastern Front between Tsaritsyn and Bobrov, while the Eighth, Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth armies formed [[Alexander Yegorov (soldier)|A. I. Egorov]]'s Southern Front between Zhitomir and Bobrov. [[Sergey Kamenev]] was in overall command of the two fronts. On Denikin's left was [[Abram Dragomirov]], while in his center was [[Vladimir May-Mayevsky]]'s Volunteer Army, [[Vladimir Sidorin]]'s Don Cossacks were further east, with Wrangel's Caucasian army at Tsaritsyn, and an additional was in the Northern Caucasus attempting to capture Astrakhan. On 20 October, May–Mayevsky was forced to evacuate Orel during the [[Orel-Kursk operation]]. On 24 October, [[Semyon Budyonny]] captured Voronezh, and Kursk on 15 November, during the [[Voronezh-Kastornoye operation (1919)]]. On 6 January, the Reds reached the Black Sea at Mariupol and Taganrog, and on 9 January, they reached Rostov. According to Kenez, "The Whites had now lost all the territories which they had captured in 1919, and held approximately the same area in which they had started two years before."{{sfn|Kenez|2004b|pp=213–223}} |
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===Central Asia (1919)=== |
===Central Asia (1919)=== |
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Communication difficulties with Red Army forces in Siberia and European Russia ceased to be a problem by mid-November 1919. Red Army successes north of Central Asia caused communication with Moscow to be re-established and the Bolsheviks to claim victory over the White Army in Turkestan.{{sfn|Coates|Coates|1951|p=76}} |
Communication difficulties with Red Army forces in Siberia and European Russia ceased to be a problem by mid-November 1919. Red Army successes north of Central Asia caused communication with Moscow to be re-established and the Bolsheviks to claim victory over the White Army in Turkestan.{{sfn|Coates|Coates|1951|p=76}} |
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In the Ural-Guryev operation of 1919–1920, the Red [[Turkestan Front]] defeated the [[Ural Army]]. During winter 1920, [[Ural Cossacks]] and their families, totaling about 15,000 people, headed south along the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea towards [[Fort-Shevchenko|Fort Alexandrovsk]]. Only a few hundred of them reached Persia in June 1920.{{sfn|Smele|2016|p=139}} The [[Orenburg Independent Army]] was formed from [[Orenburg Cossacks]] and other troops who rebelled against the Bolsheviks. During the winter 1919–20, the Orenburg Army retreated to [[Semirechye]] in what is known as the [[Starving March]], as half of the participants perished.{{sfn|Smele|2015|pp=1082–1083}} In March 1920 her remnants crossed the border into the Northwestern region of China. |
In the Ural-Guryev operation of 1919–1920, the Red [[Turkestan Front]] defeated the [[Ural Army]]. During winter 1920, [[Ural Cossacks]] and their families, totaling about 15,000 people, headed south along the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea towards [[Fort-Shevchenko|Fort Alexandrovsk]]. Only a few hundred of them reached Persia in June 1920.{{sfn|Smele|2016|p=139}} The [[Orenburg Independent Army]] was formed from [[Orenburg Cossacks]] and other troops who rebelled against the Bolsheviks. During the winter 1919–20, the Orenburg Army retreated to [[Jetisu|Semirechye]] in what is known as the [[Starving March]], as half of the participants perished.{{sfn|Smele|2015|pp=1082–1083}} In March 1920 her remnants crossed the border into the Northwestern region of China. |
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===South Russia, Ukraine and Kronstadt (1920–21)=== |
===South Russia, Ukraine and Kronstadt (1920–21)=== |
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==Aftermath== |
==Aftermath== |
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[[File:Europe in 1923.jpg|thumb| |
[[File:Europe in 1923.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|A map of Europe in 1923 after the [[revolutions of 1917–1923]]]] |
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With the end of the war, the [[Communist Party |
With the end of the war, the [[Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]] no longer faced an acute military threat to its existence and power. However, the perceived threat of continued popular discontent, combined with the failure of socialist revolutions in other countries, such as the [[German revolution of 1918–1919]], contributed to the continued militarization of Soviet society. |
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The Bolsheviks managed to consolidate control over [[Soviet Russia|Russia]], but were only partially successful at re-establishing territorial control of the other provinces of the former [[Russian Empire]]. The [[ |
The Bolsheviks managed to consolidate control over [[Soviet Russia|Russia]], but were only partially successful at re-establishing territorial control of the other provinces of the former [[Russian Empire]]. The [[treaty of Riga]], which was signed in March 1921 after the [[Polish–Soviet War]], split the territories in [[Belarusian Democratic Republic|Belarus]] and [[Ukrainian People's Republic|Ukraine]] between the [[Second Polish Republic|Republic of Poland]] and Soviet Russia. [[Estonian War of Independence|Estonia]], [[Finnish Civil War|Finland]], [[Latvian War of Independence|Latvia]], and [[Lithuanian–Soviet War|Lithuania]] all repelled Soviet invasions, while [[Red Army invasion of Armenia|Armenia]], [[Red Army invasion of Azerbaijan|Azerbaijan]] and [[Red Army invasion of Georgia|Georgia]] were occupied by the Red Army.{{sfn|Lee|2003|pp=84, 88}}{{sfn|Goldstein|2013|p=50}} In 1925, the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) changed its name to the [[All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]]. |
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===Evacuations=== |
===Evacuations=== |
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The results of the civil war were momentous. Soviet demographer Boris Urlanis estimated that 300,000 men were killed in action during the Civil War and Polish-Soviet War – 125,000 in the Red Army, 175,500 White armies and Poles – and the total number of military personnel from both sides dead from disease as 450,000.<ref>Urlanis B. ''Wars and Population''. Moscow, Progress publishers, 1971.</ref> Boris Sennikov estimated the total losses among the population of [[Tambov Oblast|Tambov region]] in 1920 to 1922 resulting from the war, executions, and imprisonment in concentration camps as approximately 240,000.<ref>Sennikov, B.V. (2004). [http://rusk.ru/vst.php?idar=321701 ''Tambov rebellion and liquidation of peasants in Russia''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190330141755/https://rusk.ru/vst.php?idar=321701 |date=2019-03-30 }}. Moscow: Posev. In Russian. {{ISBN|5-85824-152-2}}</ref> By 1922, there were at least 7,000,000 [[street children]] in Russia as a result of nearly ten years of devastation from World War I and the civil war.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20130621173456/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3763/is_/ai_n8801575 And Now My Soul Is Hardened: Abandoned Children in Soviet Russia, 1918–1930], Thomas J. Hegarty, Canadian Slavonic Papers</ref> |
The results of the civil war were momentous. Soviet demographer Boris Urlanis estimated that 300,000 men were killed in action during the Civil War and Polish-Soviet War – 125,000 in the Red Army, 175,500 White armies and Poles – and the total number of military personnel from both sides dead from disease as 450,000.<ref>Urlanis B. ''Wars and Population''. Moscow, Progress publishers, 1971.</ref> Boris Sennikov estimated the total losses among the population of [[Tambov Oblast|Tambov region]] in 1920 to 1922 resulting from the war, executions, and imprisonment in concentration camps as approximately 240,000.<ref>Sennikov, B.V. (2004). [http://rusk.ru/vst.php?idar=321701 ''Tambov rebellion and liquidation of peasants in Russia''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190330141755/https://rusk.ru/vst.php?idar=321701 |date=2019-03-30 }}. Moscow: Posev. In Russian. {{ISBN|5-85824-152-2}}</ref> By 1922, there were at least 7,000,000 [[street children]] in Russia as a result of nearly ten years of devastation from World War I and the civil war.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20130621173456/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3763/is_/ai_n8801575 And Now My Soul Is Hardened: Abandoned Children in Soviet Russia, 1918–1930], Thomas J. Hegarty, Canadian Slavonic Papers</ref> |
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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, killing roughly 5 million people. Disease had reached pandemic proportions, with 3,000,000 dying of [[typhus]] throughout the war. Millions more also died of widespread starvation, wholesale massacres by both sides and [[Pogroms of the Russian Civil War|pogroms against Jews in Ukraine and southern Russia]]. |
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, killing roughly 5 million people. Disease had reached pandemic proportions, with 3,000,000 dying of [[typhus]] throughout the war. Millions more also died of widespread starvation, wholesale massacres by both sides and [[Pogroms of the Russian Civil War|pogroms against Jews in Ukraine and southern Russia]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Chapple |first=Amos |date=9 January 2019 |title=The Horror Of Russia's Civil War |url=https://www.rferl.org/a/the-horror-of-russias-civil-war-in-photos-from-red-cross-mission/29699442.html |website=Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty}}</ref> |
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====Civilian casualties==== |
====Civilian casualties==== |
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[[File:Victims of Soviet Famine 1922.jpg|thumb|Victims of the [[Russian famine of 1921]]]] |
[[File:Victims of Soviet Famine 1922.jpg|thumb|Victims of the [[Russian famine of 1921]]]] |
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As many as 10 million people died as a result of the Russian Civil War, and the overwhelming majority of these were civilian casualties.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Russian Civil War – Foreign intervention |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Civil-War/Foreign-intervention |access-date=2023-01-31 |website=Britannica |language=en}}</ref> There is no consensus among the Western historians on the number of deaths from the Red Terror. One source gives estimates of 28,000 executions per year from December 1917 to February 1922.{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=2}} Estimates for the number of people shot during the initial period of the Red Terror are at least 10,000.{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=114}} Estimates for the whole period go for a low of 50,000<ref name="anatomy">Stone, Bailey (2013). ''The Anatomy of Revolution Revisited: A Comparative Analysis of England, France, and Russia''. Cambridge University Press. p. 335.</ref> to highs of 140,000<ref name="anatomy"/><ref>Pipes, Richard (2011). ''The Russian Revolution''. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 838.</ref> and 200,000 executed.{{sfn|Lowe|2002|p=151}} Most estimations for the number of executions in total put the number at about 100,000.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lincoln |first=W. Bruce |author-link=W. Bruce Lincoln |year=1989 |title=Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War |publisher=Simon & Schuster |page=384 |isbn=0671631667 |quote=... the best estimates set the probable number of executions at about a hundred thousand.}}</ref> According to Vadim Erlikhman's investigation, the number of the Red Terror's victims is at least 1,200,000 people.<ref>{{cite book |last=Erlikhman |first=Vadim Viktorovich|author-link= |date=2004 |title=Poteri narodonaseleniya v XX veke. |trans-title=Population losses in the XX century |url=https://www.azstat.org/Kitweb/zipfiles/11553.pdf |location=Moscow |publisher=Russkaya panorama |page= |isbn=5-93165-107-1|language=ru}}</ref> According to [[Robert Conquest]], a total of 140,000 people were shot in 1917–1922, but Jonathan D. Smele estimates they were considerably fewer, "perhaps less than half that many".{{sfn|Smele|2015|p=934}} Candidate of Historical Sciences Nikolay Zayats states that the number of people shot by the Cheka in 1918–1922 is about 37,300 people, shot in 1918–1921 by the verdicts of the tribunals — 14,200, i.e. about 50,000–55,000 people in total, although executions and atrocities were not limited to the Cheka, having been organized by the Red Army as well.<ref>[https://scepsis.net/library/id_3807.html К вопросу о масштабах красного террора в годы Гражданской войны]</ref><ref>{{cite news |title="Красный террор": 1918– ...? |url=https://www.svoboda.org/a/29475805.html |newspaper=Радио Свобода |date=7 September 2018 |trans-title=The Red Terror: 1918– ...?}}</ref> In 1924, an anti-Bolshevik [[Popular Socialists (Russia)|Popular Socialist]] [[Sergei Melgunov]] (1879–1956) published a detailed account on the Red Terror in Russia, where he cited Professor [[Charles Saroléa]]'s estimates of 1,766,188 deaths from the Bolshevik policies. He questioned the accuracy of the figures, but endorsed Saroléa's " |
As many as 10 million people died as a result of the Russian Civil War, and the overwhelming majority of these were civilian casualties.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Russian Civil War – Foreign intervention |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Civil-War/Foreign-intervention |access-date=2023-01-31 |website=Britannica |language=en}}</ref> There is no consensus among the Western historians on the number of deaths from the Red Terror. One source gives estimates of 28,000 executions per year from December 1917 to February 1922.{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=2}} Estimates for the number of people shot during the initial period of the Red Terror are at least 10,000.{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=114}} Estimates for the whole period go for a low of 50,000<ref name="anatomy">Stone, Bailey (2013). ''The Anatomy of Revolution Revisited: A Comparative Analysis of England, France, and Russia''. Cambridge University Press. p. 335.</ref> to highs of 140,000<ref name="anatomy"/><ref>Pipes, Richard (2011). ''The Russian Revolution''. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 838.</ref> and 200,000 executed.{{sfn|Lowe|2002|p=151}} Most estimations for the number of executions in total put the number at about 100,000.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lincoln |first=W. Bruce |author-link=W. Bruce Lincoln |year=1989 |title=Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War |publisher=Simon & Schuster |page=384 |isbn=0671631667 |quote=... the best estimates set the probable number of executions at about a hundred thousand.}}</ref> According to Vadim Erlikhman's investigation, the number of the Red Terror's victims is at least 1,200,000 people.<ref>{{cite book |last=Erlikhman |first=Vadim Viktorovich|author-link= |date=2004 |title=Poteri narodonaseleniya v XX veke. |trans-title=Population losses in the XX century |url=https://www.azstat.org/Kitweb/zipfiles/11553.pdf |location=Moscow |publisher=Russkaya panorama |page= |isbn=5-93165-107-1|language=ru}}</ref> According to [[Robert Conquest]], a total of 140,000 people were shot in 1917–1922, but Jonathan D. Smele estimates they were considerably fewer, "perhaps less than half that many".{{sfn|Smele|2015|p=934}} Candidate of Historical Sciences Nikolay Zayats states that the number of people shot by the Cheka in 1918–1922 is about 37,300 people, shot in 1918–1921 by the verdicts of the tribunals — 14,200, i.e. about 50,000–55,000 people in total, although executions and atrocities were not limited to the Cheka, having been organized by the Red Army as well.<ref>[https://scepsis.net/library/id_3807.html К вопросу о масштабах красного террора в годы Гражданской войны]</ref><ref>{{cite news |title="Красный террор": 1918– ...? |url=https://www.svoboda.org/a/29475805.html |newspaper=Радио Свобода |date=7 September 2018 |trans-title=The Red Terror: 1918– ...?}}</ref> In 1924, an anti-Bolshevik [[Popular Socialists (Russia)|Popular Socialist]] [[Sergei Melgunov]] (1879–1956) published a detailed account on the Red Terror in Russia, where he cited Professor [[Charles Saroléa]]'s estimates of 1,766,188 deaths from the Bolshevik policies. He questioned the accuracy of the figures, but endorsed Saroléa's "characterisation of terror in Russia", stating it matches reality.<ref>Часть IV. На гражданской войнe. // ''[[Sergei Melgunov]]'' [http://lib.ru/POLITOLOG/MELGUNOW/terror.txt «Красный террор» в России 1918—1923.] — 2-ое изд., доп. — Берлин, 1924</ref><ref>{{cite book |language=de |last=Melgunov |first=Sergei Petrovich |author-link=Sergei Melgunov |date=2008 |orig-date=1924 |title=Der rote Terror in Russland 1918–1923 |type=reprint of the 1924 Olga Diakow edition |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S3FGAQAAIAAJ |location=Berlin |publisher=OEZ |page=186, note 182 |quote= |isbn=9783940452474}} An online English translation of the second edition of Melgunov's work is accessible at [https://archive.org/details/RedTerrorInRussia1918-1923 Internet Archive], whence the following translated text is drawn (p. 85, note n. 128): "Professor [[Charles Saroléa|[Charles] Sarolea]], who published a series of articles about Russia in Edinburgh newspaper "The Scotsman" touched upon the death statistics in an essay on terror (No. 7, November 1923.). He summarized the outcome of the Bolshevik massacre as follows: 28 bishops, 1219 clergy, 6000 professors and teachers, 9000 doctors, 54,000 officers, 260,000 soldiers, 70,000 policemen, 12,950 landowners, 355,250 professionals, 193,290 workers, 815,000 peasants. The author did not provide the sources of that data. Needless to say that the precise counts seem [too] fictional, but the author's [characterisation] of terror in Russia in general matches reality." The note is somewhat abbreviated in the 1925 English edition indicated in the bibliography: in particular, there is no mention of the imaginative nature of the data (p. 111, note n. 1).</ref> Modern historian Sergei Volkov, assessing the Red Terror as the entire repressive policy of the Bolsheviks during the years of the Civil War (1917–1922), estimates the direct death toll of the Red Terror at 2 million people.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.iskupitel.info/node/770 |title=Istorik Sergey Volkov: "Geneticheskomu fondu Rossii byl nanesen chudovishchnyy, ne vospolnennyy do sego vremeni, uron" |trans-title=Historian Sergei Volkov: "Russia's genetic pool suffered monstrous damage, so far not repaired" (interview with the famous historian of the Civil War, Doctor of Historical Sciences Sergei Vladimirovich Volkov) |author=Perevozchikov', Artyom |date=9 September 2010 |website=iskupitel.info |publisher=Monarxist |access-date=9 May 2023 }}</ref> Volkov's calculations, however, do not appear to have been confirmed by other major scholars.{{efn|In particular, they seem quite at odds with the demographic considerations elaborated by Italian historian and professor [[:it:Andrea Graziosi|Andrea Graziosi]] in the light of the good quality Tsarist and early Soviet statistics. According to him, the [[Excess mortality|excess deaths]] between 1914 and 1922 were about 16 million, of which 4–5 were military, the rest civilian; the overwhelming majority of the latter resulted from "starvation, typhus, epidemics, the [[Spanish flu]] and the famine of 1921–22", the roughly number of "victims of the various kinds of terror, and red and white repressions" amounting to a few hundred thousand— which is indeed a dreadful number in itself, however.{{sfn|Graziosi|2007|pp=171 & 570}}}} |
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====Ethnic violence==== |
====Ethnic violence==== |
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Some 10,000–500,000 [[Cossacks]] were killed or deported during [[Decossackization]], out of a population of around three million.{{sfn|Gellately|2007|pp=70–71}} An estimated 100,000 Jews were killed in Ukraine.<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.2307/131078 |first=Peter |last=Kenez |title=The Prosecution of Soviet History: A Critique of Richard Pipes' ''The Russian Revolution'' |journal=Russian Review |volume=50|issue=3|year=1991 |pages=345–351 |jstor=131078}}</ref> Punitive organs of the All Great Don Cossack Host sentenced 25,000 people to death between May 1918 and January 1919.{{sfn|Holquist|2002|p=164}} Kolchak's government shot 25,000 people in Ekaterinburg province alone.<ref>{{cite web |website=Cult Info |url=http://www.cultinfo.ru/fulltext/1/001/008/063/073.htm |script-title=ru:Колчаковщина|language=ru|archive-url=https://archive.today/20050510090417/http://www.cultinfo.ru/fulltext/1/001/008/063/073.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=2005-05-10}}</ref> The White Terror, as it would become known, killed about 300,000 people in total.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Потери народонаселения в XX веке.|last=Эрлихман|first=Вадим|publisher=Издательский дом «Русская панорама»|year=2004|isbn=5931651071}}</ref> |
Some 10,000–500,000 [[Cossacks]] were killed or deported during [[Decossackization]], out of a population of around three million.{{sfn|Gellately|2007|pp=70–71}} An estimated 100,000 Jews were killed in Ukraine.<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.2307/131078 |first=Peter |last=Kenez |title=The Prosecution of Soviet History: A Critique of Richard Pipes' ''The Russian Revolution'' |journal=Russian Review |volume=50|issue=3|year=1991 |pages=345–351 |jstor=131078}}</ref> Punitive organs of the All Great Don Cossack Host sentenced 25,000 people to death between May 1918 and January 1919.{{sfn|Holquist|2002|p=164}} Kolchak's government shot 25,000 people in Ekaterinburg province alone.<ref>{{cite web |website=Cult Info |url=http://www.cultinfo.ru/fulltext/1/001/008/063/073.htm |script-title=ru:Колчаковщина|language=ru|archive-url=https://archive.today/20050510090417/http://www.cultinfo.ru/fulltext/1/001/008/063/073.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=2005-05-10}}</ref> The White Terror, as it would become known, killed about 300,000 people in total.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Потери народонаселения в XX веке.|last=Эрлихман|first=Вадим|publisher=Издательский дом «Русская панорама»|year=2004|isbn=5931651071}}</ref> |
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===Economic |
===Economic impact=== |
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The civil war had a devastating impact on the Russian economy. A [[black market]] emerged in Russia, despite the threat of [[martial law]] against profiteering. The [[Russian ruble|ruble]] collapsed, with barter increasingly replacing money as a medium of exchange<ref name="DaviesHarrison1993">{{cite book|author1=R. W. Davies|author2=Mark Harrison|author3=S. G. Wheatcroft|title=The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1913–1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7ULWRnskfr4C&pg=PA6|date=9 December 1993|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-45770-5|page=6}}</ref> and, by 1921, heavy industry output had fallen to 20% of 1913 levels. 90% of wages were paid with goods rather than money.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Bread and Authority in Russia, 1914-1921|url=https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft796nb4mj&chunk.id=d0e9364&toc.id=&brand=ucpress|access-date=2021-10-27|website=publishing.cdlib.org}}</ref> 70% of locomotives were in need of repair,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Russian Civil War - Intervention, Allies, Bolsheviks {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Civil-War/Foreign-intervention |access-date=2024-02-14 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> and food requisitioning, combined with the effects of seven years of war and a severe drought, contributed to a famine that caused between 3 and 10 million deaths.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm#RCW|title=Twentieth Century Atlas – Death Tolls|website=necrometrics.com|access-date=2017-12-12}}</ref> Coal production decreased from 27.5 million tons (1913) to 7 million tons (1920), while overall factory production also declined from 10,000 million roubles to 1,000 million roubles. According to the noted historian David Christian, the grain harvest was also slashed from 80.1 million tons (1913) to 46.5 million tons (1920).<ref>{{cite book|last=Christian|first=David|title=Imperial and Soviet Russia|year=1997|publisher=Macmillan Press Ltd|location=London|isbn=0-333-66294-6|page=236}}</ref> |
The civil war had a devastating impact on the Russian economy. A [[black market]] emerged in Russia, despite the threat of [[martial law]] against profiteering. The [[Russian ruble|ruble]] collapsed, with barter increasingly replacing money as a medium of exchange<ref name="DaviesHarrison1993">{{cite book|author1=R. W. Davies|author2=Mark Harrison|author3=S. G. Wheatcroft|title=The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1913–1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7ULWRnskfr4C&pg=PA6|date=9 December 1993|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-45770-5|page=6}}</ref> and, by 1921, heavy industry output had fallen to 20% of 1913 levels. 90% of wages were paid with goods rather than money.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Bread and Authority in Russia, 1914-1921|url=https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft796nb4mj&chunk.id=d0e9364&toc.id=&brand=ucpress|access-date=2021-10-27|website=publishing.cdlib.org}}</ref> 70% of locomotives were in need of repair,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Russian Civil War - Intervention, Allies, Bolsheviks {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Civil-War/Foreign-intervention |access-date=2024-02-14 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> and food requisitioning, combined with the effects of seven years of war and a severe drought, contributed to a famine that caused between 3 and 10 million deaths.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm#RCW|title=Twentieth Century Atlas – Death Tolls|website=necrometrics.com|access-date=2017-12-12}}</ref> Coal production decreased from 27.5 million tons (1913) to 7 million tons (1920), while overall factory production also declined from 10,000 million roubles to 1,000 million roubles. According to the noted historian David Christian, the grain harvest was also slashed from 80.1 million tons (1913) to 46.5 million tons (1920).<ref>{{cite book|last=Christian|first=David|title=Imperial and Soviet Russia|year=1997|publisher=Macmillan Press Ltd|location=London|isbn=0-333-66294-6|page=236}}</ref> |
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War communism saved the Soviet government during the Civil War, but much of the Russian economy had ground to a standstill. Some peasants responded to [[Prodrazvyorstka|food 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 US dollar declined from two [[roubles]] in 1914 to 1,200 Rbls in 1920. Although Russia experienced extremely rapid economic growth<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://nintil.com/the-soviet-union-gdp-growth/|title=The Soviet Union: GDP growth|date=2016-03-26|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200517053259/https://nintil.com/the-soviet-union-gdp-growth/|archive-date=2020-05-17}}</ref> in the 1930s, the combined effect of World War I and the Civil War left a lasting scar on Russian society and had permanent effects on the development of the Soviet Union. |
[[War communism]] saved the Soviet government during the Civil War, but much of the Russian economy had ground to a standstill. Some peasants responded to [[Prodrazvyorstka|food 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 US dollar declined from two [[roubles]] in 1914 to 1,200 Rbls in 1920. Although Russia experienced extremely rapid economic growth<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://nintil.com/the-soviet-union-gdp-growth/|title=The Soviet Union: GDP growth|date=2016-03-26|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200517053259/https://nintil.com/the-soviet-union-gdp-growth/|archive-date=2020-05-17}}</ref> in the 1930s, the combined effect of World War I and the Civil War left a lasting scar on Russian society and had permanent effects on the development of the Soviet Union. |
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===Political impact=== |
===Political impact=== |
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{{Main article|Revolutions of 1917-1923}} |
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{{See also|Treaty of Rapallo (1922)}} |
{{See also|Treaty of Rapallo (1922)}} |
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The complete failure of the [[Communist International]]-inspired revolutions was a sobering experience in Moscow, and the Bolsheviks moved from [[world revolution]] to [[socialism in one country]], the [[United Soviet Socialist Republics|Soviet Union]].<ref>Rex A. Wade, "The Revolution at One Hundred: Issues and Trends in the English Language Historiography of the Russian Revolution of 1917." ''Journal of Modern Russian History and Historiography'' 9.1 (2016): 9-38.</ref> |
The complete failure of the [[Communist International]]-inspired revolutions was a sobering experience in Moscow, and the Bolsheviks moved from [[world revolution]] to [[socialism in one country]], the [[United Soviet Socialist Republics|Soviet Union]].<ref>Rex A. Wade, "The Revolution at One Hundred: Issues and Trends in the English Language Historiography of the Russian Revolution of 1917." ''Journal of Modern Russian History and Historiography'' 9.1 (2016): 9-38.</ref> |
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==In fiction== |
==In fiction== |
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===Literature=== |
===Literature=== |
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The Civil War was a popular theme among the [[Socialist realism]] writers; it was championed in the works of such authors as [[Dmitri Furmanov]] (''[[:de:Tschapajew (Roman)|Chapayev]]'', 1923), [[Alexander Serafimovich]], [[Vsevolod Vishnevsky]] (''[[An Optimistic Tragedy]]'', 1933) and [[Alexander Fadeyev (writer)|Aleksandr Fadeyev]]; one of the best-known examples is the novel ''[[How the Steel Was Tempered]]'' (1934) by [[Nikolai Ostrovsky]]. |
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* ''The Road to Calvary'' (1922–41) by [[Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy]] |
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* ''[[ |
* ''[[The Road to Calvary]]'' (1922–1941) by [[Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy]]. |
||
Other prominent works of fiction by the Soviet writers that didn't follow the methods and doctrine of Socialist realism include: |
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* ''The Iron Flood'' (1924) by [[Alexander Serafimovich]] |
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* ''[[ |
* ''[[The White Guard]]'' (1925) and ''[[A Young Doctor's Notebook]]'' (1925–1926) by [[Mikhail Bulgakov]] |
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* '' |
* ''[[Red Cavalry]]'' (1926–1933) by [[Isaac Babel]] |
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* ''[[Chevengur]]'' (1927, fully published in 1971) by [[Andrei Platonov]] |
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* ''[[And Quiet Flows the Don|Quiet Flows the Don]]'' (1928–1940) by [[Mikhail Sholokhov]] |
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* ''Conquered City'' (1932) by [[Victor Serge]] |
* ''Conquered City'' (1932) by [[Victor Serge]] |
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* ''Futility'' (1922) by [[William Gerhardie]] |
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* ''[[How the Steel Was Tempered]]'' (1934) by [[Nikolai Ostrovsky]] |
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* ''[[Optimistic Tragedy]]'' (1934) by [[Vsevolod Vishnevsky]] |
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* ''[[And Quiet Flows the Don]]'' (1928–1940) by [[Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov|Mikhail Sholokhov]] |
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* ''[[The Don Flows Home to the Sea]]'' (1940) by [[Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov|Mikhail Sholokhov]] |
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* ''[[Doctor Zhivago (novel)|Doctor Zhivago]]'' (1957) by [[Boris Pasternak]] |
* ''[[Doctor Zhivago (novel)|Doctor Zhivago]]'' (1957) by [[Boris Pasternak]] |
||
* ''[[ |
* ''[[The Red Wheel]] (1971–1991)'' by [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]] |
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by the [[White émigré|White ''émigré'']] authors: |
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* ''[[The White Guard]]'' (1966) by [[Mikhail Bulgakov]] |
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* ''An Evening with Claire'' (1930) by [[Gaito Gazdanov]] |
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* ''[[Novel with Cocaine]]'' (1934) by [[M. Ageyev]] |
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Works by the Western and contemporary authors: |
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* ''Futility'' (1922) by [[William Gerhardie]] |
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* ''[[Coup de Grâce (novel)|Coup de Grâce]]'' (1939) by [[Marguerite Yourcenar]] |
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* ''[[Byzantium Endures]]'' (1981) by [[Michael Moorcock]] |
* ''[[Byzantium Endures]]'' (1981) by [[Michael Moorcock]] |
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* ''Chevengur'' (written in 1927, first published in 1988 in the USSR) by [[Andrei Platonov]]. |
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* ''[[Fall of Giants]]'' (2010) by [[Ken Follett]] |
* ''[[Fall of Giants]]'' (2010) by [[Ken Follett]] |
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* ''[[Bro (novel)|Bro]]'' (2011) by [[Vladimir Sorokin]] |
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* ''A Splendid Little War'' (2012) by [[Derek Robinson (novelist)]] |
* ''A Splendid Little War'' (2012) by [[Derek Robinson (novelist)]] |
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{{See also|Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War}} |
{{See also|Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War}} |
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{{Refbegin|30em|indent=true}} |
{{Refbegin|30em|indent=true}} |
||
* {{cite book |last1=Krivosheev |first1=G. |last2=Andronikov |first2=V. |last3=Gurkin |first3=V. |last4=Kruglov |first4=A. |last5=Rodionov |first5=E. |last6=Filimoshin |first6=M. |language=ru |script-title=ru:Гриф секретности снят: Потери вооружённых сил СССР в войнах, боевых действиях и конфликтах |trans-title=The secrecy stamp has been lifted: Losses of the USSR armed forces in wars, hostilities and conflicts |publisher=Воениздат |date=1993 |isbn=5-203-01400-0 |chapter=Людские потери красной армии в период гражданской войны и военной интервенции |trans-chapter=Human losses of the Red Army during the Civil War and military intervention }} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Allworth |first=Edward |url=https://archive.org/details/centralasiacentu0000allw |title=Central Asia: A Century of Russian Rule |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1967 |location=New York |oclc=396652 |url-access=registration}} |
* {{Cite book |last=Allworth |first=Edward |url=https://archive.org/details/centralasiacentu0000allw |title=Central Asia: A Century of Russian Rule |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1967 |location=New York |oclc=396652 |url-access=registration}} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Avrich |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Avrich |title=Kronstadt, 1921 |title-link=Kronstadt, 1921 |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1970 |isbn=0-691-08721-0}} |
* {{Cite book |last=Avrich |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Avrich |title=Kronstadt, 1921 |title-link=Kronstadt, 1921 |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1970 |isbn=0-691-08721-0}} |
||
** {{Cite book |last=Avrich |first=Paul |title=Kronstadt, 1921 |publisher=Libros de Anarres |year=2004 |isbn=9-872-08753-9 |location=Buenos Aires |language=es |author-mask=0}} |
** {{Cite book |last=Avrich |first=Paul |title=Kronstadt, 1921 |publisher=Libros de Anarres |year=2004 |isbn=9-872-08753-9 |location=Buenos Aires |language=es |author-mask=0}} |
||
* {{Cite book | |
* {{Cite book |last1=Andrew |first1=Christopher |url=https://archive.org/details/swordshieldmitro00andr |title=The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB |last2=Mitrokhin |first2=Vasili |publisher=Basic |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-465-00312-9 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/swordshieldmitro00andr/page/28 28] |url-access=registration}} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Bullock |first=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mk61CwAAQBAJ |title=The Russian Civil War 1918–22 |publisher=Osprey |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-846-03271-4 |location=Oxford |access-date=26 December 2017}} |
* {{Cite book |last=Bullock |first=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mk61CwAAQBAJ |title=The Russian Civil War 1918–22 |publisher=Osprey |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-846-03271-4 |location=Oxford |access-date=26 December 2017}} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Calder |first=Kenneth J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nME8AAAAIAAJ |title=Britain and the Origins of the New Europe 1914–1918 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1976 |isbn=978-0-521-20897-0 |series=International Studies |access-date=2017-10-06}} |
* {{Cite book |last=Calder |first=Kenneth J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nME8AAAAIAAJ |title=Britain and the Origins of the New Europe 1914–1918 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1976 |isbn=978-0-521-20897-0 |series=International Studies |access-date=2017-10-06}} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Chamberlin |first=William |title=The Russian Revolution, 1917–1921 |publisher=Macmillan |year=1935 |volume=2 |location=New York}} |
* {{Cite book |last=Chamberlin |first=William |title=The Russian Revolution, 1917–1921 |publisher=Macmillan |year=1935 |volume=2 |location=New York}} |
||
** {{Cite book |last=Chamberlin |first=William Henry |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/book/34982 |title=The Russian Revolution, Volume II: 1918–1921: From the Civil War to the Consolidation of Power |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1987 |isbn=978-1-400-85870-5 |volume=2 |author-mask=0 |access-date=27 December 2017 |orig-date=1935 |url-access=subscription |via=[[Project MUSE]]}} |
** {{Cite book |last=Chamberlin |first=William Henry |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/book/34982 |title=The Russian Revolution, Volume II: 1918–1921: From the Civil War to the Consolidation of Power |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1987 |isbn=978-1-400-85870-5 |volume=2 |author-mask=0 |access-date=27 December 2017 |orig-date=1935 |url-access=subscription |via=[[Project MUSE]]}} |
||
* {{Cite book | |
* {{Cite book |last1=Coates |first1=W. P. |author-link=W. P. Coates |url=https://archive.org/details/SovietsInCentralAsiaCoates |title=Soviets in Central Asia |last2=Coates |first2=Zelda K. |author-link2=Zelda Kahan |publisher=Philosophical Library |year=1951 |location=New York |oclc=1533874}} |
||
* {{Cite book |last=Daniels |first=Robert V. |title=A Documentary History of Communism in Russia: From Lenin to Gorbachev |publisher=University Press of New England |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-874-51616-6 |location=Hanover, NH}} |
* {{Cite book |last=Daniels |first=Robert V. |title=A Documentary History of Communism in Russia: From Lenin to Gorbachev |publisher=University Press of New England |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-874-51616-6 |location=Hanover, NH}} |
||
* {{Cite journal |last=Daniels |first=Robert V. |author-mask=3 |date=December 1951 |title=The Kronstadt Revolt of 1921: A Study in the Dynamics of Revolution |journal=[[Slavic Review|American Slavic and East European Review]] |volume=10 |issue=4 |pages=241–254 |issn=1049-7544 |jstor=2492031}} |
* {{Cite journal |last=Daniels |first=Robert V. |author-mask=3 |date=December 1951 |title=The Kronstadt Revolt of 1921: A Study in the Dynamics of Revolution |journal=[[Slavic Review|American Slavic and East European Review]] |volume=10 |issue=4 |pages=241–254 |doi=10.2307/2492031 |issn=1049-7544 |jstor=2492031}} |
||
* {{Cite book | |
* {{Cite book |last1=Eidintas |first1=Alfonsas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0_i8yez8udgC&pg=PA33 |title=Lithuania in European Politics: The Years of the First Republic, 1918–1940 |last2=Žalys |first2=Vytautas |last3=Senn |first3=Alfred Erich |publisher=St. Martin's |year=1999 |isbn=0-312-22458-3 |edition=Paperback |location=New York}} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Erickson |first=John. |title=The Soviet High Command: A Military-Political History, 1918–1941: A Military Political History, 1918–1941 |publisher=Westview |year=1984 |isbn=978-0-367-29600-1}} |
* {{Cite book |last=Erickson |first=John. |title=The Soviet High Command: A Military-Political History, 1918–1941: A Military Political History, 1918–1941 |publisher=Westview |year=1984 |isbn=978-0-367-29600-1}} |
||
* {{Cite book |last=Figes |first=Orlando |url=https://archive.org/details/peoplestragedyhi00fige |title=A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution |publisher=Viking |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-670-85916-0 |location=New York |url-access=registration}} |
* {{Cite book |last=Figes |first=Orlando |url=https://archive.org/details/peoplestragedyhi00fige |title=A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution |publisher=Viking |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-670-85916-0 |location=New York |url-access=registration}} |
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* {{Cite journal |last=Grebenkin |first=I. N. |year=2017 |title=The Disintegration of the Russian Army in 1917: Factors and Actors in the Process |journal=Russian Studies in History |volume=56 |issue=3 |pages=172–187 |doi=10.1080/10611983.2017.1392213 |s2cid=158643095}} |
* {{Cite journal |last=Grebenkin |first=I. N. |year=2017 |title=The Disintegration of the Russian Army in 1917: Factors and Actors in the Process |journal=Russian Studies in History |volume=56 |issue=3 |pages=172–187 |doi=10.1080/10611983.2017.1392213 |s2cid=158643095}} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Hall |first=Richard C. |title=Consumed by War: European Conflict in the 20th Century |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |year=2015 |isbn=978-0-813-15995-9 |location=Lexington}} |
* {{Cite book |last=Hall |first=Richard C. |title=Consumed by War: European Conflict in the 20th Century |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |year=2015 |isbn=978-0-813-15995-9 |location=Lexington}} |
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* {{Cite book | |
* {{Cite book |last1=Haupt |first1=Georges |url=https://archive.org/details/makersofrussianr0000haup |title=Makers of the Russian revolution |last2=Marie |first2=Jean-Jacques |publisher=George Allen & Unwin |year=1974 |isbn=978-0-801-40809-0 |location=London |url-access=registration |name-list-style=amp}} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Holquist |first=Peter |title=Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914–1921 |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2002 |isbn=0-674-00907-X |location=Cambridge, MA}} |
* {{Cite book |last=Holquist |first=Peter |title=Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914–1921 |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2002 |isbn=0-674-00907-X |location=Cambridge, MA}} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Kenez |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Kenez |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vREGB60UPWMC |title=Civil War in South Russia, 1919–1920: The Defeat of the Whites |publisher=University of California Press |year=1977 |isbn=978-0-520-03346-7 |location=Berkeley}} |
* {{Cite book |last=Kenez |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Kenez |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vREGB60UPWMC |title=Civil War in South Russia, 1919–1920: The Defeat of the Whites |publisher=University of California Press |year=1977 |isbn=978-0-520-03346-7 |location=Berkeley}} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Thompson |first=John M. |url=https://archive.org/details/visionunfulfille00thom |title=A Vision Unfulfilled. Russia and the Soviet Union in the Twentieth Century |publisher=D. C. Heath |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-669-28291-7 |location=Lexington, MA |url-access=registration}} |
* {{Cite book |last=Thompson |first=John M. |url=https://archive.org/details/visionunfulfille00thom |title=A Vision Unfulfilled. Russia and the Soviet Union in the Twentieth Century |publisher=D. C. Heath |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-669-28291-7 |location=Lexington, MA |url-access=registration}} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Volkogonov |first=Dmitri |title=Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary |publisher=HarperCollins |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-002-55272-1 |location=London |translator-last=Shukman |translator-first=Harold}} |
* {{Cite book |last=Volkogonov |first=Dmitri |title=Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary |publisher=HarperCollins |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-002-55272-1 |location=London |translator-last=Shukman |translator-first=Harold}} |
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* {{Cite book | |
* {{Cite book |last1=Werth |first1=Nicolas |title=Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression |last2=Bartosek |first2=Karel |last3=Panne |first3=Jean-Louis |last4=Margolin |first4=Jean-Louis |last5=Paczkowski |first5=Andrzej |last6=Courtois |first6=Stephane |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1999 |isbn=0-674-07608-7}} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Wheeler |first=Geoffrey |title=The Modern History of Soviet Central Asia |publisher=Frederick A. Praeger |year=1964 |location=New York |oclc=865924756}} |
* {{Cite book |last=Wheeler |first=Geoffrey |title=The Modern History of Soviet Central Asia |publisher=Frederick A. Praeger |year=1964 |location=New York |oclc=865924756}} |
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*{{cite book |last=Humphreys |first=Leonard A. |year=1996 |title=The Way of the Heavenly Sword: The Japanese Army in the 1920s |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=0-8047-2375-3}} |
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*{{Cite book |last1=Tucker |first1=Spencer |last2=Roberts |first2=Priscilla M. |url=https://www.academia.edu/31690780 |title= World War I: A Student Encyclopedia |publisher= ABC-CLIO |year=2005 |isbn= 1851098798 |location=Santa Barbara, CA |url-access=registration}} |
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{{refend}} |
{{refend}} |
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[[Category:Civil wars of the 20th century]] |
[[Category:Civil wars of the 20th century]] |
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[[Category:Revolution-based civil wars]] |
[[Category:Revolution-based civil wars]] |
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[[Category:Russian Revolution|Civil War]] |
[[Category:Russian Revolution|*Civil War]] |
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[[Category:Wars involving Chechnya]] |
[[Category:Wars involving Chechnya]] |
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[[Category:Wars involving Soviet Russia (1917–1922)]] |
[[Category:Wars involving Soviet Russia (1917–1922)]] |
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[[Category:Wars involving Ukraine]] |
[[Category:Wars involving Ukraine]] |
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[[Category:Wars involving the Ottoman Empire]] |
[[Category:Wars involving the Ottoman Empire]] |
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[[Category:Wars involving the Circassians]] |
Latest revision as of 19:16, 3 January 2025
Russian Civil War | ||||||||||
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Part of the Russian Revolution, revolutions of 1917–1923, and the aftermath of World War I | ||||||||||
Clockwise from top left:
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Belligerents | ||||||||||
Bolsheviks:
| White movement: | Separatists: | ||||||||
Anti-Bolshevik left: | Allied intervention: | Central Powers: | ||||||||
Commanders and leaders | ||||||||||
Strength | ||||||||||
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Casualties and losses | ||||||||||
1,212,824 (official estimate)[10] |
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The Russian Civil War (Russian: Гражданская война в России, romanized: Grazhdanskaya voyna v Rossii) was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the overthrowing of the liberal-democratic Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. It resulted in the formation of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and later the Soviet Union in most of its territory. Its finale marked the end of the Russian Revolution, which was one of the key events of the 20th century.
The Russian monarchy ended with the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II during the February Revolution, and Russia was in a state of political flux. A tense summer culminated in the October Revolution, where the Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government of the new Russian Republic. Bolshevik seizure of power was not universally accepted, and the country descended into civil war. The two largest combatants were the Red Army, fighting for the establishment of a Bolshevik-led socialist state headed by Vladimir Lenin, and the forces known as the White movement (and its White Army), led mainly by the right-leaning officers of the Russian Empire, united around the figure of Alexander Kolchak. In addition, rival militant socialists, notably the Ukrainian anarchists of the Makhnovshchina and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, were involved in conflict against the Bolsheviks. They, as well as non-ideological green armies, opposed the Bolsheviks, the Whites and the foreign interventionists.[12] Thirteen foreign states intervened against the Red Army, notably the Allied intervention, whose primary goal was re-establishing the Eastern Front of World War I. Three foreign states of the Central Powers also intervened, rivaling the Allied intervention with the main goal of retaining the territory they had received in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Soviet Russia.
The Bolsheviks initially consolidated control over most of the former empire. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was an emergency peace with the German Empire, who had captured vast swathes of the Russian territory during the chaos of the revolution. In May 1918, the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia revolted in Siberia. In reaction, the Allies began their North Russian and Siberian interventions. That, combined with the creation of the Provisional All-Russian Government, saw the reduction of Bolshevik-controlled territory to most of European Russia and parts of Central Asia. In 1919, the White Army launched several offensives from the east in March, the south in July, and west in October. The advances were later checked by the Eastern Front counteroffensive, the Southern Front counteroffensive, and the defeat of the Northwestern Army.
By 1919, the White armies were in retreat and by the start of 1920 were defeated on all three fronts.[13] Although the Bolsheviks were victorious, the territorial extent of the Russian state had been reduced, for many non-Russian ethnic groups had used the disarray to push for national independence.[14] In March 1921, during a related war against Poland, the Peace of Riga was signed, splitting disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between the Republic of Poland on one side and Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine on the other. Soviet Russia invaded all the newly independent nations of the former empire or supported the Bolshevik and socialist forces there, although the success of such invasions was limited. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania all repelled Soviet invasions, while Ukraine, Belarus (as a result of the Polish–Soviet War), Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia were occupied by the Red Army.[15][16] By 1921, the Bolsheviks had defeated the national movements in Ukraine and the Caucasus, although anti-Bolshevik uprisings in Central Asia lasted until the late 1920s.[17]
The armies under Kolchak were eventually forced on a mass retreat eastward. Bolshevik forces advanced east, despite encountering resistance in Chita, Yakut and Mongolia. Soon the Red Army split the Don and Volunteer armies, forcing evacuations in Novorossiysk in March and Crimea in November 1920. After that, fighting was sporadic until the war ended with the capture of Vladivostok in October 1922, but anti-Bolshevik resistance continued with the Muslim Basmachi movement in Central Asia and Khabarovsk Krai until 1934. There were an estimated 7 to 12 million casualties during the war, mostly civilians.[18]
Background
From World War I to the Russian Revolution
The Russian Empire fought in World War I from 1914 alongside France and the United Kingdom (Triple Entente) against Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire (Central Powers).
The February Revolution of 1917 resulted in the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia. As a result, the social-democratic Russian Provisional Government was established, and soviets, elected councils of workers, soldiers, and peasants, were organized throughout the country, leading to a situation of dual power. The Russian Republic was proclaimed in September of the same year.
October Revolution
The Provisional Government, led by Socialist Revolutionary Party politician Alexander Kerensky, was unable to solve the most pressing issues of the country, most importantly to end the war with the Central Powers. A failed military coup by General Lavr Kornilov in September 1917 led to a surge in support for the Bolsheviks, who took control of the soviets, which until then had been controlled by the Socialist Revolutionaries. Promising an end to the war and "all power to the Soviets", the Bolsheviks then ended dual power by overthrowing the Provisional Government in late October, on the eve of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, in what would be the second Revolution of 1917. The initial stage of the October Revolution which involved the assault on Petrograd occurred largely without any human casualties.[19][20][21] Despite the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, they lost to the Socialist Revolutionary Party in the 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election, and the Constituent Assembly was dissolved by the Bolsheviks in retaliation. The Bolsheviks soon lost the support of other far-left allies, such as the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, after their acceptance of the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk presented by the German Empire.[22] Conversely, a number of prominent members of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries had assumed positions in Lenin's government and led commissariats in several areas. This included agriculture (Kolegaev), property (Karelin), justice (Steinberg), post offices and telegraphs (Proshian) and local government (Trutovsky).[23] The Bolsheviks also reserved a number of vacant seats in the Soviets and Central Executive for the Menshevik and Left Socialist Revolutionaries parties in proportion to their vote share at the Congress.[24] The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was also approved by the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists, both groups were in favour of a more radical democracy.[25]
Formation of the Red Army
From mid-1917 onwards, the Russian Army, the successor-organisation of the old Imperial Russian Army, started to disintegrate;[26] the Bolsheviks used the volunteer-based Red Guards as their main military force, augmented by an armed military component of the Cheka (the Bolshevik state secret police). In January 1918, after significant Bolshevik reverses in combat, the future Russian People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs Leon Trotsky headed the reorganization of the Red Guards into a Workers' and Peasants' Red Army in order to create a more effective fighting force. The Bolsheviks appointed political commissars to each unit of the Red Army to maintain morale and to ensure loyalty.
In June 1918, when it had become apparent that a revolutionary army composed solely of workers would not suffice, Trotsky instituted mandatory conscription of the rural peasantry into the Red Army.[27] The Bolsheviks overcame opposition of rural Russians to Red Army conscription units by taking hostages and shooting them when necessary in order to force compliance.[28] The forced conscription drive had mixed results, successfully creating a larger army than the Whites, but with members indifferent towards communist ideology.[22]
The Red Army also utilized former Tsarist officers as "military specialists" (voenspetsy);[29] sometimes their families were taken hostage in order to ensure their loyalty.[30] At the start of the civil war, former Tsarist officers formed three-quarters of the Red Army officer-corps.[30] By its end, 83% of all Red Army divisional and corps commanders were ex-Tsarist soldiers.[29]
Constituent Assembly opposition
Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, early Constituent Assembly rebellions
The Russian Constituent Assembly had been a demand of the Bolsheviks against the Provisional Government, which kept delaying it. After the October Revolution the elections were run by the body appointed by the previous Provisional Government. It was based on universal suffrage but used party lists from before the Left-Right SR split. The anti-Bolshevik Right SRs won the elections with the majority of the seats,[31] after which Lenin's Theses on the Constituent Assembly argued in Pravda that formal democracy was impossible because of class conflicts, conflicts with Ukraine and the Kadet-Kaledin uprising. He argued the Constituent Assembly must unconditionally accept sovereignty of the soviet government or it would be dealt with "by revolutionary means".[32]
On December 30, 1917, the SR Nikolai Avksentiev and some followers were arrested for organizing a conspiracy. This was the first time Bolsheviks used this kind of repression against a socialist party. Izvestia said the arrest was not related to his membership in the Constituent Assembly.[33]
On January 4, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee made a resolution saying the slogan "all power to the constituent assembly" was counterrevolutionary and equivalent to "down with the soviets".[34]
The Constituent Assembly met on January 18, 1918. The Right SR Chernov was elected president defeating the Bolshevik supported candidate, the Left SR Maria Spiridonova (she would later break with the Bolsheviks and after the decades of gulag, she was shot on Stalin's orders in 1941). The Bolsheviks subsequently disbanded the Constituent Assembly and proceeded to rule the country as a one-party state with all opposition parties outlawed in 1921.[35][36] A simultaneous demonstration in favor of the Constituent Assembly was dispersed with force, but there was little protest afterwards.[37]
The first large Cheka repression involving the killing of libertarian socialists in Petrograd began in April 1918. On May 1, 1918, a pitched battle took place in Moscow between the anarchists and the Bolshevik police.[38]
Constituent Assembly uprising
The Union of Regeneration was founded in Moscow in April 1918 as an underground organization of "democratic resistance" to the Bolsheviks, composed of the Popular Socialists and "personal representatives" of Right Socialist Revolutionaries, Kadets and Defensists, among others. They were tasked with propping up anti-Bolshevik forces and to create a Russian state system based on "state consciousness, patriotism and civil liberties" with the goal to liberate the country from the "Germano-Bolshevik" yoke.[39][40][41]
On May 7, 1918, the Eighth Party Council of the Socialist Revolutionary Party commenced in Moscow and recognized the Union's leading role, putting aside political ideology and class for the purpose of Russia's salvation. They decided to start an uprising against the Bolsheviks with the goal of reconvening the Russian Constituent Assembly.[39] While preparations were under way, the Czechoslovak Legions overthrew Bolshevik rule in Siberia, the Urals and the Volga region in late May-early June 1918 and the center of SR activity shifted there. On June 8, 1918, five Constituent Assembly members formed the All-Russian Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) in Samara and declared it the new supreme authority in the country.[42] The Social Revolutionary Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia came to power on 29 June 1918, after the uprising in Vladivostok.
White movement and foreign interventions
From "democratic counter-revolution" to the White movement
The main Russian military and political force opposing the Bolsheviks was known as the White movement, or simply the Whites; its armed formations were known as the White Army.
Some historians distinguish the White movement from the so-called "democratic counter-revolution"[43][44] led mainly by the Right SRs and the Mensheviks that adhered to the values of parliamentary democracy and maintained anti-Bolshevik counter-governments (Komuch, Ufa Directory) on the basis with alliance with the right-wing parties of Russia until November 1918. Until this period, parliamentary democracy was the main tendency of the anti-Bolshevik forces on the East (but not the South) of Russia, but since then, the White movement unified on an authoritarian-right platform around the figure of Alexander Kolchak who rose to power through a military coup as its principal leader and his All-Russian government.[44][45][46] After the Kolchak coup, the Right SRs and the Mensheviks went to opposition to the Whites and co-operated with both factions of the Civil War on a tactical level, while also attempting to overthrow White administrations or establish themselves as "the third force" of the war: for example, they attempted to stage an anti-Kolchak mutiny in November 1919 with the help of the Czech general Radola Gajda, and in 1920, they formed an organisation called 'Political Centre' and successfully overthrew the White administration in Irkutsk.[47]
Although the White movement included a variety of political opinions, from the liberals through monarchists to the ultra-nationalist Black Hundreds,[48] and did not have universally-accepted leader or doctrine, the main force behind the movement were the conservative officers, and the resulting movement shared many traits with widespread right-wing counter-revolutionary movements of the time, namely nationalism, racism, distrust of liberal and democratic politics, clericalism, contempt for the common man and dislike of industrial civilization;[49] although not all of the participants of the movement wanted a restoration of Tsarism, it generally preferred it to the revolution, and its main goal became to establish an order which would share the main features of the imperial one;[46][50] its positive program was largely summarized in the slogan of "united and indivisible Russia" which meant the restoration of imperial state borders (excluding Poland and Finland)[51][52][53] and its denial of the right to self-determination and the resulting hostility towards the movements for national independence;[45] the movement is associated with pogroms and antisemitism, although its relations with the Jews were more complex, as at first, for example, Jewish properitors supported the anti-Bolsheviks, but later the movement became known for its antisemic pogroms and discrimination against the Jews.[54]
When the White Army was created, the structure of the Russian Army of the Provisional Government period was used, while almost every individual formation had its own characteristics. The military art of the White Army was based on the experience of World War I, which, however, left a strong imprint on the specifics of the Civil War.[55]
Allied intervention
The Western Allies armed and supported the Whites. They were worried about a possible Russo-German alliance, the prospect of the Bolsheviks making good on their threats to default on Imperial Russia's massive foreign debts and the possibility that Communist revolutionary ideas would spread (a concern shared by many Central Powers). Hence, many of the countries expressed their support for the Whites, including the provision of troops and supplies. Winston Churchill declared that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle".[56] The British and French had supported Russia during World War I on a massive scale with war materials.
After the treaty, it looked like much of that material would fall into the hands of the Germans. To meet that danger, the Allies intervened with Great Britain and France sending troops into Russian ports. There were violent clashes with the Bolsheviks. Britain intervened in support of the White forces to defeat the Bolsheviks and prevent the spread of communism across Europe.[57]
Central Powers anti-Bolshevik intervention
The Central Powers also supported the anti-Bolshevik forces and the whites; after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the main goals of the intervention were to maintain the newly conquered territories and prevent a re-establishment of the Eastern Front. After the defeat of the Central Powers, many armies that stayed mostly helped the Russian White Guard eradicate communists in the Baltics until their eventual withdrawal and defeat. Pro-German factions fought against the newly independent Baltic states until their defeat by the Baltic States, backed by the victorious Allies.
Pro-independence movements and German protectorates
The German Empire created several short-lived buffer states within its sphere of influence after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: the United Baltic Duchy, Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, Kingdom of Lithuania, Kingdom of Poland,[58] the Belarusian People's Republic, and the Ukrainian State. Following Germany's Armistice in World War I in November 1918, the states were abolished.[59][60]
Finland was the first republic that declared its independence from Russia in December 1917 and established itself in the ensuing Finnish Civil War between nationalist German-supported White Guards and socialist Bolshevik-supported Red Guards from January–May 1918.[61] The Second Polish Republic, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia formed their own armies immediately after the abolition of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and the start of the Soviet westward offensive and subsequent Polish-Soviet War in November 1918.[62]
Opposition and repression in Soviet Russia
Exclusion of Mensheviks and SRs
At the Fifth All–Russian Congress of Soviets of July 4, 1918, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries had 352 delegates compared to 745 Bolsheviks out of 1132 total. The Left SRs raised disagreements on the suppression of rival parties, the death penalty, and mainly, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The Bolsheviks excluded the Right SRs and Mensheviks from the government on 14 June for associating with counterrevolutionaries and seeking to "organize armed attacks against the workers and peasants" (though Mensheviks did not exist as a united movement and were split into the left-wing "internationalist" and more right-wing factions), while the Left SRs advocated forming a government of all socialist parties. The Left SRs agreed with extrajudicial execution of political opponents to stop the counterrevolution, but opposed having the government legally pronouncing death sentences, an unusual position that is best understood within the context of the group's terrorist past. The Left SRs strongly opposed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and opposed Trotsky's insistence that no one try to attack German troops in Ukraine.[63]
According to historian Marcel Liebman, Lenin's wartime measures such as banning opposition parties was prompted by the fact that several political parties either took up arms against the new Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, or participated in sabotage, collaboration with the deposed Tsarists, or made assassination attempts against Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders.[64] Liebman noted that opposition parties such as the Cadets and Mensheviks who were democratically elected to the Soviets in some areas, then proceeded to use their mandate to welcome in Tsarist and foreign capitalist military forces.[64] In one incident in Baku, the British military, once invited in, proceeded to execute members of the Bolshevik Party who had peacefully stood down from the Soviet when they failed to win the elections. As a result, the Bolsheviks banned each opposition party when it turned against the Soviet government. In some cases, bans were lifted. This banning of parties did not have the same repressive character as later bans enforced under the Stalinist regime.[64]
Repression
In December 1917, Felix Dzerzhinsky was appointed to the duty of rooting out counter-revolutionary threats to the Soviet government. He was the director of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (aka Cheka), a predecessor of the KGB that served as the secret police for the Soviets.[65]
The Bolsheviks had begun to see the anarchists as a legitimate threat and associate criminality such as robberies, expropriations and murders with anarchist associations. Subsequently, the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) decided to liquidate criminal recklessness associated with anarchists and disarm all anarchist groups in the face of their militancy.[66]
From early 1918, the Bolsheviks started physical elimination of opposition, other socialist and revolutionary fractions. Anarchists were among the first:
Of all the revolutionary elements in Russia it is the Anarchists who now suffer the most ruthless and systematic persecution. Their suppression by the Bolsheviki began already in 1918, when — in the month of April of that year — the Communist Government attacked, without provocation or warning, the Anarchist Club of Moscow and by the use of machine guns and artillery "liquidated" the whole organisation. It was the beginning of Anarchist hounding, but it was sporadic in character, breaking out now and then, quite planless, and frequently self-contradictory.
Prior to the events that would officially catalyze the Red Terror,[67] Vladimir Lenin issued orders and made speeches which included harsh expressions and descriptions of brutal measures to be taken against the "class enemies", which, however, often were not actual orders or were not carried out as such. For example, in a telegram which became known as "Lenin's hanging order" he demanded and "crush" landowners in Penza and to publicly hang "at least 100 kulaks, rich bastards, and known bloodsuckers"[67] in response to an uprising there; yet, only the 13 organizers of the murder of local authorities and the uprising were arrested, while the uprising ended as propaganda activities were held there;[68] in 1920, having received information that in Estonia and Latvia, with which Soviet Russia had concluded peace treaties, volunteers were being enrolled in anti-Bolshevik detachments, Lenin offered to "advance by 10–20 miles (versts) and hang kulaks, priests, landowners" "while pretending to be greens",[69] but instead, his government confined itself to sending diplomatic notes.[68]
Leonid Kannegisser, a young military cadet of the Imperial Russian Army, assassinated Moisey Uritsky on August 17, 1918, outside the Petrograd Cheka headquarters in retaliation for the execution of his friend and other officers.[70]
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On August 30, the SR Fanny Kaplan unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate Lenin,[71] who sought to eliminate political dissent, opposition, and any other threat to Bolshevik power.[72] As a result of the failed attempt on Lenin's life, he began to crack down on his political enemies in an event known as the Red Terror. More broadly, the term is usually applied to Bolshevik political repression throughout the Civil War (1917–1922),[73][74][65]
During interrogation by the Cheka, she made the following statement:
My name is Fanya Kaplan. Today I shot Lenin. I did it on my own. I will not say from whom I obtained my revolver. I will give no details. I had resolved to kill Lenin long ago. I consider him a traitor to the Revolution. I was exiled to Akatui for participating in an assassination attempt against a Tsarist official in Kiev. I spent 11 years at hard labour. After the Revolution, I was freed. I favoured the Constituent Assembly and am still for it.[75]
Kaplan referenced the Bolsheviks' growing authoritarianism, citing their forcible shutdown of the Constituent Assembly in January 1918, the elections to which they had lost. When it became clear that Kaplan would not implicate any accomplices, she was executed in Alexander Garden. The order was carried out by the commander of the Kremlin, the former Baltic sailor P. D. Malkov and a group of Latvian Bolsheviks[76][page needed][non-primary source needed] on September 3, 1918, with a bullet to the back of the head.[77] Her corpse was bundled into a barrel and set alight. The order came from Yakov Sverdlov, who only six weeks earlier had ordered the murder of the Tsar and his family.[78][79]: 442
These events persuaded the government to heed Dzerzhinsky's lobbying for greater terror against opposition. The campaign of mass repressions would officially begin thereafter.[71][65] The Red Terror is considered to have officially begun between 17 and 30 August 1918.[71][65]
Revolts against grain requisitioning
Protests against grain requisitioning of the peasantry were a major component of the Tambov Rebellion and similar uprisings; Lenin's New Economic Policy was introduced as a concession.
The policies of "food dictatorship" proclaimed by the Bolsheviks in May 1918 sparked violent resistance in numerous districts of European Russia: revolts and clashes between the peasants and the Red Army were reported in Voronezh, Tambov, Penza, Saratov and in the districts of Kostroma, Moscow, Novgorod, Petrograd, Pskov and Smolensk. The revolts were bloodily crushed by the Bolsheviks: in the Voronezh Oblast, the Red Guards killed sixteen peasants during the pacification of the village, while another village was shelled with artillery in order to force the peasants to surrender and in the Novgorod Oblast the rebelling peasants were dispersed with machine-gun fire from a train sent by a detachment of Latvian Red Army soldiers.[80] While the Bolsheviks immediately denounced the rebellion as orchestrated by the SRs, there is actually no evidence that they were involved into peasant violence, which they deemed as counterproductive.[81]
Geography and chronology
In the European part of Russia the war was fought across three main fronts: the eastern, the southern and the northwestern. It can also be roughly split into the following periods.
The first period lasted from the Revolution until the Armistice, or roughly March 1917 to November 1918. Already on the date of the Revolution, Cossack General Alexey Kaledin refused to recognize it and assumed full governmental authority in the Don region,[82] 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.
During the first period, the Bolsheviks took control of Central Asia out of the hands of the Provisional Government and White Army, setting up a base for the Communist Party in the Steppe and Turkestan, where nearly two million Russian settlers were located.[83]
Most of the fighting in the first period was sporadic, involved only small groups and had a fluid and rapidly shifting strategic situation. Among the antagonists were the Czechoslovak Legion,[84] the Poles of the 4th and 5th Rifle Divisions and the pro-Bolshevik Red Latvian riflemen.
The second period of the war lasted from January to November 1919. At first the White armies' advances from the south (under Denikin), the east (under Kolchak) and the northwest (under Yudenich) were successful, forcing the Red Army and its allies back on all three fronts. In July 1919 the Red Army suffered another reverse after a mass defection of units in the Crimea to the anarchist Insurgent Army under Nestor Makhno, enabling anarchist forces to consolidate power in Ukraine. Leon Trotsky soon reformed the Red Army, concluding the first of two military alliances with the anarchists. In June the Red Army first checked Kolchak's advance. After a series of engagements, assisted by an Insurgent Army offensive against White supply lines, the Red Army defeated Denikin's and Yudenich's armies in October and November.
The third period of the war was the extended siege of the last White forces in the Crimea in 1920. General Wrangel had gathered the remnants of Denikin's armies, occupying much of the Crimea. An attempted invasion of southern Ukraine was rebuffed by the Insurgent Army under Makhno's command. Pursued into Crimea by Makhno's troops, Wrangel went over to the defensive in the Crimea. After an abortive move north against the Red Army, Wrangel's troops were forced south by Red Army and Insurgent Army forces; Wrangel and the remains of his army were evacuated to Constantinople in November 1920.
Warfare
October Revolution
In the October Revolution, the Bolshevik Party directed the Red Guard (armed groups of workers and Imperial army deserters) to seize control of Petrograd and immediately began the armed takeover of cities and villages throughout the former Russian Empire. In January 1918 the Bolsheviks dissolved the Russian Constituent Assembly and proclaimed the Soviets (workers' councils) as the new government of Russia.
Initial anti-Bolshevik uprisings
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 was quickly put down by the Red Guard, notably including the Latvian Rifle Division.
The initial groups that fought against the Communists were local Cossack armies that had declared their loyalty to the Provisional Government. Kaledin of the Don Cossacks and General Grigory Semenov of the Siberian Cossacks were prominent among them. The leading Tsarist officers of the Imperial Russian Army also started to resist. In November, General Mikhail Alekseev, the Tsar's Chief of Staff during the First World War, began to organize the Volunteer Army in Novocherkassk. Volunteers of the small army were mostly officers of the old Russian army, military cadets and students. In December 1917, Alekseev was joined by General Lavr Kornilov, Denikin and other Tsarist officers who had escaped from the jail, where they had been imprisoned following the abortive Kornilov affair just before the Revolution.[85] On 9 December, the Military Revolutionary Committee in Rostov rebelled, with the Bolsheviks controlling the city for five days until the Alekseev Organization supported Kaledin in recapturing the city. According to Peter Kenez, "The operation, begun on December 9, can be regarded as the beginning of the Civil War."[86]
Having stated in the November 1917 "Declaration of Rights of Nations of Russia" that any nation under imperial Russian rule should be immediately given the power of self-determination, the Bolsheviks had begun to usurp the power of the Provisional Government in the territories of Central Asia soon after the establishment of the Turkestan Committee in Tashkent.[87] In April 1917 the Provisional Government set up the committee, which was mostly made up of former Tsarist officials.[88] The Bolsheviks attempted to take control of the Committee in Tashkent on 12 September 1917 but it was unsuccessful, and many leaders were arrested. However, because the Committee lacked representation of the native population and poor Russian settlers, they had to release the Bolshevik prisoners almost immediately because of a public outcry, and a successful takeover of that government body took place two months later in November.[89] The Leagues of Mohammedam Working People (which Russian settlers and natives who had been sent to work behind the lines for the Tsarist government in 1916 formed in March 1917) had led numerous strikes in the industrial centers throughout September 1917.[90] However, after the Bolshevik destruction of the Provisional Government in Tashkent, Muslim elites formed an autonomous government in Turkestan, commonly called the "Kokand autonomy" (or simply Kokand).[91] The White Russians supported that government body, which lasted several months because of Bolshevik troop isolation from Moscow.[92] In January 1918 the Soviet forces, under Lt. Col. Muravyov, invaded Ukraine and invested Kiev, where the Central Council of Ukraine held power. With the help of the Kiev Arsenal Uprising, the Bolsheviks captured the city on 26 January.[93]
Peace with the Central Powers
The Bolsheviks decided to immediately make peace with the Central Powers, as they had promised the Russian people before the Revolution.[94] Vladimir Lenin's political enemies attributed that decision to his sponsorship by the Foreign Office of Wilhelm II, German Emperor, offered to Lenin in hope that, with a revolution, Russia would withdraw from World War I. That suspicion was bolstered by the German Foreign Ministry's sponsorship of Lenin's return to Petrograd.[95] However, after the military fiasco of the summer offensive (June 1917) by the Russian Provisional Government had devastated the structure of the Russian Army, it became crucial that Lenin realize the promised peace.[96] Even before the failed summer offensive the Russian population was very skeptical about the continuation of the war. Western socialists had promptly arrived from France and from the UK to convince the Russians to continue the fight, but could not change the new pacifist mood of Russia.[97]
On 16 December 1917 an armistice was signed between Russia and the Central Powers in Brest-Litovsk and peace talks began.[98] As a condition for peace, the proposed treaty by the Central Powers conceded huge portions of the former Russian Empire to the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire, greatly upsetting nationalists and conservatives. 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 war, no peace".[99]
Therefore, on 18 February 1918, the Germans began Operation Faustschlag on the Eastern Front, encountering virtually no resistance in a campaign that lasted 11 days.[99] 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 could not stop the advance. The Soviets acceded to a peace treaty, and the formal agreement, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, was ratified on 3 March. The Soviets viewed the treaty as merely a necessary and expedient means to end the war.
Ukraine, South Russia, and Caucasus (1918)
In Ukraine, the German-Austrian Operation Faustschlag had by April 1918 removed the Bolsheviks from Ukraine.[100][101][102][103] The German and Austro-Hungarian victories in Ukraine were caused by the apathy of the locals and the inferior fighting skills of Bolsheviks troops to their Austro-Hungarian and German counterparts.[103]
Under Soviet pressure, the Volunteer Army embarked on the epic Ice March from Yekaterinodar to Kuban on 22 February 1918, where they joined with the Kuban Cossacks to mount an abortive assault on Yekaterinodar.[104] The Soviets recaptured Rostov on the next day.[104] Kornilov was killed in the fighting on 13 April, and Denikin took over command. Fighting off its pursuers without respite, the army succeeded in breaking its way through back towards the Don by May, where the Cossack uprising against the Bolsheviks had started.[105]
The Baku Soviet Commune was established on 13 April. Germany landed its Caucasus Expedition troops in Poti on 8 June. The Ottoman Army of Islam (in coalition with Azerbaijan) drove them out of Baku on 26 July 1918. Subsequently, the Dashanaks, Right SRs and Mensheviks started negotiations with Gen. Dunsterville, the commander of the British troops in Persia. The Bolsheviks and their Left SR allies were opposed to it, but on 25 July the majority of the Soviets voted to call in the British and the Bolsheviks resigned. The Baku Soviet Commune ended its existence and was replaced by the Central Caspian Dictatorship.
In June 1918 the Volunteer Army, numbering some 9,000 men, started its Second Kuban campaign, capturing Yekaterinodar on 16 August, followed by Armavir and Stavropol. By early 1919, they controlled the Northern Caucasus.[106]
On 8 October, Alekseev died. On 8 January 1919, Denikin became the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of South Russia, uniting the Volunteer Army with Pyotr Krasnov's Don Army. Pyotr Wrangel became Denikin's Chief of Staff.[107]
In December, three-fourths of the army was in the Northern Caucasus. That included three thousand of Vladimir Liakhov's soldiers around Vladikavkaz, thirteen thousand soldiers under Wrangel and Kazanovich in the center of the front, Stankevich's almost three thousand men with the Don Cossacks, while Vladimir May-Mayevsky's three thousand were sent to the Donets basin, and de Bode commanded two thousand in Crimea.[108]
Eastern Russia, Siberia and the Far East (1918)
The revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion broke out in May 1918, and proceeded to occupy the Trans-Siberian Railway from Ufa to Vladivostok. Uprisings overthrew other Bolshevik towns. On 7 July, the western portion of the legion declared itself to be a new eastern front, anticipating allied intervention. According to William Henry Chamberlin, "Two governments emerged as a result of the first successes of the Czechs: the West Siberian Commissariat and the Government of the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly in Samara." On 17 July, shortly before the fall of Yekaterinburg, the former tsar and his family were murdered.[109]
The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries supported peasants fighting against Soviet control of food supplies.[110] In May 1918, with the support of the Czechoslovak Legion, they took Samara and Saratov, establishing the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly—known as the "Komuch". By July the authority of the Komuch extended over much of the area controlled by the Czechoslovak Legion. The Komuch pursued an ambivalent social policy, combining democratic and socialist measures, such as the institution of an eight-hour working day, with "restorative" actions, such as returning both factories and land to their former owners. After the fall of Kazan, Vladimir Lenin called for the dispatch of Petrograd workers to the Kazan Front: "We must send down the maximum number of Petrograd workers: (1) a few dozen 'leaders' like Kayurov; (2) a few thousand militants 'from the ranks'".
After a series of reverses at the front, the Bolsheviks' War Commissar, Trotsky, instituted increasingly harsh measures in order to prevent unauthorised withdrawals, desertions, and mutinies in the Red Army. In the field, the Cheka Special Investigations Forces (termed the Special Punitive Department of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combat of Counter-Revolution and Sabotage or Special Punitive Brigades) followed the Red Army, conducting field tribunals and summary executions of soldiers and officers who deserted, retreated from their positions, or failed to display sufficient offensive zeal.[111][112] The Cheka Special Investigations Forces were also charged with the detection of sabotage and counter-revolutionary activity by Red Army soldiers and commanders. Trotsky extended the use of the death penalty to the occasional political commissar whose detachment retreated or broke in the face of the enemy.[113] In August, frustrated at continued reports of Red Army troops breaking under fire, Trotsky authorised the formation of barrier troops – stationed behind unreliable Red Army units and given orders to shoot anyone withdrawing from the battle line without authorisation.[114]
In September 1918, the Komuch, the Siberian Provisional Government, and other anti-Bolshevik Russians agreed during the State Meeting in Ufa to form a new Provisional All-Russian Government in Omsk, headed by a Directory of five: two Socialist-Revolutionaries. Nikolai Avksentiev and Vladimir Zenzinov, the Kadet lawyer V. A. Vinogradov, Siberian Premier Vologodskii, and General Vasily Boldyrev.[115]
By the fall of 1918, anti-Bolshevik White forces in the east included the People's Army (Komuch), the Siberian Army (of the Siberian Provisional Government) and insurgent Cossack units of Orenburg, the Urals, Siberia, Semirechye, Baikal, and Amur and Ussuri Cossacks, nominally under the orders of Gen. V.G. Boldyrev, Commander-in-Chief, appointed by the Ufa Directorate.
On the Volga, Col. Kappel's White detachment captured Kazan on 7 August, but Red Forces recaptured the city on 8 September 1918 following a counteroffensive. On the 11th Simbirsk fell, and on 8 October Samara. The Whites fell back eastwards to Ufa and Orenburg.
In Omsk, the Russian Provisional Government quickly came under the influence and later the dominance of its new War Minister, the rear-admiral Kolchak. On 18 November, a coup d'état established Kolchak as supreme leader. Two members of the Directory were arrested, and subsequently deported, while Kolchak was proclaimed "Supreme Ruler", and "Commander-in-Chief of all Land and Naval Forces of Russia."[116] By mid-December 1918, the White armies had to leave Ufa, but they balanced that failure with a successful drive towards Perm, which they took on 24 December.
Barrier troops
In the Red Army, the concept of barrier troops first arose in August 1918 with the formation of the заградительные отряды (zagraditelnye otriady), translated as "blocking troops" or "anti-retreat detachments" (Russian: заградотряды, заградительные отряды, отряды заграждения).[117] The barrier troops comprised personnel drawn from the Cheka punitive detachments or from regular Red Army infantry regiments.
The first use of the barrier troops by the Red Army occurred in the late summer and fall of 1918 in the Eastern front during the Russian Civil War, when Leon Trotsky authorized Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the commander of the 1st Army, to station blocking detachments behind unreliable Red Army infantry regiments in the 1st Red Army, with orders to shoot if front-line troops either deserted or retreated without permission.[117]
In December 1918, Trotsky ordered that detachments of additional barrier troops be raised for attachment to each infantry formation in the Red Army. On December 18 he cabled:
How do things stand with the blocking units? As far as I am aware they have not been included in our establishment and it appears they have no personnel. It is absolutely essential that we have at least an embryonic network of blocking units and that we work out a procedure for bringing them up to strength and deploying them.[117]
In 1919, 616 "hardcore" deserters of the total 837,000 draft dodgers and deserters were executed following Trotsky's draconian measures.[118] According to Figes, "a majority of deserters (most registered as "weak-willed") were handed back to the military authorities, and formed into units for transfer to one of the rear armies or directly to the front". Even those registered as "malicious" deserters were returned to the ranks when the demand for reinforcements became desperate". Forges also noted that the Red Army instituted amnesty weeks to prohibit punitive measures against desertion which encouraged the voluntary return of 98,000-132,000 deserters to the army.[119]
The barrier troops were also used to enforce Bolshevik control over food supplies in areas controlled by the Red Army as part of Lenin's war communism policies, a role which soon earned them the hatred of the Russian civilian population.[120] These policies in part led to the Russian famine of 1921–1922, which killed about five million people.[121][122] However, the famine was preceded by bad harvests, harsh winter, drought especially in the Volga Valley which was exacerbated by a range of factors including the war, the presence of the White Army and the methods of war communism.[123] The outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and typhus were also contributing factors to the famine casualties.[124][125]
Central Asia (1918)
In February 1918, the Red Army overthrew the White Russian-supported Kokand Autonomy of Turkestan.[126] Although that move seemed to solidify Bolshevik power in Central Asia, more troubles soon arose for the Red Army as the Allied Forces began to intervene. British support of the White Army provided the greatest threat to the Red Army in Central Asia during 1918. Britain sent three prominent military leaders to the area. One was Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Marshman Baile, who recorded a mission to Tashkent, from where the Bolsheviks forced him to flee. Another was General Wilfrid Malleson, leading the Malleson Mission, who assisted the Mensheviks in Ashkhabad (now the capital of Turkmenistan) with a small Anglo-Indian force. However, he failed to gain control of Tashkent, Bukhara and Khiva. The third was Major General Dunsterville, who was driven out by the Bolsheviks of Central Asia only a month after his arrival in August 1918.[127] Despite setbacks as a result of British invasions during 1918, the Bolsheviks continued to make progress in bringing the Central Asian population under their influence. The first regional congress of the Russian Communist Party convened in the city of Tashkent in June 1918 in order to build support for a local Bolshevik Party.[128]
Left SR Uprising
On 6 July 1918, two Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and Cheka employees, Yakov Blumkin and Nikolai Andreyev, assassinated the German ambassador, Count Mirbach. In Moscow a Left SR uprising was put down by the Bolsheviks, mass arrests of Socialist-Revolutionaries followed, and executions became more frequent. Chamberlin noted, "The time of relative leniency toward former fellow-revolutionists was over. The Left Socialist Revolutionaries, of course, were no longer tolerated as members of the Soviets; from this time the Soviet regime became a pure and undiluted dictatorship of the Communist Party." Similarly, Boris Savinkov's surprise attacks were suppressed, with many of the conspirators being executed, as "Mass Red Terror" became a reality.[129]
Estonia, Latvia and Petrograd
Estonia cleared its territory of the Red Army by January 1919.[130] Baltic German volunteers captured Riga from the Red Latvian Riflemen on 22 May, but the Estonian 3rd Division defeated the Baltic Germans a month later, aiding the establishment of the Republic of Latvia.[131]
That rendered possible another threat to the Red Army, from General Yudenich, who had spent the summer organizing the Northwestern Army in Estonia with local and British support. In October 1919, he tried to capture Petrograd in a sudden assault with a force of around 20,000 men. The attack was well-executed, using night attacks and lightning cavalry maneuvers to turn the flanks of the defending Red Army. Yudenich also had six British tanks, which caused panic whenever they appeared. The Allies gave large quantities of aid to Yudenich, but he complained of receiving insufficient support.
By 19 October, Yudenich's troops had reached the outskirts of the city. Some members of the Bolshevik central committee in Moscow were willing to give up Petrograd, but Trotsky refused to accept the loss of the city and personally organized its defenses. Trotsky himself declared, "It is impossible for a little army of 15,000 ex-officers to master a working-class capital of 700,000 inhabitants." He settled on a strategy of urban defense, proclaiming that the city would "defend itself on its own ground" and that the White Army would be lost in a labyrinth of fortified streets and there "meet its grave".[132]
Trotsky armed all available workers, men and women, and ordered the transfer of military forces from Moscow. Within a few weeks, the Red Army defending Petrograd had tripled in size and outnumbered Yudenich three to one. Yudenich, short of supplies, then decided to call off the siege of the city and withdrew. He repeatedly asked permission to withdraw his army across the border to Estonia. However, units retreating across the border were disarmed and interned by orders of the Estonian government, which had entered into peace negotiations with the Soviet Government on 16 September and had been informed by the Soviet authorities of their 6 November decision that if the White Army was allowed to retreat into Estonia, it would be pursued across the border by the Reds.[133] In fact, the Reds attacked Estonian army positions and fighting continued until a ceasefire went into effect on 3 January 1920. After the Treaty of Tartu, most of Yudenich's soldiers went into exile. Former Imperial Russian and then Finnish General Mannerheim planned an intervention to help the Whites in Russia capture Petrograd. However, he did not gain the necessary support for the endeavour. Lenin considered it "completely certain, that the slightest aid from Finland would have determined the fate of [the city]".
Northern Russia (1919)
The British occupied Murmansk and seized Arkhangelsk alongside United States forces. With the retreat of Kolchak in Siberia, they pulled their troops out of the cities before the winter trapped them in the port. The remaining White forces under Yevgeny Miller evacuated the region in February 1920.[134]
Siberia (1919)
At the beginning of March 1919, the general offensive of the Whites on the eastern front began. Ufa was retaken on 13 March; by mid-April, the White Army stopped at the Glazov–Chistopol–Bugulma–Buguruslan–Sharlyk line. Reds started their counteroffensive against Kolchak's forces at the end of April. The Red 5th Army, led by the capable commander Tukhachevsky, captured Elabuga on 26 May, Sarapul on 2 June and Izevsk on the 7th and continued to push forward. Both sides had victories and losses, but by the middle of summer the Red Army was larger than the White Army and had managed to recapture territory previously lost.[135]
Following the abortive offensive at Chelyabinsk, the White armies withdrew beyond the Tobol. In September 1919 a White offensive was launched against the Tobol Front, the last attempt to change the course of events. However, on 14 October the Reds counterattacked, and thus began the uninterrupted retreat of the Whites to the east. On 14 November 1919 the Red Army captured Omsk.[136] Adm. Kolchak lost control of his government shortly after the defeat; White Army forces in Siberia had essentially ceased to exist by December. Retreat of the eastern front by White armies lasted three months, until mid-February 1920, when the survivors, after crossing Lake Baikal, reached the Chita area and joined Ataman Semenov's forces.
South Russia (1919)
The Cossacks had been unable to organise and capitalise on their successes at the end of 1918. By 1919 they had begun to run short of supplies. Consequently, when the Soviet Russian counteroffensive began in January 1919 under the Bolshevik commander Antonov-Ovseenko, the Cossack forces rapidly fell apart. The Red Army captured Kiev on 3 February 1919.[137]
Denikin's military strength continued to grow in 1919, with significant munitions supplied by the British empire. In January, Denikin's Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR) completed the elimination of Red forces in the northern Caucasus and moved north, in an effort to protect the Don district.[138]
On 18 December 1918, French forces landed in Odessa and Crimea, but evacuated Odessa on 6 April 1919, and the Crimea by the end of the month. According to Chamberlin, "France gave far less practical aid to the Whites than did England; its sole independent venture in intervention, at Odessa, ended in a complete fiasco."[139]
Denikin then reorganized the Armed Forces of South Russia under the leadership of Vladimir May-Mayevsky, Vladimir Sidorin, and Pyotr Wrangel. On 22 May, Wrangel's Caucasian army defeated the 10th Army (RSFSR) in the battle for Velikoknyazheskaya, and then captured Tsaritsyn on 1 July. Sidorin advanced north toward Voronezh, increasing his army's strength in the process. On 25 June, May–Mayevsky captured Kharkov, and then Ekaterinoslav on 30 June, which forced the Reds to abandon Crimea. On 3 July, Denikin issued his Moscow directive, in which his armies would converge on Moscow.[140]
Although Britain had withdrawn its own troops from the theatre, it continued to give significant military aid (money, weapons, food, ammunition and some military advisers) to the White Armies during 1919. Major Ewen Cameron Bruce of the British Army had volunteered to command a British tank mission assisting the White Army. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order[141] for his bravery during the June 1919 Battle of Tsaritsyn for single-handedly storming and capturing the fortified city of Tsaritsyn, under heavy shell fire in a single tank, which led to the capture of over 40,000 prisoners.[142] The fall of Tsaritsyn is viewed "as one of the key battles of the Russian Civil War" and greatly helped the White Russian cause.[142] The notable historian Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart comments that Bruce's tank action during the battle is to be seen as "one of the most remarkable feats in the whole history of the Tank Corps".[143]
On 14 August, the Bolsheviks launched their Southern Front counteroffensive. After six weeks of heavy fighting the counteroffensive failed, and Denikin was able to capture more territory. By November, White Forces had reached the Zbruch, the Ukrainian-Polish border.[144]
Denikin's forces constituted a real threat and for a time threatened to reach Moscow. The Red Army, stretched thin by fighting on all fronts, was forced out of Kiev on 30 August. Kursk and Orel were taken, on 20 September and 14 October, respectively. The latter, only 205 miles (330 km) from Moscow, was the closest the AFSR would come to its target.[145] The Cossack Don Army under the command of General Vladimir Sidorin continued north towards Voronezh, but Semyon Budyonny's cavalrymen defeated them there on 24 October. That allowed the Red Army to cross the Don River, threatening to split the Don and Volunteer Armies. Fierce fighting took place at the key rail junction of Kastornoye, which was taken on 15 November. Kursk was retaken two days later.[146]
Kenez states, "In October Denikin ruled more than forty million people and controlled the economically most valuable parts of the Russian Empire." Yet, "The White armies, which had fought victoriously during the summer and early fall, fell back in disorder in November and December." Denikin's front line was overstretched, while his reserves dealt with Makhno's anarchists in the rear. Between September and October, the Reds mobilized one hundred thousand new soldiers and adopted the Trotsky-Vācietis strategy with the Ninth and Tenth armies forming V. I. Shorin's Southeastern Front between Tsaritsyn and Bobrov, while the Eighth, Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth armies formed A. I. Egorov's Southern Front between Zhitomir and Bobrov. Sergey Kamenev was in overall command of the two fronts. On Denikin's left was Abram Dragomirov, while in his center was Vladimir May-Mayevsky's Volunteer Army, Vladimir Sidorin's Don Cossacks were further east, with Wrangel's Caucasian army at Tsaritsyn, and an additional was in the Northern Caucasus attempting to capture Astrakhan. On 20 October, May–Mayevsky was forced to evacuate Orel during the Orel-Kursk operation. On 24 October, Semyon Budyonny captured Voronezh, and Kursk on 15 November, during the Voronezh-Kastornoye operation (1919). On 6 January, the Reds reached the Black Sea at Mariupol and Taganrog, and on 9 January, they reached Rostov. According to Kenez, "The Whites had now lost all the territories which they had captured in 1919, and held approximately the same area in which they had started two years before."[147]
Central Asia (1919)
By February 1919 the British government had pulled its military forces out of Central Asia.[148] Despite the success for the Red Army, the White Army's assaults in European Russia and other areas broke communication between Moscow and Tashkent. For a time, Central Asia was completely cut off from Red Army forces in Siberia.[149] Although the communication failure weakened the Red Army, the Bolsheviks continued their efforts to gain support for the Bolshevik Party in Central Asia by holding a second regional conference in March. During the conference, a regional bureau of Muslim organisations of the Russian Bolshevik Party was formed. The Bolshevik Party continued to try to gain support among the native population by giving it the impression of better representation for the Central Asian population and throughout the end of the year could maintain harmony with the Central Asian people.[150]
Communication difficulties with Red Army forces in Siberia and European Russia ceased to be a problem by mid-November 1919. Red Army successes north of Central Asia caused communication with Moscow to be re-established and the Bolsheviks to claim victory over the White Army in Turkestan.[149]
In the Ural-Guryev operation of 1919–1920, the Red Turkestan Front defeated the Ural Army. During winter 1920, Ural Cossacks and their families, totaling about 15,000 people, headed south along the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea towards Fort Alexandrovsk. Only a few hundred of them reached Persia in June 1920.[151] The Orenburg Independent Army was formed from Orenburg Cossacks and other troops who rebelled against the Bolsheviks. During the winter 1919–20, the Orenburg Army retreated to Semirechye in what is known as the Starving March, as half of the participants perished.[152] In March 1920 her remnants crossed the border into the Northwestern region of China.
South Russia, Ukraine and Kronstadt (1920–21)
At the beginning of 1920, Denikin was reduced to defending Novorossia, the Crimean peninsula, and the Northern Caucasus. On 26 January, the Caucasian army retreated beyond the Manych. On 7 February, the Reds occupied Odessa, but then Makhno's anarchists started fighting the Fourteenth Red Army. On 20 February, Denikin succeeded in recapturing Rostov, his last victory, before giving it up soon after.[153]
By the beginning of 1920, the main body of the Armed Forces of South Russia was rapidly retreating towards the Don, to Rostov. Denikin hoped to hold the crossings of the Don, then rest and reform his troops, but the White Army was not able to hold the Don area, and at the end of February 1920 started a retreat across Kuban towards Novorossiysk. Slipshod evacuation of Novorossiysk proved to be a dark event for the White Army. Russian and Allied ships evacuated about 40,000 of Denikin's men from Novorossiysk to the Crimea, without horses or any heavy equipment, while about 20,000 men were left behind and either dispersed or were captured by the Red Army. Following the disastrous Novorossiysk evacuation, Denikin stepped down and the military council elected Wrangel as the new Commander-in-Chief of the White Army. He was able to restore order to the dispirited troops and reshape an army that could fight as a regular force again. It remained an organized force in the Crimea throughout 1920.[154]
After Moscow's Bolshevik government signed a military and political alliance with Nestor Makhno and the Ukrainian anarchists, the Insurgent Army attacked and defeated several regiments of Wrangel's troops in southern Ukraine, forcing him to retreat before he could capture that year's grain harvest.[155]
Stymied in his efforts to consolidate his hold, Wrangel then attacked north in an attempt to take advantage of recent Red Army defeats at the close of the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1920. The Red Army eventually halted the offensive, and Wrangel's troops had to retreat to Crimea in November 1920, pursued by both the Red and Black cavalry and infantry. Wrangel's fleet evacuated him and his army to Constantinople on 14 November 1920, ending the struggle of Reds and Whites in Southern Russia.[137]
After the defeat of Wrangel, the Red Army immediately repudiated its 1920 treaty of alliance with Nestor Makhno and attacked the anarchist Insurgent Army; the campaign to liquidate Makhno and the Ukrainian anarchists began with an attempted assassination of Makhno by Cheka agents. Anger at continued repression by the Bolshevik Communist government and at its liberal use of the Cheka to put down anarchist elements led to a naval mutiny at Kronstadt in March 1921, followed by peasant revolts – all of which were put down by the Bolsheviks. The outset of the year was marked by strikes and demonstrations – in both Moscow and Petrograd, as well as the countryside – due to discontent with the results of policies that made up war communism.[156][157] The Bolsheviks, in response to the protests, enacted martial law and sent the Red Army to disperse the workers.[158][159] This was followed up by mass arrests executed by the Cheka.[160] Repression and minor concessions only temporarily quelled the discontent as Petrograd protests continued that year in March. This time the factory workers were joined by sailors stationed on the nearby island-fort of Kronstadt.[161] Disappointed in the direction of the Bolshevik government, the rebels demanded a series of reforms including: reduction in Bolshevik privileges, newly elected soviets to include socialist and anarchist groups, economic freedom for peasants and workers, dissolution of the bureaucratic governmental organs created during the civil war, and the restoration of worker rights for the working class.[162] The workers and sailors of the Kronstadt rebellion were promptly crushed by Red Army forces, with a thousand rebels killed in battle and another thousand executed the following weeks, with many more fleeing abroad and to the countryside.[163][164][165] These events coincided with the 10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). There, Lenin argued that the soviets and the principle of democratic centralism within the Bolshevik party still assured democracy. However, faced with support for Kronstadt within Bolshevik ranks, Lenin also issued a "temporary" ban on factions in the Russian Communist Party. This ban remained until the revolutions of 1989 and, according to some critics, made the democratic procedures within the party an empty formality, and helped Stalin to consolidate much more authority under the party. Soviets were transformed into the bureaucratic structure that existed for the rest of the history of the Soviet Union and were completely under the control of party officials and the politburo.[b] Red Army attacks on the anarchist forces and their sympathisers increased in ferocity throughout 1921.[166]
Siberia and the Far East (1920–22)
In Siberia, Admiral Kolchak's army had disintegrated. He himself gave up command after the loss of Omsk and designated Gen. Grigory Semyonov as the new leader of the White Army in Siberia. Not long afterward, Kolchak was arrested by the disaffected Czechoslovak Legion as he traveled towards Irkutsk without the protection of the army and was turned over to the socialist Political Centre in Irkutsk. Six days later, the regime was replaced by a Bolshevik-dominated Military-Revolutionary Committee. On 6–7 February Kolchak and his prime minister Victor Pepelyaev were shot, and their bodies were thrown through the ice of the frozen Angara River, just before the arrival of the White Army in the area.[167]
Remnants of Kolchak's army reached Transbaikalia and joined Semyonov's troops, forming the Far Eastern army. With the support of the Japanese army, it was able to hold Chita, but after the withdrawal of Japanese soldiers from Transbaikalia, Semenov's position became untenable and in November 1920 he was driven by the Red Army from Transbaikalia and took refuge in China. The Japanese, who had plans to annex the Amur Krai, finally pulled their troops out as Bolshevik forces gradually asserted control over the Russian Far East. On 25 October 1922 Vladivostok fell to the Red Army, and the Provisional Priamur Government was extinguished.
Aftermath
With the end of the war, the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) no longer faced an acute military threat to its existence and power. However, the perceived threat of continued popular discontent, combined with the failure of socialist revolutions in other countries, such as the German revolution of 1918–1919, contributed to the continued militarization of Soviet society.
The Bolsheviks managed to consolidate control over Russia, but were only partially successful at re-establishing territorial control of the other provinces of the former Russian Empire. The treaty of Riga, which was signed in March 1921 after the Polish–Soviet War, split the territories in Belarus and Ukraine between the Republic of Poland and Soviet Russia. Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania all repelled Soviet invasions, while Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia were occupied by the Red Army.[15][16] In 1925, the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) changed its name to the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
Evacuations
Around one to two million people known as the White émigrés fled Russia, many with General Wrangel, some through the Far East and others west into the newly independent Baltic countries. The émigrés included a large percentage of the educated and skilled population of Russia.[168]
Ensuing rebellion
In Central Asia, Red Army troops continued to face resistance into 1923, where basmachi (armed bands of Islamic guerrillas) had formed to fight the Bolshevik takeover. The Soviets engaged non-Russian peoples in Central Asia, like Magaza Masanchi, commander of the Dungan Cavalry Regiment, to fight against the Basmachis. The Communist Party did not completely dismantle the group until 1934.[169]
General Anatoly Pepelyayev continued armed resistance in the Ayano-Maysky District until June 1923. The regions of Kamchatka and Northern Sakhalin remained under Japanese occupation until their treaty with the Soviet Union in 1925, when their forces were finally withdrawn.
Casualties
The results of the civil war were momentous. Soviet demographer Boris Urlanis estimated that 300,000 men were killed in action during the Civil War and Polish-Soviet War – 125,000 in the Red Army, 175,500 White armies and Poles – and the total number of military personnel from both sides dead from disease as 450,000.[170] Boris Sennikov estimated the total losses among the population of Tambov region in 1920 to 1922 resulting from the war, executions, and imprisonment in concentration camps as approximately 240,000.[171] By 1922, there were at least 7,000,000 street children in Russia as a result of nearly ten years of devastation from World War I and the civil war.[172]
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, killing roughly 5 million people. Disease had reached pandemic proportions, with 3,000,000 dying of typhus throughout the war. Millions more also died of widespread starvation, wholesale massacres by both sides and pogroms against Jews in Ukraine and southern Russia.[173]
Civilian casualties
As many as 10 million people died as a result of the Russian Civil War, and the overwhelming majority of these were civilian casualties.[174] There is no consensus among the Western historians on the number of deaths from the Red Terror. One source gives estimates of 28,000 executions per year from December 1917 to February 1922.[175] Estimates for the number of people shot during the initial period of the Red Terror are at least 10,000.[176] Estimates for the whole period go for a low of 50,000[177] to highs of 140,000[177][178] and 200,000 executed.[179] Most estimations for the number of executions in total put the number at about 100,000.[180] According to Vadim Erlikhman's investigation, the number of the Red Terror's victims is at least 1,200,000 people.[181] According to Robert Conquest, a total of 140,000 people were shot in 1917–1922, but Jonathan D. Smele estimates they were considerably fewer, "perhaps less than half that many".[182] Candidate of Historical Sciences Nikolay Zayats states that the number of people shot by the Cheka in 1918–1922 is about 37,300 people, shot in 1918–1921 by the verdicts of the tribunals — 14,200, i.e. about 50,000–55,000 people in total, although executions and atrocities were not limited to the Cheka, having been organized by the Red Army as well.[183][184] In 1924, an anti-Bolshevik Popular Socialist Sergei Melgunov (1879–1956) published a detailed account on the Red Terror in Russia, where he cited Professor Charles Saroléa's estimates of 1,766,188 deaths from the Bolshevik policies. He questioned the accuracy of the figures, but endorsed Saroléa's "characterisation of terror in Russia", stating it matches reality.[185][186] Modern historian Sergei Volkov, assessing the Red Terror as the entire repressive policy of the Bolsheviks during the years of the Civil War (1917–1922), estimates the direct death toll of the Red Terror at 2 million people.[187] Volkov's calculations, however, do not appear to have been confirmed by other major scholars.[c]
Ethnic violence
Some 10,000–500,000 Cossacks were killed or deported during Decossackization, out of a population of around three million.[189] An estimated 100,000 Jews were killed in Ukraine.[190] Punitive organs of the All Great Don Cossack Host sentenced 25,000 people to death between May 1918 and January 1919.[191] Kolchak's government shot 25,000 people in Ekaterinburg province alone.[192] The White Terror, as it would become known, killed about 300,000 people in total.[193]
Economic impact
The civil war had a devastating impact on the Russian economy. A black market emerged in Russia, despite the threat of martial law against profiteering. The ruble collapsed, with barter increasingly replacing money as a medium of exchange[194] and, by 1921, heavy industry output had fallen to 20% of 1913 levels. 90% of wages were paid with goods rather than money.[195] 70% of locomotives were in need of repair,[196] and food requisitioning, combined with the effects of seven years of war and a severe drought, contributed to a famine that caused between 3 and 10 million deaths.[197] Coal production decreased from 27.5 million tons (1913) to 7 million tons (1920), while overall factory production also declined from 10,000 million roubles to 1,000 million roubles. According to the noted historian David Christian, the grain harvest was also slashed from 80.1 million tons (1913) to 46.5 million tons (1920).[198]
War communism saved the Soviet government during the Civil War, but much of the Russian economy had ground to a standstill. Some peasants responded to food 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 US dollar declined from two roubles in 1914 to 1,200 Rbls in 1920. Although Russia experienced extremely rapid economic growth[199] in the 1930s, the combined effect of World War I and the Civil War left a lasting scar on Russian society and had permanent effects on the development of the Soviet Union.
Political impact
The complete failure of the Communist International-inspired revolutions was a sobering experience in Moscow, and the Bolsheviks moved from world revolution to socialism in one country, the Soviet Union.[200]
The Treaty of Rapallo (1922) was an agreement signed on 16 April 1922 between the Weimar Republic and Soviet Union, under which both renounced all territorial and financial claims against each other and opened friendly diplomatic relations.[201]
In fiction
Literature
The Civil War was a popular theme among the Socialist realism writers; it was championed in the works of such authors as Dmitri Furmanov (Chapayev, 1923), Alexander Serafimovich, Vsevolod Vishnevsky (An Optimistic Tragedy, 1933) and Aleksandr Fadeyev; one of the best-known examples is the novel How the Steel Was Tempered (1934) by Nikolai Ostrovsky.
- The Road to Calvary (1922–1941) by Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy.
Other prominent works of fiction by the Soviet writers that didn't follow the methods and doctrine of Socialist realism include:
- The White Guard (1925) and A Young Doctor's Notebook (1925–1926) by Mikhail Bulgakov
- Red Cavalry (1926–1933) by Isaac Babel
- Chevengur (1927, fully published in 1971) by Andrei Platonov
- Quiet Flows the Don (1928–1940) by Mikhail Sholokhov
- Conquered City (1932) by Victor Serge
- Doctor Zhivago (1957) by Boris Pasternak
- The Red Wheel (1971–1991) by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
by the White émigré authors:
- An Evening with Claire (1930) by Gaito Gazdanov
- Novel with Cocaine (1934) by M. Ageyev
Works by the Western and contemporary authors:
- Futility (1922) by William Gerhardie
- Coup de Grâce (1939) by Marguerite Yourcenar
- Byzantium Endures (1981) by Michael Moorcock
- Fall of Giants (2010) by Ken Follett
- Bro (2011) by Vladimir Sorokin
- A Splendid Little War (2012) by Derek Robinson (novelist)
Film
- Arsenal (1928)
- Storm Over Asia (1928)
- Chapaev (1934)
- Thirteen (1936), directed by Mikhail Romm
- We Are from Kronstadt (1936), directed by Yefim Dzigan
- Knight Without Armour (1937)
- The Year 1919 (1938), directed by Ilya Trauberg
- The Baltic Marines (1939), directed by A. Faintsimmer
- Shchors (1939), directed by Dovzhenko
- Pavel Korchagin (1956), directed by A. Alov and V. Naumov
- The Forty-First (1956), directed by Grigori Chukhrai
- The Communist (film) (1957), directed by Yuli Raizman
- And Quiet Flows the Don (1958), directed by Sergei Gerasimov
- Doctor Zhivago (1965), directed by David Lean
- The Elusive Avengers (1966)
- The Red and the White (1967)
- White Sun of the Desert (1970)
- The Flight (1970), directed by A. Alov and V. Naumov
- Reds (1981), directed by Warren Beatty
- Corto Maltese in Siberia (2002)
- Nine Lives of Nestor Makhno (2005/2007)
- Admiral (2008)
- Sunstroke (2014), directed by Nikita Mikhalkov
Video games
See also
- Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War
- Index of articles related to the Russian Revolution and Civil War
- Nikolayevsk incident
- Revolutionary Mass Festivals
- Timeline of the Russian Civil War
- Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War
Notes
- ^
Small caption in the lower right corner reads:
The Bolsheviks promised:
We'll give you peace
We'll give you freedom
We'll give you land
Work and bread
Despicably they cheated
They started a war
With Poland
Instead of freedom they brought
The fist
Instead of land – confiscation
Instead of work – misery
Instead of bread – famine. - ^ See note regarding Library of Congress Country Studies. Chapter 7 – The Communist Party. Democratic Centralism.[citation needed]
- ^ In particular, they seem quite at odds with the demographic considerations elaborated by Italian historian and professor Andrea Graziosi in the light of the good quality Tsarist and early Soviet statistics. According to him, the excess deaths between 1914 and 1922 were about 16 million, of which 4–5 were military, the rest civilian; the overwhelming majority of the latter resulted from "starvation, typhus, epidemics, the Spanish flu and the famine of 1921–22", the roughly number of "victims of the various kinds of terror, and red and white repressions" amounting to a few hundred thousand— which is indeed a dreadful number in itself, however.[188]
References
Citations
- ^ Mawdsley 2007, pp. 3, 230.
- ^ "Russian Civil War". Encyclopædia Britannica. 10 May 2024.
- ^ Murphy, Brian (2 August 2004). Rostov in the Russian Civil War, 1917-1920: The Key to Victory. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-27129-0.
- ^ Bullock, David (6 June 2014). The Russian Civil War 1918–22. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-472-81032-8 – via Google Books.
- ^ Erickson 1984, p. 763.
- ^ Belash, Victor & Belash, Aleksandr, Dorogi Nestora Makhno, p. 340
- ^ Humphreys 1996, p. 26.
- ^ Tucker & Roberts 2005, p. 547.
- ^ Damien Wright, Churchill's Secret War with Lenin: British and Commonwealth Military Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1918–20, Solihull, UK, 2017, pp. 394, 526–528, 530–535; Clifford Kinvig, Churchill's Crusade: The British Invasion of Russia 1918–1920, London 2006, ISBN 1-852-85477-4, p. 297; Timothy Winegard, The First World Oil War, University of Toronto Press (2016), p. 229
- ^ Krivosheev et al. 1993, p. 12-13.
- ^ Smele 2016, p. 160.
- ^ Russian Civil War Archived 26 August 2009 at the Wayback Machine Encyclopædia Britannica Online 2012
- ^ Leggett 1981, p. 184; Service 2000, p. 402; Read 2005, p. 206.
- ^ Hall 2015, p. 83.
- ^ a b Lee 2003, pp. 84, 88.
- ^ a b Goldstein 2013, p. 50.
- ^ Hall 2015, p. 84.
- ^ Mawdsley 2007, p. 287.
- ^ Shukman, Harold (5 December 1994). The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the Russian Revolution. John Wiley & Sons. p. 343. ISBN 978-0-631-19525-2.
- ^ Bergman, Jay (2019). The French Revolutionary Tradition in Russian and Soviet Politics, Political Thought, and Culture. Oxford University Press. p. 224. ISBN 978-0-19-884270-5.
- ^ McMeekin, Sean (30 May 2017). The Russian Revolution: A New History. Basic Books. pp. 1–496. ISBN 978-0-465-09497-4.
- ^ a b Stone, David R. (2011). "Russian Civil War (1917–1920)". In Martel, Gordon (ed.). The Encyclopedia of War. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. doi:10.1002/9781444338232.wbeow533. ISBN 978-1-4051-9037-4. S2CID 153317860.
- ^ Abramovitch, Raphael R. (1985). The Soviet Revolution, 1917-1939. International Universities Press. p. 130.
- ^ Deutscher, Isaac (1954). The Prophet Armed Trotsky 1879-1921 (1954). Oxford University Press. pp. 330–336.
- ^ Liebman, Marcel (1975). Leninism under Lenin. London : J. Cape. p. 237. ISBN 978-0-224-01072-6.
- ^ Calder 1976, p. 166 "[...] the Russian Army disintegrated after the failure of the Galician offensive in July 1917."
- ^ Read 1996, p. 237 By 1920, 77% of the Red Army's enlisted ranks were peasant conscripts.
- ^ Williams, Beryl, The Russian Revolution 1917–1921, Blackwell Publishing Ltd. (1987), ISBN 978-0-631-15083-1: Typically, men of military age (17 to 40 years old) in a village would vanish when Red Army draft-units approached. The taking of hostages and a few summary executions usually brought the men back.
- ^ a b Overy 2004, p. 446 By the end of the civil war, one-third of all Red Army officers were ex-Tsarist voenspetsy"
- ^ a b Williams, Beryl, The Russian Revolution 1917–1921, Blackwell Publishing Ltd. (1987), ISBN 978-0-631-15083-1
- ^ Carr 1985, pp. 111–112.
- ^ Carr 1985, pp. 113–115.
- ^ Carr 1985, p. 115.
- ^ Carr 1985, pp. 115–116.
- ^ Концепция социалистической демократии: опыт реализации в СССР и современные перспективы в СНГ
- ^ Adam Bruno Ulam. The Bolsheviks: the intellectual and political history of the triumph of communism in Russia. Harvard University Press. p. 397.
- ^ Carr 1985, pp. 120–121.
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- ^ See Jonathan D. Smele. Op. cit., p.32 ("Op. cit." means to refer to a work cited earlier in the citations. this means you copied it from a citation list, and are citing something that you have not read. instead you should cite what you read and say it refers to this, or if you can get the original work and look at it then you can cite it directly.)
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Not all the participants in the White movement wanted to recreate tsarist Russia. [...] Nevertheless, the Civil War divided those who preferred tsarist Russia to the society which they feared their country was heading toward, and those who hated the old and had confidence that they could build a more just and rational society. After three years of struggle the Whites lost the war, proving that the traditional order had too few defenders... The defeat of the Whites was the final and conclusive defeat of Imperial Russia.
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- ^ Chamberlin 1935, pp. 20–21.
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- ^ a b c Dmitri Volkogonov, Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary, transl. and edited by Harold Shukman, HarperCollins Publishers, London (1996), p. 180
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... the best estimates set the probable number of executions at about a hundred thousand.
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- Smele, Jonathan D. (2015). Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916–1926. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-442-25281-3.
- ——— (2016) [2015]. The 'Russian' Civil Wars, 1916–1926: Ten Years That Shook the World. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-190-61321-1.
- Stewart, George (2009). The White Armies of Russia A Chronicle of Counter-Revolution and Allied Intervention. Naval & Military Press. ISBN 978-1-847-34976-7.
- Smith, David A.; Tucker, Spencer C. (2014). "Operation Faustschlag". World War I: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. pp. 554–555. ISBN 978-1-851-09965-8. Retrieved 27 December 2017.
- Thompson, John M. (1996). A Vision Unfulfilled. Russia and the Soviet Union in the Twentieth Century. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath. ISBN 978-0-669-28291-7.
- Volkogonov, Dmitri (1996). Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary. Translated by Shukman, Harold. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-002-55272-1.
- Werth, Nicolas; Bartosek, Karel; Panne, Jean-Louis; Margolin, Jean-Louis; Paczkowski, Andrzej; Courtois, Stephane (1999). Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-07608-7.
- Wheeler, Geoffrey (1964). The Modern History of Soviet Central Asia. New York: Frederick A. Praeger. OCLC 865924756.
- Humphreys, Leonard A. (1996). The Way of the Heavenly Sword: The Japanese Army in the 1920s. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-2375-3.
- Tucker, Spencer; Roberts, Priscilla M. (2005). World War I: A Student Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1851098798.
Further reading
- Acton, Edward, V. et al. eds. Critical companion to the Russian Revolution, 1914–1921 (Indiana UP, 1997).
- Brovkin, Vladimir N. (1994). Behind the Front Lines of the Civil War: Political Parties and Social Movements in Russia, 1918–1922. Princeton UP. excerpt Archived 28 July 2020 at the Wayback Machine
- Dupuy, T. N. The Encyclopedia of Military History (many editions) Harper & Row Publishers.
- Ford, Chris. "Reconsidering the Ukrainian Revolution 1917–1921: The Dialectics of National Liberation and Social Emancipation." Debatte 15.3 (2007): 279–306.
- Peter Kenez. Civil War in South Russia, 1918: The First Year of the Volunteer Army (U of California Press, 1971).
- Lincoln, W. Bruce. Red victory: A history of the Russian Civil War (1989).
- Luckett, Richard. The White Generals: An Account of the White Movement and the Russian Civil War (Routledge, 2017).
- Marples, David R. Lenin's Revolution: Russia, 1917–1921 (Routledge, 2014).
- Moffat, Ian, ed. The Allied Intervention in Russia, 1918–1920: The Diplomacy of Chaos (2015)
- Polyakov, Yuri. The Civil War in Russia: Its Causes and Significance (Novosti, 1981).
- Serge, Victor. Year One of the Russian Revolution (Haymarket, 2015).
- Smele, Jonathan D. "Still Searching for the 'Third Way': Geoffrey Swain's Interventions in the Russian Civil Wars". Europe-Asia Studies 68.10 (2016): 1793–1812. doi:10.1080/09668136.2016.1257094.
- Smele, Jonathan D. "'If Grandma had Whiskers...': Could the Anti-Bolsheviks have won the Russian Revolutions and Civil Wars? Or, the Constraints and Conceits of Counterfactual History." Revolutionary Russia (2020): 1–32. doi:10.1080/09546545.2019.1675961.
- Stewart, George. The White Armies of Russia: A Chronicle of Counter-Revolution and Allied Intervention (2008) excerpt Archived 27 June 2015 at the Wayback Machine
- Stone, David R. "The Russian Civil War, 1917–1921," in The Military History of the Soviet Union.
- Swain, Geoffrey (2015). The Origins of the Russian Civil War excerpt Archived 28 July 2020 at the Wayback Machine
Primary sources
- Butt, V. P., et al., eds. The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives (Springer, 2016).
- McCauley, Martin, ed. The Russian Revolution and the Soviet State 1917–1921: Documents (Springer, 1980).
- Murphy, A. Brian, ed. The Russian Civil War: Primary Sources (Springer, 2000) online review Archived 27 June 2020 at the Wayback Machine
External links
- Newsreels about Russian Civil War // Net-Film Newsreels and Documentary Films Archive
- Sumpf, Alexandre: Russian Civil War, in: 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
- Mawdsley, Evan: International Responses to the Russian Civil War (Russian Empire), in: 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
- Read, Christopher: Revolutions (Russian Empire), in: 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
- Peeling, Siobhan: War Communism, in: 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
- Beyrau, Dietrich: Post-war Societies (Russian Empire), in: 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
- Brudek, Pawe³: Revolutions (East Central Europe), in: 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
- Melancon, Michael S.: Social Conflict and Control, Protest and Repression (Russian Empire), in: 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
- Russian Revolution and Civil War archive at libcom.org/library Archived 7 September 2014 at the Wayback Machine
- "BBC History of the Russian Revolution" (3 February 2007)
- "Russian Civil War" (Spartacus History, downloaded 3 January 2006)
- "Russian Civil War 1918–1920" (On War website, downloaded 4 January 2006)
- "Civil War of 1917–1922 at Encyclopedia of Russian History (3 February 2007)
- Russian Civil War
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- 1920s in the Soviet Union
- Civil wars in Russia
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