The Russian Civil War 1918-20

The Russian Civil War 1918-20

1. Reasons for the civil war

   • Communist bid for absolute authority angered people
     • crushing of the Constituent assembly
     • outlawing of other parties
   • Lenin wanted one to consolidate power
     • would wipe out political/military opponents

2. warring groups

   • Reds : Bolsheviks
   • Whites: monarchists/outlawed parties
   • Greens : national minorities

3. reasons for war

   • Reds: a 'class struggle' to save the revolution
   • Greens: establish independence
     • Czech legion
       • fought on russian side in wwi to gain independdence from austria hungary
         • were isolated after treaty of brest litovsk
       • aimed to eventually join allies on western front to gain support for independence
       • journied east to Vladivostok
   • a war about food
     • failure of new regime to end hunger
     • loss of Ukraine
     • JUNE 1918: workforce in petrograd shrunk by 60%
     • MARCH 1918: lowest ever allocation bread rationing: 50 grams per day
   • Whites: revolutionaries wanting to seize power from Bolsheviks
     • SOCIAL REVOLUTIONARIES
       • tried to organise anti bolshevik coup in moscow which failed
       • 2 attempts on Lenin's life

4. Spread of armed resistance

   • Whites
     • Volunteer army set up in caucasus region by kadets and loyalists
       • Led by Denikin- Kornilov supporter
     • Siberia: tsarist army set up
       • led by Kolchak
     • Estonia: tsarist army set up
       • led by Yudenich
   • demonstrated how limited Bolshevik control was in 1917

5. BOLSHEVIK VICTORY

   • White weakness
     • geography
     • supplies
       • depended on abroad
         • Reds accused them of being in league with interventionalists
         • unreliable
     • morale/leadership
       • lacked good leadership
       • no sense of purpose, too divided
       • morale low
   • Reds' strength
     • Geography
       • concentrated central area
       • Petrograd/Moscow
         • industrial centres
     • supplies
       • control of Petrograd and moscow= ready resources
     • morale/leadership
       • Trotsky
         • strategy
           • defend internal lines of communication
           • prevents Whites from recieving supplies/concenyrating forces
         • utilized railways
         • organized red army
       • morale high
       • sense of purpose/belief in victory

6. treatment of the peasants

   • Reds
     • used terror to crush opposition
     • offered enlistment or execution
     • lost peasant sympathy
   • Whites
     • also ill treated local populations
     • could only offer a return to pre-revolutionary past which peasants feared

7. effects of civil war on Bolsheviks

   • toughness
   • authoritarianism
   • centralisation
     • power moved into the hands of the Politburo and Orgburo