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Russian Civil War (1918-1921), 1918-1921

Дата публикации: 20 сентября 2007
Публикатор: Научная библиотека Порталус
Рубрика: RUSSIA (TOPICS) - Soviet Russia (1917-53) →
Источник: (c) http://russia.by
Номер публикации: №1190294659


Principal Personages

Vladimir Ilich Lenin (Ulyanov, 1870-1924), Bolshevik leader and head of Communist Russia, 1918-1924

Lavr Georgievich Kornilov, General (1870-1918),

Anton Ivanovich Denikin, General (1872-1947), and

Pëtr Nikolaevich Wrangel, General (1878-1928), commanders of White forces in Southern Russia

Aleksandr Vasilievich Kolchak, Admiral (1874-1920), White commander in Siberia and White "Supreme Ruler," 1918-1920

Nikolai Vasilievich Chaikovski (1850-1926), Socialist Revolutionary Party leader of anti-Soviet movement in Northern Russia

Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich, General (1862-1933), White commander in Northwest Russia

Leon Trotsky (Leib Davydovich Bronstein, 1879-1940), Red Army commander and Commissar of War after 1918

Makhno, Ukrainian anarchist peasant leader


Summary of Event

Any revolution that suddenly topples a long-standing regime is likely to face continued resistance from remnants of the "old order." Opposition can be centered among embittered émigrés who flee to distant havens of refuge, or opposition can take the form of open counterrevolution. When Vladimir Ilvich Lenin and his well-organized Bolshevik followers staged their successful coup in November (October according to the Julian Calendar in use in Russia at the time), 1917, the new Soviet government encountered both types of residual opposition. Many wealthy Russians, sensing the seriousness of Bolshevik expropriations, fled the country for Paris, New York, and other Western cities, where they continued to oppose the Bolshevik regime. By far the most serious threat to the Bolshevik Revolution was a series of armed uprisings that shook the edges of Soviet Russia between 1918 and 1921. These uprisings, collectively grouped under the heading "The Great Russian Civil War," for a time posed a serious threat to the infant Soviet state. Lenin's eventual victory insured the triumph of the Communist experiment in Russia.

White (anti-Soviet) forces in Southern Russia centered in a Volunteer Army augmented by Cossack forces. Led in succession by Generals Lavr Kornilov, Anton Denikin, and Pëtr Wrangel between 1918 and 1920, the Volunteer Army attempted to maintain both an anti-Soviet and anti-German campaign simultaneously. Politically, the campaign aimed for restoration of an assembly form of government featuring traditional political parties. The southern movement, however, was hampered by a lack of cohesion in its daily operations, which would lead to ultimate defeat.

Another important center of White activity proved to be Siberia. Here fighting erupted in 1918 between Soviet troops and the famous Czechoslovak Legion, which had aided Tsarist forces in assaults on Austria-Hungary during World War I. The Legion was on its way through Siberia for eventual crossing into North America and from there to the Western Front in Europe, when frictions with the Soviets erupted into violence. The Legion, comprising some 35,000 troops, abandoned plans to leave Russia and effectively sealed off the Siberian east, creating a zone where anti-Soviet movements might flourish. Ultimately, the Siberian White movement was led by Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak.

Northern anti-Soviet movements, led by Nikolai V. Chaikovski, relied too heavily on British troops brought in as part of the Allied intervention. So did the White forces in Estonia, where the White movement was under the control of General Nikolai N. Yudenich. At first, these White forces, peripheral though they were, scored some impressive victories, and, indeed, for a time in 1919 threatened the Soviet regime. In the south, General Denikin scored key victories, notably his capture of Kiev in September, 1919. By November, however, the Red Army (Soviet) launched a resounding counteroffensive that drove the remnants of the Volunteer Army into the Crimea, from whence under Pëtr Wrangel they were later evacuated in disarray. In Siberia, Admiral Kolchak began an offensive against key sites near the Volga river. Kolshak rode a wave of military successes through March, 1919, but with the Volga threatened, the Red Army repelled his forces through the month of April. Attempts by northern Whites based in Archangel to link up with Kolchak's troops failed, as did two attacks by Yudenich's forces against Petrograd. By the winter of 1919-1920, impressive White campaigns ceased.

The anti-Soviet crusade was also joined by forces from Russia's minority nationalities, particularly in the Ukraine, where fierce nationalist pride motivated many to use the Civil War as a backdrop for Ukrainian independence. Of great importance in the Ukrainian movement was the peasant leader Makhno, an avowed anarchist, whose politics made Allied action with the White forces very tenuous. By 1920, the Soviets had crushed the Ukrainian independence movement.

Another aspect of the Civil War had more diplomatic than military impact. This was the famous intervention of the Allied armed forces of Great Britain, France, the United States, and Japan in Russia in 1918. Japan, in landing its forces at Vladivostok, had definite territorial aims, a stance which did not characterize the other interventionist powers. British, French, and American troops were sent to Vladivostok and Archangel, but played no direct combat role. Instead, these Western forces acted as suppliers of arms, aid, and advice to the White forces. By 1919, with the end ofWorld War I, the Allied forces were withdrawn, as the rationale of restoring Russia to the Triple Entente no longer mattered.

By 1920, the Civil War was nearing completion with Soviet victory. The Volunteer Army had been chased out of the Crimea, evacuated via Istanbul to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (as Yugoslavia was then known), ending all southern resistance. In Siberia, the tired and demoralized Czechoslovak Legion, which had buttressed the eastern White forces, quit the field and handed Kolchak over to the Soviets, who promptly executed the admiral in February, 1920. With Allied forces gone, the civil uprising was over.

Historians have often wondered how the fledgling Soviet state could win the Civil War. First, it won because of major White flaws. The Soviet forces had the advantage of defending interior lines, while the Whites were fighting the offensive from the periphery of Russia. Transportation and communications had been difficult prior to World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution. It proved exceedingly difficult for the Whites to fight a united war, given their disparate locations. Beyond these tactical difficulties were political difficulties. The White forces, on all fronts, had little in the way of political unity. White sentiments ranged from parliamentary liberals to the reactionary, autocratic Right.

Coupled with White liabilities were some distinct Red Army strengths. First and foremost, there was the brilliant military leadership of Leon Trotsky, who was made Commissar of War by the Lenin government. Trotsky quickly abandoned many Bolshevik concepts of a peoples' army that had held sway since 1917. Discipline of a strict type was restored, as was the practice of conscription. The Red Army did not have to defend far-flung points like those held by the Whites. In addition, the Red Army, quite unlike the Whites, had a unified outlook and program which lifted its morale as the war went on. Finally, the Red Army had the crucial advantage of representing the government in the struggle. Though the Soviet state probably did not command the support of most of its people, it still was the state, and as such, commanded a legitimacy not possessed by the Whites. The government, under a program of "War Communism," obtained the necessary sacrifices from the Soviet populace to secure victory.

FURTHER READINGS




Brinkley, George A. The Volunteer Army and the Allied Intervention in South Russia, 1917-1921. University of Notre Dame Press, 1966.

Chamberlin, William Henry. The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921. The Macmillan Company, 1935. 2 vols.

Benes, Eduard. My War Memoirs. Trans. by Paul Selver. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1928.
Contains an account of the Czech Legion's role in the Civil War


Chamberlin, William Henry. The Ukraine: A Submerged Nation. The Macmillan Company, 1944.
Focus is on the South Russian aspects of the Civil War


Coates, W. P.; Zelda K. Coates. Armed Intervention in Russia, 1918-1922. V. Gollancz, 1935.
A detailed military history of the Allied intervention


Denikin, Anton I. The White Army. Trans. by Catherine Zvegintzov. J. Cape and Company, 1930.
Memoirs of the prominent White general


Footman, David. Civil War in Russia. Faber and Faber, 1961.
A recent scholarly account of the total Civil War


Kennan, George Frost. Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin. Little, Brown and Company, 1961.
Provides a concise narrative account of the Russian Civil War

Опубликовано на Порталусе 20 сентября 2007 года

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