The direct involvement of the French Army ended with this fiasco. [21] The Communists were able to keep control, partly due to their monopoly of military power, partly due to the lack of the organised political leaders among the restless population, and partly due the effective abandonment of forced grain requisitioning following the adoption of the New Economic Policy. It was the precipitating event of the Russian Civil War. The French surrendered Kherson (at the mouth of the Dnepr River) in March 1919 and Odessa in April. The main goals of the intervention were to maintain the territories received in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, prevent a re-establishment of the Eastern Front, and administer new conquered territories. This had failed. The Volunteer Army, then led by General Kornilov, had been thrown out of the Don territory by Red Guards in January 1918. This was intervention was picking up from the Eastern Front against the newly set up Russian Republic. Smele, Jonathan: Civil War in Siberia. The Russian civil war was not simply a conflict between Red communists and White monarchists; rather, it involved a complex intertwining of military, social and political issues that were created or exacerbated by the Great War. is licensed under: CC by-NC-ND 3.0 Germany - Attribution, Non-commercial, No Derivative Works. This article discusses the two distinct phases of the Civil War, which were divided by the collapse of the Central Powers. Hagen, Mark von: War in a European Borderland. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. 58-83. The results of the civil war were momentous. Prompted by fears that they were about to be disarmed by the Soviet authorities and probably encouraged by Allied advisors, the Czechoslovaks mutinied. Attempts by the anti-Bolsheviks to create a rival authority to Moscow had little success. Allied intervention before November 1918 had included a political (“counter-revolutionary”) motivation, but its role above all had been strategic and anti-German. The Russian Revolution of 1917. Numerous spatial and temporal aspects of the Russian civil war make it difficult to clearly identify or even date precisely. The Revolution meaning the Bolshevik Revolution (Novdmber 1917) and resulting Civil War was a catalclismic event in Russian history. See Foglesong, David: America's Secret War Against Bolshevism. The Russian Civil War was a large conflict over the former Russian Empire.The collapse of the Russian empire in 1917 triggered a complex series of interlocking conflicts that lasted into the 1920s and are estimated to have cost 13 million lives, mostly civilian victims of famine and of the massacre and depredation practiced by all sides in the Civil War. [9] He was able, through a combination of revolutionary rhetoric and harsh punishment to rally the Red forces. After the eventual downfall of the Central Powers, the armies occupying the eastern territories could not be resupplied with the new German Army reduced to nothing more than 100,000 volunteers. One way to look at the ebb and flow of the Civil War in 1919 (and 1920) is as a series of attacks by a coalition of hostile forces again revolutionary Russia. From the Secret Archive, New Haven 1996. The Central Powers certainly made great demands: the demobilization of the Russian Army, the ending of revolutionary agitation, and the abandonment of Russian control of the Imperial periphery, including Poland, Finland, the Baltic region, Belarus and Ukraine (on grounds of national self-determination). To tsarists, liberals, Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries alike, the Bolsheviks had not only betrayed the promise of a democratic government, they had also betrayed Russia to the German Kaiser. However, by 1917 Russia was on its back foot with Germany and Austria having lost Poland, Lithuania and parts of West Belarus. Nov. 11, 2020. Casualties. of the Russian Civil War The Battle of Tsaritsyn was a military confrontation between Bolshevik forces and the White Army during the Russian Civil War. In the course of 1918 conscription became the main means of recruitment (coupled with various anti-“desertion” measures). The results of the civil war were momentous. Smith, Scott: Captives of Revolution. The Central Powers had already been fighting Russia for three years. The Communist government in Moscow was able to maintain control over central Russia in 1919-1920 partly because it was more sensitive to popular demands than were its White enemies. After the autumn 1918 retreat across the Urals of the Czechoslovaks and anti-Bolshevik forces, the Soviet position there had seemed more secure. The Bolsheviks decided to immediately make peace with the German Empire and the Central Powers, as they had promised the Russian people before the Revolution. It started at 09:00 AM PDT on 27, 2019. This was the unintended consequence of the actions of all the belligerents – the Reds, the Whites, and the Great Powers. Occupation and Occupation Plans in Galicia and Ukraine, 1914-1918, Seattle 2007; Reynolds, Michael A.: Shattering Empires. Despite profound political differences, the conservative politicians and generals in Berlin found Lenin’s weak and pliable government temporarily preferable to alternatives. By January 1920, with non-Russian nationalities and Muslim Jadidists, the Bolsheviks won the war. While losing to the German Empire they had some victories against the Austrian and Ottoman Empires. [5], On 16 December 1917 an armistice was signed between Russia and the Central Powers in Brest-Litovsk and peace talks began. The regiments were strung out along the railway system, from the Volga river crossings to the Russian Far East (along the Trans-Siberian railway). The Bolshevik victory ensured the supremacy of the Russian Communists in the nascent Soviet Union. It was for control of the significant city and port on the Volga River in southwestern Russia. Following the defeat of Germany in World War I in November 1918, these states were abolished. [3] In August 1917 the Army commander-in-chief, General Lavr Kornilov (1870-1918), attempted unsuccessfully to assert military control over Petrograd in August and destroy the forces of the left. The decisive Polish victory resulted in the establishment of the Russo-Polish border that existed until 1939. The rapid advance of the Red Army towards the Vistula River and Warsaw raised the stakes of the campaign. [14] The German and Austro-Hungarian armies began a hasty withdrawal, creating a vast power vacuum, most importantly in Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic region. [9][10], Finland was the first republic that declared its independence from Russia in December 1917 and established itself in the ensuing Finnish Civil War from January–May 1918. Moscow had overestimated the Red Army’s ability to fight in central Europe, as it had underestimated Polish nationalism. A Political Life, vols 2-3, Basingstoke 1991, 1995. Komuch had only limited power. Historians still debate when the Civil War ended. In this segment, the intent is to provide background reading on the Civil War, as well as explore the origins of the conflict. Even with the entry of Romania into the war Russia could not push back. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMawdsley2007 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFSmithTucker2014 (, Mieczysław B. Biskupski, "War and the Diplomacy of Polish Independence, 1914–18. The consequences of this have ricocheted down the decades to the present day. [18] The anti-Communist cause in South Russia had also been bedevilled by internal conflicts between the Denikin’s “White” leadership, on the one hand, and minority nationalists (especially the Ukrainians) and advocates of Cossack autonomy, on the other. The Komuch “army” nevertheless was able to advance up the Volga from Samara as far as Kazan - to within 550 miles of Moscow. This was transformed into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922. With the start of the Russian Civil War, the collapse of the Republic and the rise of Red Russia a vacuum on the eastern border was created. They were angry because Lenin had left the war and they wanted Russia's debts to be repaid. Pipes, Richard / Brandenberger, David / Fitzpatrick, Catherine A. There was an irony at work. It was divided on regional or political grounds and had limited military forces, mainly the foreign soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps. This text They had won the most popular support in the November 1917 elections to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly (which the Bolsheviks had dispersed in January 1918).[7]. Vrangel’s base in the Crimea was a readily defensible one, but the Whites lacked any significant military resources, aside from the old guard of the Volunteer Army. ", David G. Kirby, "Revolutionary ferment in Finland and the origins of the civil war 1917–1918. Swain, Geoffrey: The Origins of Russian Civil War, London 1995. Communist social and economic policies, such as the confiscation of gentry land, brought significant popular support, and the Party developed an effective propaganda apparatus. The second was the attempt by peripheral regions of the Russian Empire to break away. These conditions brought about the February Revolution and the creation of the Russian republic.The new republic did not fare any better and saw a continued stalemate. On December 1922, when the Soviet Union or USSR was created, the non-Russian nationals were given political autonomy. January 1919 – November 1919: White Armies’ advances in the South, East and Northwest of Russia. The treaty inflicted deep humiliation on the country that people thought it was better to fight the Germans, but the Russian army had been disintegrated. The collapse of the Whites in South Russia and western Siberia in the spring of 1920 seemed to indicate that the Civil War was over. ): The Unknown Lenin. The development of the Red Army was especially important. The Russian Civil War was a deadly war in the country for the casualties reached 7,000,000 to 12,000,000 people. In September 1863, a Russian fleet of six warships headed … The number of cattle also decreased, from 58 million to 37 million. There was little revolutionary response in Central Europe, and the Bolsheviks could do very little to resist the enemy armies. List of every major Russian Civil War battle, including photos, images, or maps of the most famous Russian Civil War battles when available. General Anton Denikin (1872-1947) succeeded him, and during the summer the Volunteers were able, with counter-revolutionary Kuban Cossacks, to take control in the Kuban. Over a four-year period 20 countries battled in a crucible that would give birth to Communist revolutions worldwide and the Cold War. List of Red Army battles in the Russian Civil War, listed alphabetically with photos, images, and maps when possible. Communist control over Russia was still tenuous, but by February 1918 there were no major centres openly opposing the Petrograd government. On the general situation see Rabinowitch, Alexander: The Bolsheviks in Power. As for the “Entente”, the British refused to provide military aid, while the French were unable to do so. Komuch and a number of smaller regional authorities were represented, and they created an uneasy coalition in the form of the “Provisional All-Russian Government” (PA-RG).This shadow government, however, was forced to abandon Ufa and withdraw further towards Siberia as Red Army units attacked east along the railway from the Volga. Omsk fell in November 1919. In February 1920, after a brief trial, he was shot. The Tsar’s abdication was followed by the creation of a Provisional Government in Petrograd, based initially on the Tsarist State Duma. 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". One of the main war aims of Imperial Russia in 1914-1917 had been the Turkish straits; now the bedraggled survivors of the White cause, having abandoned the territory of Russia, had to take refuge in Constantinople under Allied protection. The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires 1908-1918, Cambridge 2011. France sent a considerable expedition, which began to arrive in Odessa by sea in mid-December 1918. But from the point of view of Lenin, Trotsky, and their comrades, the outcome of the Revolution and the Civil War was only a half victory. The First Year Of The Volunteer Army, Berkeley 1971. Causes and Impacts of the Russian civil war. A Comparative Study of Government and Bureaucrats, 1917-1922, Toronto 2011. The Communist hold on power was still very shaky. Russian Civil War Quiz. Most of them were civilians. Political Parties and Social Movement in Russia, 1918-1922, Princeton 1994. It examines the appearance of competing centres of power, the attempt of those centres to mobilize support, and the ultimate victory of the Communists. 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