4. civil war

• Civil war for the Bolsheviks

  A necessary phase in the revolution, a violent intensification of the class struggle
• Lenin was prepared for a civil war and perhaps even welcomed it as a chance to build his party's tiny power base
• Effects of the civil war

  • Polarization of the country into 'revolutionary' and 'counter-revolutionary' sides
  • Extension of the state's military and political power
  • Use of terror to suppress dissent
• In Lenin's view all these effects of the civil war were necessary for the victory of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat
• Start of the civil war

  1. Kornilov and his 'White Guard' followers moved south to the Don to form a Volunteer Army to fight the Bolsheviks

  2. Whites took Rostov from the Reds on 9 December

  3. Whites lost Rostov two weeks later

  4. Whites attacked Ekaterinodar, where Kornilov was killed, on 12 April
• General Denikin's actions

  1. Took over the command of the Whites

  2. Led the Whites back to the Don

  3. Found the Cossack farmers in revolt against the Bolsheviks

  4. Recaptured Rostov with the Cossacks
• By mid-June 40,000 Cossacks had joined General Krasnov's Don Army
• Cossacks and Whites recapturing Rostov

  In a strong position to strike north towards the Volga and link up with the Czechs and the Komuch army against the Bolsheviks
• Czech Legion


  A force of 35,000 Czech and Slovak prisoners of war on Soviet soil, determined to fight for their country's independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire
• The Czech Legion took the Volga town of Samara and installed the SR-dominated government called the Komuch (Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly) which mobilized a fragile conscript army from the peasantry to overthrow the Bolsheviks and Brest-Litovsk
• White and Czech Legion victories

  • Made it clear to Trotsky, Commissar of War, that the Red Army had to be reformed on the model of the tsarist conscript army
  • With regular units replacing the Red Guards
  • Proper discipline in the ranks
  • Professional officers
  • A centralized hierarchy of command
• There was a lot of opposition to these policies among the party's rank and file
• Trotsky's conscription of ex-tsarist officers

  75,00 were to be recruited
• The party's rank and file saw Trotsky's conscription of ex-tsarist officers as a return to the old military order and a hindrance to their own promotion as 'Red officers'
• Trotsky ridiculed his critics' arguments: revolutionary zeal was no substitute for military expertise
• Mass conscription (introduced in June 1918)


  1. Red Army grew to one million men by the spring of 1919

  2. Red Army grew to 3 million by 1920

  3. Red Army grew to 5 million by the end of the civil war
• The Red Army grew faster than the devastated Soviet economy was able to supply guns, food and clothes
• Soldiers lost morale and deserted in their thousands

  Taking their weapons and their uniforms
• New recruits had to be thrown into battle without proper training


  They in turn were even more likely to desert
• The Red Army was thus drawn into a vicious circle of mass conscription, supply shortages and mass desertion
• The vicious circle locked the whole economy into the system of War Communism where all production was geared towards the needs of the army
• reasons for red victory: unity and organisations

  reds->

  • The Bolsheviks had a single, unified command structure.​
  • Trotsky organised the Red Army into an effective fighting force.​ whites->
  • The Whites were made up of different groups - they could not agree on whether they were fighting for monarchism, republicanism or for the Constituent Assembly.​
• red victory: georaphics


  reds->

  • Bolsheviks held the central area, which included Petrograd + Moscow.​
  • Much more heavily populated - Red conscript army outnumbered Whites.​
  • Had industrial resources, armaments factories, Moscow, the rail hub.​ whites->
  • Whites were scattered around the edges of this central area, separated by large distances.​
  • This made communications and coordination difficult.​
  • No telephone links.​
• red victory: leadership

  reds->

  • Lenin used his authority to keep the Reds united, and he backed Trotsky’s controversial decision to use ex-tsarist officers.​
  • Trotsky lead the Red Army with great charisma.​
  • His special train covered 65,000 miles from front to front.​ whites->
  • White leaders were, on the whole, second rate.​
  • High levels of indiscipline and corruption in the White armies.​
  • Some officers lived in brothels in a haze of cocaine and vodka.​
• red victory: support

  reds->

  • peasants supplied the main body of soldiers for both sides (just as inclined to desert from the Red as from the White armies).​
  • Lenin has legitimised their right to land.​
  • They stood for revolution.​ whites->
  • lacked a political program with any appeal.​
  • If they won, the land would be restored to its former owners.​refusal to accept national independence movements was disastrous.​
  • Foreign support gave the Reds a propaganda victory​
• reds victory: propaganda and terror


  reds->

  • Agitprop trains​
  • Hugely superiod – red star became iconic​
  • The Reds gained recruits to their army by by giving defeated enemy troops and neutral civilians an ultimatum  - enlist or be executed! ​ whites->
  • Associated with old Government systems​
  • Didn’t see the value in propaganda​