{{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Russian Civil War , partof = the Russian Revolution, the aftermath of World War I, and the interwar period , image = Russian Civil War montage

, caption = Clockwise from top left: {{flatlist, *Soldiers of the Don Army *Soldiers of the

Siberian Army The Siberian Army (russian: Сибирская армия, Sibirskaya Armiya) was an anti-Bolshevik army during the Russian Civil War, which fought from June 1918 – July 1919 in Siberia – Ural Region. Background After the Bolsheviks' sei ...

*Bolshevik suppression of the

Kronstadt rebellion The Kronstadt rebellion ( rus, Кронштадтское восстание, Kronshtadtskoye vosstaniye) was a 1921 insurrection of Soviet sailors and civilians against the Bolshevik government in the Russian SFSR port city of Kronstadt. Loc ...

*American troops in Vladivostok during the Allied intervention *Victims of the Red Terror in

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...

*Hanging of Bolsheviks in

Yekaterinoslav Dnipro, previously called Dnipropetrovsk from 1926 until May 2016, is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper Rive ...

by
the

Austrians , pop = 8–8.5 million , regions = 7,427,759 , region1 = , pop1 = 684,184 , ref1 = , region2 = , pop2 = 345,620 , ref2 = , region3 = , pop3 = 197,990 , ref3 ...

*A review of Red Army troops in Moscow. , date = 7 November 1917 – 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued in Central Asia and

the Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The ter ...

through the 1920s and 1930s.{{sfn, Mawdsley, 2007, pp=3, 230
({{Age in months, weeks and days , month1=11, day1=07, year1=1917, month2=06, day2=16, year2=1923) {{Collapsible list , bullets = yes , title = Peace treaties ,

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (also known as the Treaty of Brest in Russia) was a separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire), that ended Russia's ...

Signed 3 March 1918
({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=11, day1=7, year1=1917, month2=3, day2=3, year2=1918) ,

Treaty of Tartu (Russian–Estonian) Treaty of Tartu may refer to: * Treaty of Tartu (Estonia–Russia) * Treaty of Tartu (Finland–Russia) , image = Treaty-of-Tartu.png , image_width = 150px , caption = The Finland–Russia border as decided in ...

Signed 2 February 1920
({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=11, day1=7, year1=1917, month2=2, day2=2, year2=1920) ,

Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty The Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty, also known as the Moscow Peace Treaty, was signed between Lithuania and Soviet Russia on July 12, 1920. In exchange for Lithuania's neutrality and permission to move its troops in the territory that was re ...

Signed 12 July 1920
({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=11, day1=7, year1=1917, month2=7, day2=12, year2=1920) ,

Treaty of Tartu (Russian–Finnish) Treaty of Tartu may refer to: * Treaty of Tartu (Estonia–Russia) * Treaty of Tartu (Finland–Russia) , image = Treaty-of-Tartu.png , image_width = 150px , caption = The Finland–Russia border as decided in ...

Signed 14 October 1920
({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=11, day1=7, year1=1917, month2=10, day2=14, year2=1920) ,

Latvian–Soviet Peace Treaty The Latvian–Soviet Peace Treaty, also known as the Treaty of Riga, was signed on 11 August 1920 by representatives of the Republic of Latvia and Soviet Russia. It officially ended the Latvian War of Independence. In Article II of the treat ...

Signed 11 August 1920
({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=11, day1=7, year1=1917, month2=8, day2=11, year2=1920) ,

Peace of Riga The Peace of Riga, also known as the Treaty of Riga ( pl, Traktat Ryski), was signed in Riga on 18 March 1921, among Poland, Soviet Russia (acting also on behalf of Soviet Belarus) and Soviet Ukraine. The treaty ended the Polish–Soviet Wa ...

Signed 17 September 1921
({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=11, day1=7, year1=1917, month2=9, day2=17, year2=1921) ,

Treaty of Kars The Treaty of Kars ( tr, Kars Antlaşması, rus, Карсский договор, Karskii dogovor, ka, ყარსის ხელშეკრულება, hy, Կարսի պայմանագիր, az, Qars müqaviləsi) was a treaty that est ...

Signed 13 October 1921
({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=11, day1=7, year1=1917, month2=9, day2=13, year2=1921) , place = Former

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

, Galicia,

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

Tuva Tuva (; russian: Тува́) or Tyva ( tyv, Тыва), officially the Republic of Tuva (russian: Респу́блика Тыва́, r=Respublika Tyva, p=rʲɪˈspublʲɪkə tɨˈva; tyv, Тыва Республика, translit=Tyva Respublika ...

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, result =

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

victory: * Collapse of the

Russian Republic The Russian Republic,. referred to as the Russian Democratic Federal Republic. in the 1918 Constitution, was a short-lived state which controlled, ''de jure'', the territory of the former Russian Empire after its proclamation by the Rus ...

and

Russian State Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries * Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and pe ...

Execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...

of the

Russian Imperial family The House of Romanov (also transcribed Romanoff; rus, Романовы, Románovy, rɐˈmanəvɨ) was the reigning imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after the Tsarina, Anastasia Romanova, was married to t ...

* Defeat and

exodus Exodus or the Exodus may refer to: Religion * Book of Exodus, second book of the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible * The Exodus, the biblical story of the migration of the ancient Israelites from Egypt into Canaan Historical events * Ex ...

of the White movement * Creation of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

in most of the former Empire * Creation of Bolshevist Mongolian and Tuvan states *

Expulsion Expulsion or expelled may refer to: General * Deportation * Ejection (sports) * Eviction * Exile * Expeller pressing * Expulsion (education) * Expulsion from the United States Congress * Extradition * Forced migration * Ostracism * Persona non ...

of many prominent Russian intellectuals and activists * Beginning of anti-Bolshevik resistance {{Ubl, Partial victory by

independence movements Presented below is a list of lists of active separatist movements: * List of active separatist movements in Africa * List of active separatist movements in Asia *List of active separatist movements in Europe * List of active separatist movement ...

:{{sfn, Bullock, 2008, p=7 *

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

, Latvia, Lithuania, and

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

gained independence *

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ' ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of t ...

Moldavia Moldavia ( ro, Moldova, or , literally "The Country of Moldavia"; in Romanian Cyrillic alphabet, Romanian Cyrillic: or ; chu, Землѧ Молдавскаѧ; el, Ἡγεμονία τῆς Μολδαβίας) is a historical region and for ...

and many other nations of the former Russian Empire are either annexed by the Bolsheviks or by other nations * Bolshevik puppet states in

, Latvia, Lithuania and

defeated , territory = {{Collapsible list , bullets = yes , title = Cessions to the

s , Establishment of the

, Establishment of Mongolian and Tuvan republics , Cession of Russia proper, Kuban,

Don Don, don or DON and variants may refer to: Places *County Donegal, Ireland, Chapman code DON *Don (river), a river in European Russia *Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name *Don, Benin, a town in Benin *Don, Dang, a vill ...

, Eastern Karelia,

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...

and

Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The ter ...

; Central, Southern, and

Eastern Ukraine Eastern Ukraine or east Ukraine ( uk, Східна Україна, Skhidna Ukrayina; russian: Восточная Украина, Vostochnaya Ukraina) is primarily the territory of Ukraine east of the Dnipro (or Dnieper) river, particularly Khar ...

; Eastern Belarus,

Northern Caucasus The North Caucasus, ( ady, Темыр Къафкъас, Temır Qafqas; kbd, Ишхъэрэ Къаукъаз, İṩxhərə Qauqaz; ce, Къилбаседа Кавказ, Q̇ilbaseda Kavkaz; , os, Цӕгат Кавказ, Cægat Kavkaz, inh, ...

Transcaucasia The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Arme ...

and

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

to the Soviet Union , Joint Sino-Soviet administration of the

Chinese Eastern Railway The Chinese Eastern Railway or CER (, russian: Китайско-Восточная железная дорога, or , ''Kitaysko-Vostochnaya Zheleznaya Doroga'' or ''KVZhD''), is the historical name for a railway system in Northeast China (als ...

until 1952 , Cession of

Uryankhay Krai Uryankhai Krai; , ; mn, Урянхайн хязгаар, Urianhain hiazgaar, ; was the name of what is today Tuva and was a short-lived protectorate of the Russian Empire that was proclaimed on 17 April 1914, created from the Uryankhay Republi ...

to Tuva , Cession of Bogd Khanate to Mongolia {{Collapsible list , bullets = yes , title = Cessions to national separatists , Independence of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland , Cession of

Vistula The Vistula (; pl, Wisła, ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest river in Europe, at in length. The drainage basin, reaching into three other nations, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in ...

Western Belarus Western Belorussia or Western Belarus ( be, Заходняя Беларусь, translit=Zachodniaja Bielaruś; pl, Zachodnia Białoruś; russian: Западная Белоруссия, translit=Zapadnaya Belorussiya) is a historical region of mod ...

and

Western Ukraine Western Ukraine or West Ukraine ( uk, Західна Україна, Zakhidna Ukraina or , ) is the territory of Ukraine linked to the former Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, which was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Austria ...

to Poland , Cession of

Grand Duchy A grand duchy is a country or territory whose official head of state or ruler is a monarch bearing the title of grand duke or grand duchess. Relatively rare until the abolition of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the term was often used in the o ...

and Petsamo to Finland , Cession of Autonomous Governorate to Estonia , Cession of Southern Livonia and Courland to Latvia , Cession of Northern Vilna and

Kovno Governorate Kovno Governorate ( rus, Ковенская губеpния, r=Kovenskaya guberniya; lt, Kauno gubernija) or Governorate of Kaunas was a governorate ('' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire. Its capital was Kaunas (Kovno in Russian). It was forme ...

to Lithuania {{Collapsible list , bullets = yes , title = Cessions to other nations , Cession of Bessarabia to

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

, Cession of Kars to

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

, Cession of concessions in

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popu ...

and

Hankou Hankou, alternately romanized as Hankow (), was one of the three towns (the other two were Wuchang and Hanyang) merged to become modern-day Wuhan city, the capital of the Hubei province, China. It stands north of the Han and Yangtze Rivers whe ...

to China , combatants_header = Main belligerents , combatant1 = {{Ubl ,

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

: , {{flagdeco, Russian SFSR, 1918

Russian SFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...

(1917–22) , {{flagicon image, Flag of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919-1929).svg

Ukrainian SSR The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( uk, Украї́нська Радя́нська Соціалісти́чна Респу́бліка, ; russian: Украи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респ ...

({{flagicon image, Flag of Ukrainian People's Republic of the Soviets.svg, size=15px 1917–18; 1918;
1919–22) , {{flagicon image, Flag of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (1919-1927).svg Byelorussian SSR
({{flagicon image, Flag_of_Byelorussian_SSR_(1919-1927).png, size=15px

1919 Events January * January 1 ** The Czechoslovak Legions occupy much of the self-proclaimed "free city" of Pressburg (now Bratislava), enforcing its incorporation into the new republic of Czechoslovakia. ** HMY ''Iolaire'' sinks off the ...

; {{flagicon image, Flag of the Lithuanian-Byelorussian SSR.svg, size=15px 1919–20;
1920–22) , {{flagicon image, Ru transcaucasia1922.png

Transcaucasian SFSR , conventional_long_name = Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic , common_name = Transcaucasian SFSR , p1 = Armenian Soviet Socialist RepublicArmenian SSR , flag_p1 = Flag of SSRA ...

(1922) , {{flagicon image, Flag of the Soviet Union (1922–1923).svg

(after 1922) {{Collapsible list , framestyle=border:none; padding:0; , title = Also{{nobold, : , {{flagicon image, Socialist red flag.svg Bessarabian SSR
(1919) , {{flagicon image, Red flag.svg Finnish SWR
(1918) , {{flagicon image, Red flag.svg D-KRSR
(1918) , {{flagicon image, Red flag.svg Harbin Soviet
(1917–18) , {{flagicon image, Red flag.svg Odessa SR
(1918) , {{flagicon image, Red flag.svg Taurida SSR
(1918) , {{flagicon image, Red flag.svg

Baku Commune Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world ...

(1918) , {{flagicon image, Red flag.svg Erzincan Soviet , {{flagicon image, Flag of the Commune of the Working People of Estonia.svg Estonian Commune
(1918–19) , {{flagicon image, Flag of the Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic (1918–1920).svg Latvian SSR
(1918–20) , {{flagicon image, Flag of the Lithuanian-Byelorussian SSR.svg

Lithuanian SSR The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (Lithuanian SSR; lt, Lietuvos Tarybų Socialistinė Respublika; russian: Литовская Советская Социалистическая Республика, Litovskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialistiche ...

(1918–19) , {{flagicon image, Iskolata karogs.svg

Iskolat The Iskolat (russian: Исколат, lv, Iskolats) was the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers, Soldiers, and the Landless in Latvia (Исполнительный комитет Совета рабочих, солдатских и бе� ...

(1917–18) , {{flagdeco, Far Eastern Republic Far Eastern Republic
(1920–22) , {{flagicon image, Flag of the Galician SSR.svg

Galician SSR The Galician Soviet Socialist Republic was a short-lived, self-declared Bolshevik political entity that existed from 15 July to formally 21 September 1920 with the capital in the city of Tarnopol. The communist state was established during a suc ...

(1920) , {{flagicon image, Red flag.svg Polrewkom
(1920) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Persian Socialist Soviet Republic.svg Persian SSR
(1920–21) , {{flagicon image, Flag of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (1922).svg Armenian SSR
(1920–22) , {{flagicon image, Flag of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (1920).svg Azerbaijan SSR
(1920–22) , {{flagicon image, Red flag.svg

Mughan Soviet Republic The Mughan Soviet Republic was a short-lived pro-Bolshevik state that existed in present-day southeastern Azerbaijan from March to June 1919. It was founded in opposition to the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in Baku. It was proclaimed mostly by t ...

(1919) , {{flagicon image, Flag of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (1921–1922).svg

Georgian SSR The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (Georgian SSR; ka, საქართველოს საბჭოთა სოციალისტური რესპუბლიკა, tr; russian: Грузинская Советская Соц� ...

(1921–22) , {{flagicon image, Flag of the SSR Abkhazia.svg SSR Abkhazia
(after 1921) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Khiva 1920-1923.svg Khorezm PSR
(after 1920) , {{flagicon image, Flag of the Bukharan People's Soviet Republic.svg Bukharan PSR
(after 1920) ---- {{ubl , Supported by: , {{Flagicon image, Flag of the Chinese Communist Party (Pre-1996).svg

Chinese communists The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Ci ...

(1917–23) , {{flagicon image, Red flag.svg Latvian Riflemen
(1917–20) , {{flagicon image, Flag of the People's Republic of Mongolia (1921-1924).svg

Mongolian People's Party The Mongolian People's Party (MPP) is a social democratic political party in Mongolia. It was founded as a communist party in 1920 by Mongolian revolutionaries and is the oldest political party in Mongolia. The party played an important role ...

(1920–23) , {{flagicon image, Flag of United Kingdom.svg

Murmansk Legion The Murmansk Legion, also known as the Finnish Legion, was a British Royal Navy organized military unit during the 1918–1919 Allied North Russia Intervention. It was composed of Finnish Red Guards who had fled after the Finnish Civil War from ...

{{efn, Viena expedition#British Intervention
(1918–19) , combatant2 = {{Ubl , {{nowrap, {{flagicon image, Flag of Russia.svg

{{Efn, ''De facto'' deposed after the Bolshevik Coup of November 1917; formally abolished in January 1918 after the dissolution of the

Constituent Assembly A constituent assembly (also known as a constitutional convention, constitutional congress, or constitutional assembly) is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected b ...

. The White movement then promised to convey a new constituent assembly and reestablish the state accordingly with its decisions.
(1917–18) * Svoboda, Kadet symbol

Kadets *

Octobrists The Union of 17 October (russian: Союз 17 Октября, ''Soyuz 17 Oktyabrya''), commonly known as the Octobrist Party (Russian: Октябристы, ''Oktyabristy''), was a liberal-reformist constitutional monarchist political party in ...

Progressive Party Progressive Party may refer to: Active parties * Progressive Party, Brazil * Progressive Party (Chile) * Progressive Party of Working People, Cyprus * Dominica Progressive Party * Progressive Party (Iceland) * Progressive Party (Sardinia), Ita ...

---- {{Ubl , White movement{{nobold, : , {{flagicon image, Flag of Russia.svg

South Russia South Russia may refer: * Southern Russia * South Russia (1919–1920), a territory that existed during the Russian Civil War ** South Russian Government ** Government of South Russia See also

* South Russian Ovcharka, a breed of sheepdog * Sou ...

(1917–19; Mar–Apr,
Apr–Nov 1920) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Russia.svg

(1918–20) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Russia.svg

Priamurye Amur Oblast ( rus, Аму́рская о́бласть, r=Amurskaya oblast, p=ɐˈmurskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located on the banks of the Amur and Zeya Rivers in the Russian Far East. The administrative ...

(after 1921) {{Collapsible list , framestyle=border:none; padding:0; , title = {{nowrap, Also{{nobold, : , {{flagicon image, Flag_of_the_Ural_government_(1918).svg Provisional Regional Government of the Urals
(1918) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Provisional Siberian Government.svg Omsk Siberian Government (1918) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Provisional Siberian Government.svg Vladivostok Siberian Government (1918) , {{flagdeco, Russia

Transcaspian Government The Transcaspian Government (1918 - July 1919) was a "Menshevik- Socialist Revolutionary" coalition set up by the Railway workers of the Trans-Caspian Railway in 1918. It was based at Ashgabat, Transcaspian Oblast. Origin Autonomous sentiments ...

(1918–20) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Provisional Siberian Government.svg Transbaikal Republic
(1917–20) , {{flagicon image, Red flag.svg Komuch
(1918) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Russia.svg

North Russia Russian North (russian: Русский Север) is an ethnocultural region situated in the northwestern part of Russia. It spans the regions of Arkhangelsk Oblast, the Republic of Karelia, Komi Republic, Vologda Oblast and Nenets Autonomous ...

(1918, 1918–20) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Russia.svg

Northwest Russia Northwest Russia, or the Russian North is the northern part of western Russia. It is bounded by Norway, Finland, the Arctic Ocean, the Ural Mountains and the east-flowing part of the Volga. The area is roughly coterminous with the Northwestern ...

(1918–19) , {{flagicon image, Flag of the Crimean Regional_Government.svg

(1918–19) , {{flagdeco, Russia

Provisional Military Dictatorship of Mughan The Provisional Military Dictatorship of Mughan was a British-controlled anti-communist short-lived state founded in the Lankaran region on August 1, 1918. The Mughan government did not support independence of Azerbaijan and it was led by white ...

(1918–19) , {{flagicon, Don Republic

Don Republic __NOTOC__ The Don Republic (russian: Донская Республика, later known as the Almighty Don Host, or russian: Всевеликое Войско Донское, ''Vsevelikoye Voysko Donskoye'') was an independent self-proclaimed anti- ...

(1918–20) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Kuban People's Republic.svg Kuban People's Republic, Kuban Republic
(1918–20) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Russia.svg Eastern Okraina
(1920) , {{flagdeco, Russia Tambov Rebellion, Tambov Land
(1921) ---- {{ubl , framestyle=border:none; padding:0; , Supported by: , {{flagicon image, Flag of Alash Autonomy.svg Alash Autonomy, Alash-Orda
(1917–18) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Bashkortostan (1918).svg Bashkiria (1917–1919), Bashkurdistan
(1917–19) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Ukrainian People's Republic 1917.svg West Ukrainian People's Republic, West Ukraine
(1919) , Flag of Bogd Khaanate Mongolia

Bogd Khanate, Mongolia
(1921) , {{flagicon image, State flag of Persia (1907–1933).svg, 23px

(1919–20) , combatant3 = {{ubl , framestyle=border:none; padding:0; , Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War, Separatists: , {{flagdeco, Poland, 1919

(1918–21) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Finland (1918–1920).svg

{{efn, Also assisted Estonians, Karelians and Ingrian Finns, Ingrians during Heimosodat of 1918–1922.
(1917–18) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Ukrainian People's Republic 1917.svg

(1917–18; 1918–20) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Belarus (1918, 1991–1995).svg

(1918–20) , {{flag, Estonia
(1918–20) , {{flag, Latvia
(1918–20) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Lithuania (1918–1940).svg Lithuania
(1918–20) {{Collapsible list , framestyle=border:none; padding:0; , title = Also{{nobold, : , {{flagicon image, Flag of Alash Autonomy.svg Alash Autonomy, Alash-Orda
(1917–18) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Bashkortostan (1918).svg Bashkiria (1917–1919), Bashkurdistan
(1917–19) , 5={{flagicon image, Flag of Ukrainian People's Republic 1917.svg West Ukrainian People's Republic, West Ukraine
(1918–19) , 6={{flagicon image, Flaga Litwy Środkowej.svg, 23px Republic of Central Lithuania, Central Lithuania
(1920–22) , 7={{flagicon image, Flag of the Moldavian Democratic Republic.svg, 23px

(1917–18) , 8= {{flagicon image, Flag of the Transcaucasian Federation.svg Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, Transcaucasia
(1918) , 9={{flagicon, Democratic Republic of Georgia Democratic Republic of Georgia, Georgia
(1918–21) , 10={{flagicon image, Flag of the First Republic of Armenia.svg First Republic of Armenia, Armenia
(1918–20; Republic of Mountainous Armenia, 1921) , 11={{flagicon image, Flag of the Turkestan (Kokand) Autonomy.svg Turkestan Autonomy, Turkestan
(1917–18) , 12={{flagicon image, Flag of the Centrocaspian Dictatorship.svg Centrocaspian Dictatorship, Centrocaspia
(1918) , 13={{flagicon image, Flag of the Republic of Aras.svg Republic of Aras, Aras
(1918–19) , 14={{flagicon image, Flag of North Caucasian Emirate.svg North Caucasian Emirate, Caucasian Emirate
(1919–20) , 15={{flagicon image, Flag of Azerbaijan 1918.svg

(1918–20) , 16={{flagicon image, Flag of the Mountain Republic.svg Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus, Northern Caucasus
(1917–21) , 17={{flagicon image, Flag of Green Ukraine.svg Green Ukraine
(1918–22) , 18=State of Buryat-Mongolia, Buryat-Mongolia
(1917–21) , 19={{flagicon image, flag of the German Empire.svg Yakutia (1918), Yakutia
(1918) , 20={{flagicon image, Confederated Republic of Altai Flag.svg Karakorum Government, Altai
(1917–20; 1921–22) , 23={{flagicon image, Karelian National Flag.svg Republic of Uhtua, Karelia
(1918–20; Olonets Government of Southern Karelia, 1920; Karelian United Government, 1920–23) , 24={{flagicon image, Ingrian people.svg North Ingria
(1919–20) , 27= Bandera del Turquestan

Basmachi movement, Basmachi
(1918–22) , 28= Flag of the Emirate of Bukhara

Emirate of Bukhara, Bukhara
(1920) , 29={{flagicon image, Flag of the Khanate of Khiva.svg Khanate of Khiva, Khiva
(1918–20) ---- {{Ubl , Supported by: , {{flagicon image, Flag of Sweden.svg Kingdom of Sweden, Sweden{{efn, Finnish Civil War
(1918) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Hungary (1918-1919).svg First Hungarian Republic, Hungary{{efn, Polish-Soviet War
(1919–20) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Afghanistan (1919–1921).svg Emirate of Afghanistan, Afghanistan{{efn, Basmachi movement
(until 1922) , combatant1a = {{Ubl , Anti-Bolshevik left: , {{flagicon image, Red flag.svg Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, Left SRs{{Efn, Aligned with the Bolsheviks until March 1918, when they fell out over the

. Most Left SRs opposed the Bolsheviks afterward, but a minority of Left SRs remained allied to the Bolsheviks for years after.
(1917–21) , Green armies, Green Army{{Efn, Aligned with the Bolsheviks until 1919; opposed after.
(1918–21) , {{flagicon image, Махновское знамя.svg Makhnovshchina{{Efn, Aligned with the Bolsheviks until 1920; opposed after.
(1918–21) , {{flagicon image, Petropavlovsk-Krondstadt flag.svg Kronstadt rebels
(1921) , combatant2a = {{Ubl , Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, Allied Powers: , {{flagcountry, Empire of Japan{{Efn, Japan also stayed in North Sakhalin Soviet–Japanese Basic Convention, until 1925.
(1918–22) , {{flagcountry, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
(1918–20) , {{flag, United States, 1912
(1918–20) , {{flagcountry, French Third Republic
(1918–20) {{Collapsible list , title = Also{{nobold, : , framestyle=border:none; padding:0; , {{flagcountry, First Czechoslovak Republic, 1918
(1918–20) , {{flagcountry, Kingdom of Greece, state , {{flagicon, Kingdom of Serbia Kingdom of Serbia, Serbia
({{flagicon, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, size=15px Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, after 1918) , {{flagcountry, Kingdom of Romania , {{flagcountry, Kingdom of Italy , {{flagdeco, Republic of China (1912–1949), 1912 China , {{flag, Canada, 1907
(1918–19) , {{flag, Australia
(1918–19) , {{flag, British Raj, name=India , {{flag, Union of South Africa, name=South Africa, 1912 , combatant3a = {{Ubl , {{nowrap, Central Powers intervention in the Russian Civil War, Central Powers: , {{nowrap, {{flagcountry, German Empire, name=Germany
(1917–18; {{flagicon, Weimar Republic, size=15px Weimar Republic, 1919) , {{nowrap, {{flagcountry, Austria-Hungary
(1917–18) , {{nowrap, {{flagcountry, Ottoman Empire
(1917–18; Government of the Grand National Assembly, 1920–21) , {{flagicon image, Flag of the Iron Division Freikorps.svg Freikorps in the Baltic, Freikorps
(1918–19) {{Collapsible list , framestyle=border:none; padding:0; , title = Also{{nobold, : , {{flagicon image, Flag of Poland.svg Kingdom of Poland (1917–1918), Kingdom of Poland
(1917–18) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Finland (1918–1920).svg Kingdom of Finland (1918), Kingdom of Finland
(1918) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Lithuania (1918–1940).svg Kingdom of Lithuania (1918), Kingdom of Lithuania
(1918) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Belarus (1918, 1991–1995).svg

(1918–19) , {{flagicon image, Flag of the Ukranian State.svg Ukrainian State
(1918) , {{flagicon, Democratic Republic of Georgia Democratic Republic of Georgia, Georgia
(1918) , {{flagicon image, Baltic German.svg Baltische Landeswehr, Landeswehr
(1918–20) , {{flagicon image, WestRussianVolunteerArmy.svg, size=23px West Russian Volunteer Army, Bermontians
(1918–20){{efn, Official allegiance to the

Unofficial allegiance to the German Empire , commander1 = {{flagdeco, Russian SFSR, 1918{{flagicon image, Flag of the Soviet Union (1922–1923).svg Vladimir Lenin
{{flagdeco, Russian SFSR, 1918{{flagicon image, Flag of the Soviet Union (1922–1923).svg Leon Trotsky
{{flagdeco, Russian SFSR, 1918 Yakov Sverdlov{{KIA, Spanish flu
{{flagdeco, Russian SFSR, 1918{{flagicon image, Flag of the Soviet Union (1922–1923).svg Jukums Vācietis
{{nowrap, {{flagdeco, Russian SFSR, 1918{{flagicon image, Flag of the Soviet Union (1922–1923).svg Sergey Kamenev
{{flagdeco, Russian SFSR, 1918{{flagicon image, Flag of the Soviet Union (1922–1923).svg Nikolai Podvoisky
{{flagdeco, Russian SFSR, 1918{{flagicon image, Flag of the Soviet Union (1922–1923).svg Nikolai Krylenko
{{flagdeco, Russian SFSR, 1918{{flagicon image, Flag of the Soviet Union (1922–1923).svg Joseph Stalin
{{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
{{flagicon image, Flag_of_the_Byelorussian_Soviet_Socialist_Republic_(1919-1927).svg{{flagicon image, Flag of the Soviet Union (1922–1923).svg Vilhelm Knorin
{{flagicon image, Flag of Far Eastern Republic.svg Alexander Krasnoshchyokov , commander2 = {{nowrap, {{flagicon image, Flag of Russia.svg Alexander Kerensky{{Surrendered
{{nowrap, {{flagicon image, Flag of Russia.svg Alexander Kolchak{{Executed
{{flagicon image, Flag of Russia.svg Lavr Kornilov{{KIA
{{flagicon image, Flag of Russia.svg Anton Denikin
{{flagicon image, Flag of Russia.svg Pyotr Wrangel
{{flagicon image, Flag of Russia.svg Nikolai Yudenich
{{flagicon image, Flag of Russia.svg Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov, Grigory Semyonov
{{flagicon image, Flag of Russia.svg Yevgeny Miller
{{flagicon image, Flag of Russia.svg Mikhail Diterikhs
{{flagicon image, Flag of Russia.svg{{flagicon, Don Republic Pyotr Krasnov
{{flagicon image, Flag of Russia.svg Flag of Bogd Khaanate Mongolia

Roman von Ungern-Sternberg{{Executed , commander3 = {{nowrap, {{flagicon, Poland, 1919 Józef Piłsudski
{{nowrap, {{flagicon image, Flag of Finland (1918–1920).svg C.G.E. Mannerheim
{{flagicon image, Flag of Ukrainian People's Republic 1917.svg Symon Petliura
{{nowrap, {{flagicon, Belarusian Democratic Republic Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz, S. Bułak-Bałachowicz
{{flagdeco, Estonia Konstantin Päts
{{flagdeco, Latvia Jānis Čakste
{{nowrap, {{flagicon image, Flag of Lithuania (1918–1940).svg Antanas Smetona
{{flagicon image, Flag of the Moldavian Democratic Republic.svg, 23px Ion Inculeț
{{flagicon, Democratic Republic of Georgia Noe Zhordania
{{flagicon image, Flag of the First Republic of Armenia.svg Alexander Khatisian, A. Khatisian
{{flagicon image, Flag of Azerbaijan 1918.svg Nasib bey Yusifbeyli, Nasib Yusifbeyli
Bandera del Turquestan

Enver Pasha{{KIA , commander1a = {{flagicon image, Red flag.svg Vladimir Vol'skii, Vladimir Volsky
{{flagicon image, Red flag.svg Maria Spiridonova
{{flagicon image, Red flag.svg Nykyfor Hryhoriv{{KIA, Killed in Action
{{flagicon image, Махновское знамя.svg Nestor Makhno
{{flagicon image, Petropavlovsk-Krondstadt flag.svg Stepan Maximovich Petrichenko, Stepan Petrichenko
Leaders of the Russian Civil War, …''and others'' , commander2a = {{flagdeco, Empire of Japan Otani Kikuzo
{{flagdeco, United Kingdom Edmund Ironside, 1st Baron Ironside, Edmund Ironside
{{flagdeco, United States, 1912 William S. Graves
{{flagicon, Czechoslovakia, 1918 Radola Gajda
{{flagdeco, France, 1830 Maurice Janin
{{flagicon, Poland, 1919 Ludomir Junosza-Stępowski{{KIA ''and others'' , commander3a = {{flagicon, German Empire Hermann von Eichhorn, H. von Eichhorn{{KIA
{{flagicon, Ottoman Empire Nuri Killigil, Nuri Pasha
{{flagdeco, Belarus, 1991, link=no Jan Sierada
{{flagicon image, Flag of the Ukranian State.svg Pavlo Skoropadskyi
{{nowrap, {{flagicon image, WestRussianVolunteerArmy.svg, size=23px Pavel Bermondt-Avalov, P. Bermondt-Avalov
…''and others'' , strength1 = {{Ubl , Soviet Red Army Hammer and Plough

Red Army:
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 ---- {{Ubl , {{flagicon image, Death to oppressors of workers.svg Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine, Makhnovtsi:
103,000 (peak) , {{flagicon image, Darker_green_and_Black_flag.svg Green armies, Green Army:
70,000 (peak) , {{flagicon image, Petropavlovsk-Krondstadt flag.svg Kronstadt rebellion, Kronstadt Mutineers:
17,961 , strength2 = {{Ubl , Volunteer Army Insignia

White Army:
1,023,000 (peak){{efn, 683,000 active
340,000 reserve {{Collapsible list , bullets = no , title = Local forces{{nobold, : , Volunteer Army Insignia

Armed Forces of South Russia, AFSR: 270,000 (peak) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Siberia.svg

: 60,000 (peak) , Flag of the Ural government (1918)

People's Army of Komuch, Komuch Army: 30,000 (peak) , СЗА нарукавный знак

Northwestern Army (Russia), Northwestern Army: 18,500 (peak) , Volunteer Army Insignia

Northern Army (Russia), Northern Army: 54,700 (peak) , Volunteer Army Insignia

Western Army of the White Movement, Western Army: 48,000 (peak) , Volunteer Army Insignia

Orenburg Independent Army, Orenburg Army: 25,000 (peak) , Volunteer Army Insignia

Ural Army: 17,200 (peak) ---- {{Ubl , {{flagicon image, War flag of the Imperial Japanese Army (1868–1945).svg Imperial Japanese Army, Japanese Army: 70,000 (peak) , Coat of arms of the Czechoslovak Legion

Czechoslovak Legion: 50,000 (peak) {{Collapsible list , framestyle=border:none; padding:0; , title = Also{{nobold, : , {{flagicon, United States, 1912 American Expeditionary Force, Siberia, AEF, Siberia:
7,950 , {{flagicon, United Kingdom, 1801 British Army:
57,636 , {{flagicon, Kingdom of Romania Romanian Army:
50,000 , {{flagicon, France, 1830 French Army:
15,600 , {{army, Greece:
23,000 , {{flagicon, Canada, 1868 Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force, CSEF:
~5,000 , {{flagicon, United States, 1912 American Expeditionary Force, North Russia, AEF, North Russia:
5,000 , {{flagicon image, Flag_of_Italy_(1860).svg Legione Redenta:
2,500 , Beiyang star

Beiyang Army:
2,300 , {{flagicon, Kingdom of Serbia Serbian Army:
2,000 , {{flagicon image, Flag of the Royal Indian Army.svg British Indian Army:
950 , {{flagicon image, Flag of Australia (converted).svg Australian Army:
150 , strength3 = {{Ubl , Orzełek II RP

Polish Armed Forces (Second Polish Republic), Polish Army: ~1,000,000 (peak) , Coat of arms of Finland

Finnish Army:
90,000 (peak) {{Collapsible list , framestyle=border:none; padding:0; , title = Also{{nobold, : , Coat of Arms of UNR

Ukrainian People's Army, Ukrainian Army: 100,000 (peak)
Belarusian Democratic Republic#History, Belarusian Army: 11,000 (peak) ---- Supported by: , Royal Hungarian Army, Hungarian Army:
30,000 (peak) ---- , Latvian National Armed Forces, Latvian Army:
69,232 (peak) , Maavagi_crest

Estonian Defence Forces, Estonian Army:
86,000 (peak) , Insignia_of_the_Lithuanian_Armed_Forces

Lithuanian Armed Forces, Lithuanian Army:
20,000 (peak) ---- , {{flagicon image, Flag of Finland (1918–1920).svg White Guard (Finland), Finnish Volunteers:
8,000 (peak) , {{flagicon image, Flag of Karel.svg Forest Guerrillas:
2,000 (peak) ---- , {{flagicon image, Flag of the Swedish Brigade (Ruotsalainen prikaati).svg Swedish Brigade:
1,000 (peak) ---- {{Ubl , {{flagicon image, Kaiserstandarte.svg German Army (German Empire), German Army:
~547,000 (peak) {{flagicon, Ottoman Empire Islamic Army of the Caucasus, Ottoman Army:
20,000 (peak) {{Collapsible list , framestyle=border:none; padding:0; , title = Also{{nobold, : , {{flagicon image, Flag_of_Germany_(3-2_aspect_ratio).svg Weimar Republic, Saxon Volunteers:
10,000 (peak) , {{flagicon, Ottoman Empire Turkish Land Forces, Turkish Army:
20,000 (peak) , {{flagicon image, Flag of the Iron Division Freikorps.svg Freikorps in the Baltic, Iron Division:
14,000 (peak) , {{flagicon image, Baltic German.svg Baltische Landeswehr, Landeswehr:
10,500 (peak) , {{flagicon image, WestRussianVolunteerArmy.svg West Russian Volunteer Army, Bermontians:
50,000 (peak) , casualties1 = {{Ubl , {{flagicon image, Red Army flag.svg ~1,500,000{{sfn, Smele, 2016, p=160 * 259,213 killed
{{citation needed , date=October 2020 * 60,059 missing
{{citation needed , date=October 2020 * 616,605 died of disease/wounds
{{citation needed , date=October 2020 * 3,878 died in accidents/suicides
{{citation needed , date=October 2020 * 548,857 wounded/frostbitten{{sfn, Krivosheev, 1997, p=7-38{{efn, There were an additional 6,242,926 hospitalizations from sickness. , casualties2 = {{ubl , {{flagicon image, Flag of Russia.svg ~1,500,000{{sfn, Smele, 2016, p=160 * 127,000 killed
{{citation needed , date=October 2020 * 784,000 executed/dead
{{citation needed , date=October 2020 * 450,000 wounded/sick
{{citation needed , date=October 2020 ---- {{Ubl , {{flagicon, Czechoslovakia, 1918 13,000 killed , {{flagdeco, Empire of Japan 6,500 killed , {{flagicon, United Kingdom 938+ killed , {{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 ---- {{Ubl , {{flagicon, Ottoman Empire 1,500 killed , {{flagicon, German Empire 500 killed , casualties4 = 7,000,000–12,000,000 total casualties, including
civilians and non-combatants
1–2 million White émigré, refugees outside Russia , campaignbox = {{Campaignbox Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War{{Efn, russian: Гражданская война в России, Grazhdanskaya voyna v Rossii (7 November 1917 — 16 June 1923){{sfn, Mawdsley, 2007, p={{page needed, date=August 2023 was a multi-party civil war in the former

sparked by the overthrowing of the social-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, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 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 List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy ended with the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, Nicholas II during the February Revolution, and Russia was in a state of political flux. A tense summer culminated in the Bolsheviks, Bolshevik-led October Revolution, overthrowing the Russian Provisional Government, Provisional Government of the new

. 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 Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Bolshevik-led socialist state headed by Vladimir Lenin, and the loosely allied forces known as the White movement, White Army, which functioned as a political big tent for right-wing politics, right- and left-wing politics, left-wing opposition to Bolshevik rule. 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.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 Thirteen foreign nations intervened against the Red Army, notably the Allied intervention, whose primary goal was re-establishing the Eastern Front (World War I), Eastern Front of World War I. Three foreign nations of the Central Powers also intervened, rivaling the Allied intervention with the main goal of retaining the territory they had received in the

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, 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 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

. In 1919, the White Army launched several offensives from Spring offensive of the White Army, 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. 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

was signed, splitting disputed territories in Belarusian Democratic Republic, Belarus and

between the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland and Soviet Russia. Soviet Russia sought to re-conquer all newly Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War, independent nations of the former Empire, although their success was limited. Estonian War of Independence, Estonia, Finnish Civil War, Finland, 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, Soviet Russia had defeated the Ukrainian national movements and occupied the Caucasus, although Basmachi movement, anti-Bolshevik uprisings in

lasted until the late 1920s.{{sfn, Hall, 2015, p=84 The armies under 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, anti-Bolshevik resistance was sporadic for several years until the collapse of the White Army in Sakha Republic, Yakutia in June 1923, but continued on 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

Background

World War I

{{Main, World War I The

fought in World War I from 1914 alongside French Third Republic, France and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom (Triple Entente) against German Empire, Germany, Austria-Hungary and later the Ottoman Empire (Central Powers).

February Revolution

{{Main, February Revolution 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. Russia was proclaimed a Russian Republic, republic in September of the same year.

October Revolution

{{Main, 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 Kornilov affair, failed military coup by General Lavr Kornilov in September 1917 led to a surge in support for the Bolsheviks, Bolshevik party, who Bolshevization of the Soviets, bolshevized 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, Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, 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 politics, far-left allies, such as the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, after their acceptance of the terms of the

presented by the German Empire.{{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

Formation of the Red Army

{{Main, Red Army From mid-1917 onwards, the Russian Army (1917), Russian Army, the successor-organisation of the old Imperial Russian Army, started to disintegrate; the Bolsheviks used the volunteer-based Red Guards (Russia), Red Guards as their main military force, augmented by an armed military component of the Cheka (the Bolshevik state Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, secret police). In January 1918, after significant Bolshevik reverses in combat, the future People's Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs of the Russian SFSR, 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 in the Soviet Union, conscription of the rural peasantry into the Red Army. 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. The forced conscription drive had mixed results, successfully creating a larger army than the Whites, but with members indifferent towards Communism, communist ideology. The Red Army also utilized former Tsarist officers as "military specialists" (''voenspetsy'');{{harvnb, Overy, 2004, p=446 By the end of the civil war, one-third of all Red Army officers were ex-Tsarist ''voenspetsy''" sometimes their families were taken hostage in order to ensure their loyalty.Williams, Beryl, ''The Russian Revolution 1917–1921'', Blackwell Publishing Ltd. (1987), {{ISBN, 978-0-631-15083-1 At the start of the civil war, former Tsarist officers formed three-quarters of the Red Army officer-corps. By its end, 83% of all Red Army divisional and corps commanders were ex-Tsarist soldiers.

Anti-Bolshevik movement

{{Main, White movement, Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine, Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War The White movement ( 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 (Бѣлые / Белые, ''Beliye''), was a loose confederation of Anti-communism, anti-communist forces that fought the Communism, 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

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''). 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 the World War I, First World War, which, however, left a strong imprint on the specifics of the Civil War. During the Russian Civil War, the White movement functioned as a Big tent, 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 Alexander Kerensky, Kerenskyite social-democrats on the left through monarchists and supporters of a united multinational Russia to the ultra-nationalist Black Hundreds on the right.

Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, early Constituent Assembly rebellions

The

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 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.{{sfn, Carr, 1985, page=115 Viktor Chernov (1873-1952), Russian revolutionary (small)

Viktor Chernov (1873-1952), Russian revolutionary (small)

On January 4, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, VTsIK made a resolution saying the slogan "all power to the constituent assembly" was counterrevolutionary and equivalent to "down with the soviets".{{sfn, Carr, 1985, pages=115–116

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. 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 first large Cheka repression with some killings against the libertarian socialism, libertarian socialists of Petrograd began in mid-April 1918. On May 1, 1918, a pitched battle took place in Moscow between the anarchists and the Bolshevik police.{{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

Constituent Assembly uprising

The Union of Regeneration was founded in Moscow in April 1918 as an underground agency organizing democratic resistance to the Bolshevik dictatorship, composed of the Popular Socialists, Right Socialist Revolutionaries, and Defensists, among others. They were tasked with propping up anti-Bolshevik forces and to create a Russian state system based on civil liberties, patriotism, and state-consciousness with the goal to liberate the country from the "Germano-Bolshevik" yoke.{{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 On May 7, 1918, the Eighth Party Council of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, Party of Socialist Revolutionaries 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. While preparations were under way, the Czechoslovak Legions overthrew Bolshevik rule in

, 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.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.) The Social Revolutionary Provisional Siberian Government (Vladivostok), Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia came to power on June 29, 1918, after the uprising in Vladivostok.

Mensheviks and SRs excluded from soviets

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 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, Soviet government, or participated in sabotage, Collaborationism, collaboration with the deposed absolute monarchy, Tsarists, or made Assassination attempts on Vladimir Lenin, assassination attempts against Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders. 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. 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 Stalinism, Stalinist regime.

Repression

In December 1917, Felix Dzerzhinsky was appointed to the duty of rooting out Counter-revolutionary, counterrevolutionary 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. From early 1918, the Bolsheviks started physical elimination of opposition, other socialist and revolutionary fractions. Anarchism, Anarchists were among the first: {{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" 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: {{blockquote, Comrades! The kulak uprising in your five districts must be crushed without pity ... You must make example of these people. : (1) Hang (I mean hang publicly, so that people see it) at least 100 kulaks, rich bastards, and known bloodsuckers. : (2) Publish their names. : (3) Seize all their grain. : (4) Single out the hostages per my instructions in yesterday's telegram. 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 ... Yours, Lenin. P.S. Find tougher people., source=Lenin's Hanging Order 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:{{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. {{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. 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. Lenin attempt

{{Cleanup section, date=August 2023, reason=incomplete sentence starting with 'and sought to eliminate...'. Next sentence explains 'the term', which hasn't been introduced. On August 30, Socialist Revolutionary Party, Socialist Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan unsuccessfully Assassination attempts on Vladimir Lenin, attempted to assassinate Vladimir Lenin.Wilde, Robert. 2019 February 20.
The Red Terror
''ThoughtCo''. Retrieved March 24, 2021. and sought to eliminate political dissent, opposition, and any other threat to Bolshevik power. More broadly, the term is usually applied to Political repression in the Soviet Union, Bolshevik political repression throughout the Civil War (1917–1922), During interrogation by the Cheka, she made the following statement: {{Blockquote, "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 [now Kyiv]. I spent 11 years at hard labour. After the Revolution, I was freed. I favoured the

and am still for it".{{cite web, url=http://spartacus-educational.com/RUSkaplan.htm, title=Fanya Kaplan, work=Spartacus Educational Kaplan referenced the Bolsheviks' growing authoritarianism, citing their forcible shutdown of the Constituent Assembly in January 1918, the 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election, 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{{page needed, date=August 2021{{primary source inline, date=August 2021 on September 3, 1918, with a bullet to the back of the head.{{cite book , title=How Did They Die? , first1=Norman , last1=Donaldson , first2=Betty , last2=Donaldson , isbn=9780517403020 , page=221 , publisher=Greenwich House , date=January 1, 1983 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 Romanov family, murder of the Tsar and his family.{{cite journal , doi=10.2307/2498997 , jstor=2498997 , title=The 1918 Attempt on the Life of Lenin: A New Look at the Evidence , first=Semion , last=Lyandres , journal=Slavic Review , volume=48 , issue=3 , date=Autumn 1989 , pages=432–448 , publisher=Cambridge University Press, s2cid=155228899 {{rp, 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. The Red Terror is considered to have officially begun between 17 and 30 August 1918.{{Cite magazine, last=Bird, first=Danny, date=September 5, 2018, title=How the 'Red Terror' Exposed the True Turmoil of Soviet Russia 100 Years Ago, url=https://time.com/5386789/red-terror-soviet-history/ , access-date=2021-03-24, magazine=Time

Revolts against grain requisitioning

Protests against grain requisitioning of the peasantry were a major component of the Tambov Rebellion, 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 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. 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.

Allied intervention

{{Main, Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War 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 loans 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". 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 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.

Buffer states

The German Empire created several short-lived satellite state, satellite buffer states 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, the Belarusian People's Republic, and the Ukrainian State. Following Germany's Armistice in World War I in November 1918, the states were abolished. History of Finland, Finland was the first republic that Finnish Declaration of Independence, declared its Pro-independence movements in Russian Civil War, 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. 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.

Geography and chronology

{{Main, Southern Front of the Russian Civil War, North Russia Campaign, Eastern Front of the Russian Civil War, Yakut Revolt, Finnish Civil War 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. Volunteer Army infantry company

The first period lasted from the Revolution until the Armistice. Already on the date of the Revolution, Cossack General Alexey Kaledin refused to recognize it and assumed full governmental authority in the Don River, Russia, Don region, 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

out of the hands of the Provisional Government and White Army, setting up a base for the Communist Party in the Eurasian Steppe, Steppe and Russian Turkestan, Turkestan, where nearly two million Russian settlers were located.{{sfn, Wheeler, 1964, p=103 Uniformes (koltchak) 001

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, the Poles of the 4th Rifle Division (Poland), 4th and 5th Rifle Division (Poland), 5th Rifle Divisions and the pro-Bolshevik Latvian riflemen, 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

. General Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel, 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 Istanbul, Constantinople in November 1920.

Warfare

October Revolution

{{Main, October Revolution Russian civil war in the west

In the October Revolution, the Bolshevik Party directed the Red Guard (armed groups of workers and Imperial army deserters) to seize control of Saint Petersburg, Petrograd (Saint Petersburg) 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

{{Main, Kerensky-Krasnov uprising, Junker mutiny, Volunteer Army 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 Mikhailovich Semenov, 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 Vasilevich Alekseev, 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.{{sfn, Mawdsley, 2007, p=27 On 9 December, the Military Revolutionary Committee in Rostov-on-Don, 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."{{sfn, Kenez, 2004a, pp=64–67 Having stated in the November 1917 "Declaration of Rights of Peoples of Russia, 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.{{sfn, Coates, Coates, 1951, p=72 In April 1917 the Provisional Government set up the committee, which was mostly made up of former Tsarist officials.{{sfn, Wheeler, 1964, p=104 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.{{sfn, Coates, Coates, 1951, p=70 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.{{sfn, Coates, Coates, 1951, pp=68–69 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).{{sfn, Coates, Coates, 1951, p=74 The White Russians supported that government body, which lasted several months because of Bolshevik troop isolation from Moscow.{{sfn, Allworth, 1967, p=226 In January 1918 the Soviet forces, under Lt. Col. Mikhail Artemyevich Muravyov, Muravyov, invaded Ukraine and invested Kiev, where the Central Council of Ukraine, Central Council of the Ukrainian People's Republic held power. With the help of the Kiev Arsenal January Uprising, Kiev Arsenal Uprising, the Bolsheviks Battle of Kiev (1918), captured the city on 26 January.{{sfn, Mawdsley, 2007, p=35

Peace with the Central Powers

{{Main, Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Trotzki Deutsche Brest-Litowsk1917

The Bolsheviks decided to immediately make peace with the Central Powers, as they had promised the Russian people before the Revolution. 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. 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. 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. 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 nationalists 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 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. They also understood that the impending counterrevolutionary resistance was more dangerous than the concessions of the treaty, which Lenin viewed as temporary in the light of aspirations for a world revolution. 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)

{{Main, Ukrainian People's Republic, Kiev Arsenal January Uprising, Ice March, 26 Baku Commissars, German Caucasus Expedition, Battle of Baku, Central Caspian Dictatorship, Romanian military intervention in Bessarabia Dismembered Russia — Some Fragments (NYT article, Feb

Dismembered Russia — Some Fragments (NYT article, Feb

In Ukraine the German-Austro-Hungary, Austrian Operation Faustschlag had by April 1918 removed the Bolsheviks from Ukraine.{{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 {{in lang, uk}
100 years ago Bakhmut and the rest of Donbas liberated
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190501115243/http://www.istpravda.com.ua/short/2018/04/18/152320/ , date=1 May 2019 , Ukrayinska Pravda (18 April 2018){{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=liveGermany 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)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) 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. 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 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 (Ottoman Empire), Army of Islam (in coalition with

) drove them out of Baku on 26 July 1918. Subsequently, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Dashanaks, Right SRs and Mensheviks started negotiations with Gen. Lionel Dunsterville, Dunsterville, the commander of the British Empire, 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, Russia, Armavir and Stavropol. By early 1919, they controlled the

.{{sfn, Kenez, 2004a, pp=166–174, 182, 189–190 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.{{sfn, Kenez, 2004a, pp=195, 204, 267–270 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 the

.{{sfn, Kenez, 2004b, pp=28–29

Eastern Russia, Siberia and the Far East (1918)

{{Main, Revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion, Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly, Provisional All-Russian Government 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 Provisional Siberian Government (Omsk), 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 Nicholas II, and his family were Execution of the Romanov family, murdered.{{sfn, Chamberlin, 1935, pp=6–12, 91 Bolshveki killed at Vladivostok

The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries supported peasants fighting against Soviet control of food supplies. In May 1918, with the support of the Czechoslovak Legion, they took Samara Oblast, 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 day, 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 Benyamin Kayurov, 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.{{sfn, Daniels, 1993, p=70 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.{{sfn, Volkogonov, 1996, p=175 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. Kolchak1919troops

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 Revolutionary Party, Socialist-Revolutionaries. Nikolai Avksentiev and Vladimir Zenzinov, the Kadet lawyer V. A. Vinogradov, Siberian Premier Vologodskii, and General Vasily Boldyrev.{{sfn, Chamberlin, 1935, pp=20–21 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. Vladimir Kappel, 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, Russia, 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, Rear-Admiral Aleksandr Vasilevich Kolchak, 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."{{sfn, Chamberlin, 1935, pp=177–178 By mid-December 1918, the White armies had to leave Ufa, but they balanced that failure with a successful drive towards Perm, Russia, Perm, which they took on 24 December.

Barrier troops

In the Red Army of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR and later the

, 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).Dmitri Volkogonov, ''Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary'', transl. and edited by Harold Shukman, HarperCollins Publishers, London (1996), p. 180 The barrier troops comprised personnel drawn from the Cheka secret police 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 (RSFSR), Eastern front during the Russian Civil War, when Minister of Defence (Soviet Union), People's Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs (War Commissar) Leon Trotsky of the Communist

government 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. 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.

The barrier troops were also used to enforce Bolshevik control over food supplies in areas controlled by the Red Army as part of Vladimir Lenin, Lenin's war communism policies, a role which soon earned them the hatred of the Russian civilian population. These policies led to the Russian famine of 1921–1922, which killed about five million people.{{sfn, Mawdsley, 2007,
287
}

Central Asia (1918)

In February 1918 the Red Army overthrew the White Russian-supported Kokand Autonomy of Turkestan.{{sfn, Rakowska-Harmstone, 1970, p=19 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.{{sfn, Coates, Coates, 1951, p=75 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.{{sfn, Allworth, 1967, p=232

Left SR Uprising

{{Main, Left SR uprising, Yaroslavl Uprising On 6 July 1918, two Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and Cheka employees, Yakov Blumkin and Nikolai Andreyev, assassinated the German ambassador, Count Wilhelm Mirbach, 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.{{sfn, Chamberlin, 1935, pp=50–59

Estonia, Latvia and Petrograd

{{Main, Estonian War of Independence, Latvian War of Independence, Battle of Petrograd Estonia Estonian War of Independence, cleared its territory of the Red Army by January 1919. Baltische Landeswehr, Baltic German volunteers captured Riga from the Red Latvian Riflemen on 22 May, but the Estonian 3rd Division Battle of Cēsis (1919), defeated the Baltic Germans a month later, aiding the establishment of the Republic of Latvia.{{cite web , url=http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=6953 , title=Generalkommando VI Reservekorps, publisher=Axis History, access-date=11 April 2012, archive-date=4 March 2016 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304090953/http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=6953, url-status=live NikolaiYudenich1916

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". 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.{{sfn, Rosenthal, 2006, p=516 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 (Russian–Estonian), 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)

{{Main, North Russia intervention The British occupied Murmansk and, alongside the United States, Americans, seized Arkhangelsk. 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.

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 Eastern Front counteroffensive, 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. 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 Great Siberian Ice March, retreat of the Whites to the east. On 14 November 1919 the Red Army captured Omsk. 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, Zabaykalsky Krai, 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 Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Russia's 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 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 On 18 December 1918, French forces landed in Odessa (now Odesa) and then the Crimea, but evacuated Odessa on 6 April 1919, and the Crimea by the end of the month. According to Chamberlin, "But 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 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

. On 3 July, Denikin issued his Advance on Moscow (1919), Moscow directive, in which his armies would converge on Moscow.{{sfn, Kenez, 2004b, pp=37–41 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 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.{{sfn, Kinvig, 2006, p=225 The fall of Tsaritsyn is viewed "as one of the key battles of the Russian Civil War" and greatly helped the White Russian cause.{{sfn, Kinvig, 2006, p=225 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".Liddell Hart, Basil. "The Tanks: The History Of The Royal Tank Regiment And Its Predecessors, Heavy Branch Machine-Gun Corps, Tank Corps And Royal Tank Corps, 1914–1945. Vol I". Cassell: 1959, p. 211. 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.{{sfn, Kenez, 2004b, pp=43, 154 Wrangel after worship Tsaritsyn 1919

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 Klinom Krasnym Bej Belych

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, Vatsetis 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 Pyotr 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

Central Asia (1919)

By February 1919 the British government had pulled its military forces out of Central Asia.{{sfn, Allworth, 1967, p=231 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.{{sfn, Coates, Coates, 1951, p=76 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.{{sfn, Allworth, 1967, pp=232–233 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 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 others 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.

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 Makhnovshchina, 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.{{sfn, Kenez, 2004b, pp=236–239 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 (1920), 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. Tambov Rebellion

After Moscow's Bolshevik government signed a Starobilsk agreement, military and political alliance with Nestor Makhno and the anarchism in Ukraine, Ukrainian anarchists, the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine, 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. 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 Siege of Perekop (1920), Crimea in November 1920, pursued by both the Red and Black cavalry and infantry. Wrangel's fleet Evacuation of the Crimea (1920), evacuated him and his army to Constantinople on 14 November 1920, ending the struggle of Reds and Whites in Southern Russia.{{Sfn, Kenez, 1977, p={{page needed, date=August 2023 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 Bolshevik–Makhnovist conflict#Second phase (November 1920–August 1921), 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 rebellion, 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.{{sfn, Daniels, 1951, p=241{{sfn, Avrich, 2004, p=41 The Bolsheviks, in response to the protests, enacted martial law and sent the Red Army to disperse the workers.{{sfn, Chamberlin, 1987, p=440{{sfn, Figes, 1997, p=760 This was followed up by mass arrests executed by the Cheka.{{sfn, Avrich, 2004, p=52 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.{{sfn, Avrich, 2004, p=73 Disappointed in the direction of the Bolshevik government, the rebels demanded a series of reforms including: reduction in Bolshevik privileges, newly elected Soviet (council), soviet councils to include libertarian socialism, 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. 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.{{sfn, Figes, 1997, p=767{{sfn, Avrich, 1970, p=215{{sfn, Avrich, 1970, pp=210–211 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 of the CPSU Central Committee, politburo.{{efn, See note regarding Library of Congress Country Studies. Chapter 7 – The Communist Party. Democratic Centralism.{{citation needed, date=August 2023 Red Army attacks on the anarchist forces and their sympathisers increased in ferocity throughout 1921.

Siberia and the Far East (1920–22)

{{Main, Far Eastern Front in the Russian Civil War In Siberia, Admiral Kolchak's army had disintegrated. He himself gave up command after the loss of Omsk and designated Gen. Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov, 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 (Russia), 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.{{sfn, Mawdsley, 2007, pp=319–321 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

Ensuing rebellion

In Central Asia, Red Army troops continued to face resistance into 1923, where ''Basmachi Revolt, 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.{{sfn, Wheeler, 1964, p=107 General Anatoly Pepelyayev Yakut Revolt, continued armed resistance in the Ayano-Maysky District until June 1923. The regions of Kamchatka and Northern Sakhalin remained under Japanese occupation until their Soviet–Japanese Basic Convention, treaty with the Soviet Union in 1925, when their forces were finally withdrawn.

Casualties

{{overly detailed, section, date=June 2023 Streetkids RussianCivilWar

{{See also, Red Terror (Russia), White Terror (Russia) 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. 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. Refugees on flatcars

As many as 10 million lives were lost as a result of the Russian Civil War, and the overwhelming majority of these were civilian casualties. 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 50,000Stone, Bailey (2013). ''The Anatomy of Revolution Revisited: A Comparative Analysis of England, France, and Russia''. Cambridge University Press. p. 335. to highs of 140,000 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. According to Vadim Erlikhman's investigation, the number of the Red Terror's victims is at least 1,200,000 people. 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. 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 "chracterisation of terror in Russia", stating it matches reality. 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. 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 {{ill, Andrea Graziosi, it 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 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. 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. The White Terror, as it would become known, killed about 300,000 people in total. At the end of the Civil War the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR was exhausted and near ruin. The droughts of 1920 and 1921, as well as the Russian famine of 1921, 1921 famine, 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. 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. Another 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. 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 bartering, barter increasingly replacing money as a medium of exchange{{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 and, by 1921, heavy industry output had fallen to 20% of 1913 levels. 90% of wages were paid with goods rather than money. 70% of locomotives were in need of repair{{Citation needed, date=April 2021, 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. 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). 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. With the end of the war, the Communist Party 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—most notably the German Revolution—contributed to the continued militarisation of Soviet society. Although Russia experienced extremely rapid economic growth{{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 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

In fiction

Literature

* ''The Road to Calvary'' (1922–41) by Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy * ''Chapaev'' (1923) by Dmitri Furmanov * ''The Iron Flood'' (1924) by Alexander Serafimovich * ''Red Cavalry'' (1926) by Isaac Babel * ''The Rout'' (1927) by Alexander Alexandrovich Fadeyev, Alexander Fadeyev * ''Conquered City'' (1932) by Victor Serge * ''Futility'' (1922) by William Gerhardie * ''How the Steel Was Tempered'' (1934) by Nikolai Ostrovsky * ''Optimistic Tragedy'' (1934) by Vsevolod Vishnevsky * ''And Quiet Flows the Don'' (1928–1940) by Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, Mikhail Sholokhov * ''The Don Flows Home to the Sea'' (1940) by Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, Mikhail Sholokhov * ''Doctor Zhivago (novel), Doctor Zhivago'' (1957) by Boris Pasternak * ''Holidays in Caucasus'' (1965) by Maria Iordanidou * ''The White Guard'' (1966) by Mikhail Bulgakov * ''Byzantium Endures'' (1981) by Michael Moorcock * ''Chevengur'' (written in 1927, first published in 1988 in the USSR) by Andrei Platonov. * ''Fall of Giants'' (2010) by Ken Follett * ''A Splendid Little War'' (2012) by Derek Robinson (novelist)

Film

* ''Arsenal (1929 film), Arsenal'' (1928) * ''Storm Over Asia (1928 film), Storm Over Asia'' (1928) * ''Chapaev (film), Chapaev'' (1934) * ''Thirteen'' (1936), directed by Mikhail Romm * ''We Are from Kronstadt'' (1936), directed by Efim Dzigan, Yefim Dzigan * ''Knight Without Armour'' (1937) * ''The Year 1919'' (1938), directed by Ilya Trauberg * ''The Baltic Marines'' (1939), directed by A. Faintsimmer * ''Shchors (film), Shchors'' (1939), directed by Dovzhenko * ''How the Steel Was Tempered, Pavel Korchagin'' (1956), directed by A. Alov and V. Naumov * ''The Forty-First (1956 film), The Forty-First'' (1956), directed by Grigori Chukhrai * ''The Communist (film)'' (1957), directed by Yuli Raizman * ''And Quiet Flows the Don (film), And Quiet Flows the Don'' (1958), directed by Sergei Gerasimov (film director), Sergei Gerasimov * ''Doctor Zhivago (film), Doctor Zhivago'' (1965), directed by David Lean * ''The Elusive Avengers'' (1966) * ''The Red and the White (film), The Red and the White'' (1967) * ''White Sun of the Desert'' (1970) * ''The Flight (1970 film), The Flight'' (1970), directed by A. Alov and V. Naumov * ''Reds (film), Reds'' (1981), directed by Warren Beatty * ''Corto Maltese, Corto Maltese in Siberia'' (2002) * ''Nine Lives of Nestor Makhno'' (2005/2007) * ''The Admiral (2008 film), Admiral'' (2008) * ''Sunstroke (2014 film), Sunstroke'' (2014), directed by Nikita Mikhalkov

Notes

{{notelist

References

Citations

{{Reflist

Bibliography

{{See also, Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War {{refbegin * {{cite book, last=Allworth, first=Edward, title=Central Asia: A Century of Russian Rule , url=https://archive.org/details/centralasiacentu0000allw, url-access=registration, location=New York, publisher=Columbia University Press, year=1967, oclc=396652 * {{Cite book , last1=Avrich , first1=Paul , author-link=Paul Avrich , title=Kronstadt, 1921 , date=1970 , language=en , isbn=0-691-08721-0 , publisher=Princeton University Press , location=Princeton, N.J. , oclc=67322 *{{Cite book , last1=Avrich , first1=Paul , author-link=Paul Avrich , title=Kronstadt, 1921 , date=2004 , language=es , isbn=9872087539 , publisher=Libros de Anarres, location=Buenos Aires * {{cite book , last1=Andrew , first1=Christopher , last2=Mitrokhin , first2=Vasili , title=The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB , url=https://archive.org/details/swordshieldmitro00andr , url-access=registration , pag
28
, quote=kgb cheka executions probably numbered as many as 250,000. , publisher=Basic Books , year=1999 , location=New York, isbn=978-0465003129 * {{cite book , last=Bullock , first=David , title=The Russian Civil War 1918–22 , publisher=Osprey Publishing , year=2008 , isbn=978-1-84603-271-4 , location=Oxford , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mk61CwAAQBAJ , access-date=26 December 2017 , archive-date=28 July 2020 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728140213/https://books.google.com/books?id=Mk61CwAAQBAJ , url-status=live * {{cite book, last1 = Calder, first1 = Kenneth J., title = Britain and the Origins of the New Europe 1914–1918, url = https://books.google.com/books?id=nME8AAAAIAAJ, series = International Studies, location = Cambridge, publisher = Cambridge University Press, date = 1976, isbn = 978-0521208970, access-date = 2017-10-06 * {{cite book, last=Carr, first=E. H., year=1985, title=The Bolshevik Revolution 1917–1923, publisher=W. W. Norton & Company , url-access=registration , isbn=9780393301953 , url=https://archive.org/details/bolshevikrevolut01carr * {{cite book , last=Chamberlin , first=William , title=The Russian Revolution, 1917–1921, Volume Two , date=1935 , publisher=The Macmillan Company , location=New York * {{Cite book, url=https://muse.jhu.edu/book/34982, title=The Russian Revolution, Volume II: 1918–1921: From the Civil War to the Consolidation of Power, last=Chamberlin , first=William Henry, publisher=Princeton University Press , year=1987, isbn=978-1400858705 , location=Princeton, NJ, url-access=subscription, via=Project MUSE, access-date=27 December 2017, archive-date=27 December 2017 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171227180409/https://muse.jhu.edu/book/34982, url-status=live * {{cite book , last1=Coates , first1=W. P. , last2=Coates , first2=Zelda K. , author-link=W. P. Coates , author-link2=Zelda Kahan , title=Soviets in Central Asia , location=New York , publisher=Philosophical Library , year=1951 , oclc=1533874, url= https://archive.org/details/SovietsInCentralAsiaCoates * {{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, location=Hanover, NH, isbn=978-0-87451-616-6 *{{Cite journal, last1=Daniels, first1=Robert V., 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 , date=December 1951, doi=10.2307/2492031 , issn=1049-7544, jstor=2492031 * {{citation , first1=Alfonsas , last1=Eidintas , first2=Vytautas , last2=Žalys , first3=Alfred Erich , last3=Senn , title=Lithuania in European Politics: The Years of the First Republic, 1918–1940 , edition=Paperback , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0_i8yez8udgC&pg=PA33 , year=1999 , publisher=St. Martin's Press , location=New York , isbn=0-312-22458-3 * {{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 Press, Inc., year= 1984, isbn=978-0-367-29600-1 * {{Cite book, title=A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution , last=Figes , first=Orlando , publisher=Viking , year=1997 , isbn=978-0670859160 , location=New York , url-access=registration , url=https://archive.org/details/peoplestragedyhi00fige * {{cite book, author-link=Robert Gellately, last=Gellately , first=Robert, title=Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe, location=New York, publisher=Knopf , year=2007, isbn=978-1-4000-4005-6 * {{cite book , last=Goldstein , first=Erik , date=2013 , title=The First World War Peace Settlements, 1919–1925 , location=London , publisher=Routledge , isbn=978-1-31-7883-678 * {{cite book , last=Graziosi , first=Andrea , author-link= , date=2007 , title=L'URSS di Lenin e Stalin. Storia dell'Unione Sovietica 1914–1945 , location=Bologna , publisher=il Mulino , language=it , isbn=978-88-15-13786-9 * {{cite journal , last=Grebenkin , first=I.N. , title=The Disintegration of the Russian Army in 1917: Factors and Actors in the Process , journal=Russian Studies in History , volume=56 , issue=3 , date=2017 , pages=172–187, doi=10.1080/10611983.2017.1392213 , s2cid=158643095 * {{cite book , title=Consumed by War: European Conflict in the 20th Century , last=Hall , first=Richard C. , year=2015 , location=Lexington , publisher=University Press of Kentucky , isbn=978-0-81-3159-959 * {{cite book, last1= Haupt, first1= Georges, last2= Marie, first2= Jean-Jacques, name-list-style= amp, title= Makers of the Russian revolution, publisher= George Allen & Unwin, place= London, year= 1974, isbn= 978-0801408090, url-access= registration, url= https://archive.org/details/makersofrussianr0000haup * {{cite book, first=Peter, last=Holquist, title=Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914–1921 , location=Cambridge, publisher=Harvard University Press, year=2002, isbn=0-674-00907-X * {{Cite book, title=Civil War in South Russia, 1919–1920: The Defeat of the Whites, last=Kenez, first=Peter, year=1977 , publisher=University of California Press, isbn=978-0520033467, location=Berkeley, author-link=Peter Kenez , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vREGB60UPWMC * {{cite book , last1=Kenez , first1=Peter , title=Red Attack, White Resistance; Civil War in South Russia 1918 , date=2004a , publisher=New Academia Publishing , location=Washington, DC , isbn=9780974493442 * {{cite book , last1=Kenez , first1=Peter , title=Red Advance, White Defeat: Civil War in South Russia 1919–1920 , date=2004b , publisher=New Academia Publishing , location=Washington, DC , isbn=9780974493459 * {{cite book, last=Kinvig, first=Clifford, title=Churchill's Crusade: The British Invasion of Russia, 1918–1920, publisher=Hambledon Continuum, year=2006, isbn=978-1847250216, location=London * {{cite book, first=G. F. , last=Krivosheev, title=Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century , url={{google books , plainurl=y , id=CTTfAAAAMAAJ , year=1997 , location=London , publisher=Greenhill Books , isbn=978-1-85367-280-4 * {{cite book , title=Lenin and Revolutionary Russia , last=Lee , first=Stephen J. , year=2003 , location=London , publisher=Routledge , isbn=978-0-415-28718-0 * {{Cite book , last=Leggett , first=George , title=The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police , location=Oxford , publisher=Oxford University Press , year=1981 , isbn=978-0-19-822552-2 , url-access=registration , url=https://archive.org/details/chekaleninspolit0000legg * {{cite book , last=Lowe , first=Norman , date=2002 , title=Mastering Twentieth Century Russian History , publisher=Palgrave , isbn=9780333963074 * {{cite book, last=Mawdsley, first=Evan, author-link=Evan Mawdsley , year=2007, title=The Russian Civil War , location=New York , publisher=Pegasus Books , isbn=978-1681770093 , url-access=registration , url=https://archive.org/details/russiancivilwar00evan * {{cite book, last=Overy, first=Richard, title=The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia, location=New York , publisher=W.W. Norton & Company, year=2004, isbn=978-0-393-02030-4, url=https://archive.org/details/dictators00rich , url-access=registration * {{cite book, first=Teresa, last=Rakowska-Harmstone, author-link=Teresa Rakowska-Harmstone, year=1970, title=Russia and Nationalism in Central Asia: The Case of Tadzhikistan , url=https://archive.org/details/russianationalis0000rako , url-access=registration , location=Baltimore , publisher=Johns Hopkins Press, isbn=978-0801810213 * {{cite book, last=Read, first=Christopher, title=From Tsar to Soviets, location=Oxford, publisher=Oxford University Press, year=1996 , isbn=978-0195212419 * {{cite book , title=Lenin: A Revolutionary Life , last=Read , first=Christopher , year=2005 , series=Routledge Historical Biographies , publisher=Routledge , location=London , isbn=978-0-415-20649-5 * {{cite book, last=Rosenthal, first=Reigo, title=Loodearmee , language=et, trans-title=Northwestern Army, year=2006 , publisher=Argo , location=Tallinn, isbn=9949-415-45-4 * {{cite book, last=Ryan, first=James, year=2012 , title=Lenin's Terror: The Ideological Origins of Early Soviet State Violence , url=https://www.routledge.com/Lenins-Terror-The-Ideological-Origins-of-Early-Soviet-State-Violence/Ryan/p/book/9781138815681 , location=London , publisher=Routledge, isbn=978-1-138-81568-1, access-date=15 May 2017, archive-date=11 November 2020, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111070149/https://www.routledge.com/Lenins-Terror-The-Ideological-Origins-of-Early-Soviet-State-Violence/Ryan/p/book/9781138815681, url-status=live * {{cite book , title=Lenin: A Biography , last=Service , first=Robert , author-link = Robert Service (historian) , year=2000 , publisher=Macmillan , location=London , isbn=978-0-333-72625-9 , title-link = Lenin: A Biography * {{cite book , last=Smele , first=Jonathan D. , date=2016 , orig-date=2015 , title=The 'Russian' Civil Wars, 1916–1926: Ten Years That Shook the World , publisher=Oxford University Press , isbn=9780190613211 * {{cite book , last=Smele , first=Jonathan D. , date=2015 , title=Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916–1926 (2 Vol.) , publisher=Rowman & Littlefield , isbn=9781442252813 * {{cite book, first=George, last=Stewart, title=The White Armies of Russia A Chronicle of Counter-Revolution and Allied Intervention , year=2009, publisher=Naval & Military Press , isbn= 978-1847349767 * {{Cite encyclopedia, title=Faustschlag, Operation , encyclopedia=World War I: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection , publisher=ABC-CLIO, location=Santa Barbara, CA, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DBwTBQAAQBAJ , last1=Smith, first1=David A. , date=2014 , pages=554–555, isbn=978-1851099658, first2=Spencer C. , last2=Tucker, access-date=27 December 2017, archive-date=15 February 2017, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170215195340/https://books.google.com/books?id=DBwTBQAAQBAJ, url-status=live * {{cite book, first=John M., last=Thompson, title=A Vision Unfulfilled. Russia and the Soviet Union in the Twentieth Century, url-access=registration , url=https://archive.org/details/visionunfulfille00thom , location=Lexington, MA, year=1996, isbn=978-0669282917 * {{cite book, first=Dmitri, last=Volkogonov, title=Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary, others=Translated and edited by Harold Shukman , location=London, publisher=HarperCollins Publishers, year=1996, isbn= 978-0002552721 * {{cite book , first1=Nicolas , last1=Werth , first2=Karel , last2=Bartosek , first3=Jean-Louis , last3=Panne , first4=Jean-Louis , last4=Margolin , first5=Andrzej , last5=Paczkowski , first6=Stephane , last6=Courtois , title=Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression , publisher=Harvard University Press , date=1999 , isbn=0-674-07608-7 * {{cite book, first=Geoffrey, last=Wheeler, title=The Modern History of Soviet Central Asia, location=New York , publisher=Frederick A. Praeger, year=1964, oclc=865924756 {{refend

External links

{{Library resources box {{Commons category, Civil war of Russia {{Wikiquote
Newsreels about Russian Civil War // Net-Film Newsreels and Documentary Films Archive
*Sumpf, Alexandre
Russian Civil War
in

* Mawdsley, Evan
International Responses to the Russian Civil War (Russian Empire)
in

* Read, Christopher
Revolutions (Russian Empire)
in

* Peeling, Siobhan
War Communism
in

* Beyrau, Dietrich
Post-war Societies (Russian Empire)
in

* Brudek, Pawe³
Revolutions (East Central Europe)
in

* Melancon, Michael S.
Social Conflict and Control, Protest and Repression (Russian Empire)
in

* [http://libcom.org/library/russian-revolution Russian Revolution and Civil War archive at libcom.org/library] {{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140907125245/http://libcom.org/library/russian-revolution , date=7 September 2014
"BBC History of the Russian Revolution"
(3 February 2007)

(Spartacus History, downloaded 3 January 2006)

(On War website, downloaded 4 January 2006)
"Civil War of 1917–1922 at Encyclopedia of Russian History
(3 February 2007) {{World War I {{Russian Civil War, collapsed {{Russian Revolution 1917 {{Russian Conflicts {{Soviet Union topics {{Authority control Russian Civil War, 1910s in Russia 1920s in Russia 1920s in the Soviet Union Civil wars involving the states and peoples of Europe Civil wars of the 20th century Revolution-based civil wars Russian Revolution, Civil War Wars involving Chechnya Wars involving Russia Wars involving Soviet Russia (1917–1922) Wars involving the Soviet Union 1910s conflicts 1920s conflicts Communism-based civil wars Wars involving Ukraine Wars involving the Ottoman Empire

Background

World War I

February Revolution

October Revolution

Formation of the Red Army

Anti-Bolshevik movement

Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, early Constituent Assembly rebellions

Constituent Assembly uprising

Mensheviks and SRs excluded from soviets

Repression

Revolts against grain requisitioning

Allied intervention

Buffer states

Geography and chronology

Warfare

October Revolution

Initial anti-Bolshevik uprisings

Peace with the Central Powers

Ukraine, South Russia, and Caucasus (1918)

Eastern Russia, Siberia and the Far East (1918)

Barrier troops

Central Asia (1918)

Left SR Uprising

Estonia, Latvia and Petrograd

Northern Russia (1919)

Siberia (1919)

South Russia (1919)

Central Asia (1919)

South Russia, Ukraine and Kronstadt (1920–21)

Siberia and the Far East (1920–22)

Aftermath

Ensuing rebellion

Casualties

In fiction

Literature

Film

See also

Notes

References

Citations

Bibliography

Further reading

Primary sources

External links