Background
World War I
{{Main, World War I TheFebruary Revolution
{{Main, February Revolution The February Revolution of 1917 resulted in the abdication ofOctober 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 failed military coup by General Lavr Kornilov in September 1917 led to a surge in support for theFormation of the Red Army
{{Main, Red Army From mid-1917 onwards, theAnti-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, Left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks While resistance to the Red Guards began on the very day after the Bolshevik uprising, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the instinct of one-party rule became a catalyst{{sfn, Thompson, 1996, p=159 for the formation of anti-Bolshevik groups both inside and outside Russia, pushing them into action against the new Soviet government. A loose confederation of anti-Bolshevik forces aligned against the Communist government, including landowners, republicans, conservatives, middle-class citizens,Allied intervention
{{Main, Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War After the treaty, it looked like much of that material would fall into the hands of the Germans. To meet that danger, the 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-livedGeography 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. The first period lasted from the Revolution until the Armistice. Already on the date of the Revolution, Cossack GeneralWarfare
October Revolution
{{Main, October Revolution In the October Revolution, the Bolshevik Party directed the Red Guard (armed groups of workers and Imperial army deserters) to seize control of 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 Semenov of the Siberian Cossacks were prominent among them. The leading Tsarist officers of the Imperial Russian Army also started to resist. In November, GeneralPeace with the Central Powers
{{Main, Treaty of Brest-Litovsk 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 fromUkraine, 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 InEastern Russia, Siberia and Far East of Russia (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 fromCentral 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 GeneralLeft SR uprising
{{Main, Left SR uprising, Yaroslavl Uprising On 6 July 1918, two Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and Cheka employees,Estonia, Latvia and Petrograd
{{Main, Estonian War of Independence, Latvian War of Independence, Battle of Petrograd Estonia cleared its territory of the Red Army by January 1919. 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 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, ordering 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 underSiberia (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 essentially had 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 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 RSFSR, Soviet counteroffensive began in January 1919 under the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, Antonov-Ovseenko, the Cossack forces rapidly fell apart. The Red Army captured Kiev on 3 February 1919. 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.{{rp, 20-35 On 18 December 1918, French forces landed in Odessa 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."{{rp, 151,165-167 Denikin then reorganized the Armed Forces of South Russia under the leadership ofCentral 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. 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. 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 Makhno started fighting the Fourteenth Red Army. On 20 February, Denikin succeeded in recapturing Rostov, his last victory, before giving it up soon after.{{rp, 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 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. After Moscow's Bolshevik government signed a military and political alliance with Nestor Makhno and the Ukrainian anarchists, the 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. 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 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. 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 Semyonov as the new leader of the White Army in Siberia. Not long afterward, Kolchak was arrested by the disaffected Czechoslovak Corps 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.{{rp, 319–21 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
{{See also, Red Terror (Russia), White Terror (Russia) The results of the civil war were momentous. Soviet demographer Boris Urlanis estimated the total number of men killed in action in the Civil War and Polish–Soviet War as 300,000 (125,000 in the Red Army, 175,500 White armies and Poles) and the total number of military personnel dead from disease (on both sides) 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. During the Red Terror, estimates of Cheka executions range from 12,733 to 1.7 million.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 * ''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 MikhalkovSee also
{{Portal, Soviet Union * Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War * Index of articles related to the Russian Revolution and Civil War * Nikolayevsk incident * Revolutionary Mass Festivals * Timeline of the Russian Civil War * Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, Allied Powers intervention in the Russian Civil WarNotes
{{notelistReferences
Citations
{{ReflistBibliography
{{See also, Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War {{refbegin * {{cite book, first=Edward, last=Allworth, 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, url=https://archive.org/details/swordshieldmitro00andr, url-access=registration, pagFurther reading
{{refbegin * Acton, Edward, V. et al. eds. ''Critical companion to the Russian Revolution, 1914–1921'' (Indiana UP, 1997). * Brovkin, Vladimir N. (1994). ''Behind the Front Lines of the Civil War: Political Parties and Social Movements in Russia, 1918–1922''. Princeton UPPrimary sources
* Butt, V. P., et al., eds. ''The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives'' (Springer, 2016). * McCauley, Martin, ed. ''The Russian Revolution and the Soviet State 1917–1921: Documents'' (Springer, 1980). * Murphy, A. Brian, ed. ''The Russian Civil War: Primary Sources'' (Springer, 2000External links
{{Library resources box{{Commons category, Civil war of Russia {{Wikiquote