Red vs White (II)
The Russian Civil War (1917-1922). Second part.
Note: This article is part of a series. This is part two.
The Green armies:
The impact of the peasant wars must be considered seriously given that Lenin told the opening session of the Tenth Party Congress (Parliament) in March 1921 that the peasants were ‘far more dangerous than all of the Denikins, Yudeniches and Kolchaks put together’. These Green armies were an intriguing but separate collection of peasant and Cossack forces that gave allegiance neither to the Whites nor the Reds. The Green armies were not a unified group and did not fight together. The Civil War becomes far more complex if it is considered as being not just a Red versus White conflict but also a Red versus Green and Green versus White conflict.
‘What is remarkable about these peasant wars is that they shared so many common features, despite the huge distances between them and the different contexts in which they took place. Most of the larger rebellions had started out in 1920 as small-scale peasant revolts against the requisitioning of food, which, as a result of their incompetent and often brutal handling by the local Communists, soon became inflamed and spread into full-scale peasant-wars.’ -Figes, A People’s Tragedy (1996), p. 753
The Green armies’ demands were for greater autonomy from Moscow. They operated in the outer provinces in White-controlled territories and supported movements for national independence. A novel that provides interesting insight into these conflicts is Mikhail Sholokov’s And Quiet Flows the Don, which is set in the Ukraine during the Civil War. The main character, Grigory Melekhov, joins the Whites, then the Red cavalry, then the Greens. But primarily, he wants to be left in peace to enjoy his village.
British historian Geoff Swain argued that the Civil War was not just about Bolshevik revolution fighting against tsarist counter-revolution. It was primarily a clash between different versions of revolution. The peasants became a dominant problem for the government in 1920 and 1921, not because they wanted to become leaders of Russia but rather because of the fundamentally different beliefs about the benefits of the 1917 Revolution. Lenin’s government wanted national unity while the Greens wanted local independence.
Foreign intervention in the Civil War:
While the initial revolution caused a lot of anxiety, Lenin’s subsequent political stance stirred up intense anger in Europe’s conservative corridors of power. The Allied countries refused to recognise the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and preferred to gather support for a White government that would continue the war. The catalyst for foreign intervention was Lenin’s dramatic declaration on the 18th of January 1918 that all foreign debts were cancelled ‘unconditionally and without any exception’.
By cancelling repayments on the country’s national debt, Russia saved a massive 80 billion roubles in gold, which equated to two-thirds of its total national wealth. In addition, Lenin confiscated all foreign-owned property located in Russia, which further antagonised international companies. These demands resulted in foreign powers supporting the White armies, although they were rarely involved in actual fighting. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk had only given Russia a brief break from international war and military action. After the military, financial and psychological exhaustion of four years of the First World War, several nations mounted another major campaign, this time against the Soviets.
April 1918: British intervention
British marines landed in several locations, including Russia’s two most northern ports, Archangel and Murmansk. Perhaps their most significant role was to provide invaluable physical and financial resources to the White armies. Winston Churchill announced to the House of Commons in August 1919 that Great Britain alone had spent 70 million pounds over the last nine months in support of anti-Bolshevik forces.
April 1918: French intervention
French troops were involved in the landing at Archangel with the British, yet were the first foreign nation to withdraw one year later in April 1919.
April 1918: Japanese intervention and August 1918: American intervention
Both these countries sent troops to Siberia, but for different reasons. The Japanese sent 70,000 troops, hoping to gain more territory, while the Americans went to restrain the Japanese, protect the Trans-Siberian Railway and, some believe, to support Admiral Kolchak’s new government.
May 1918: Czech Legion intervention
The involvement of the Czech Legion is a fascinating story of poor circumstance. The legion of 30,000 men planned to travel east on the Trans-Siberian Railway and then travel by ship from Vladivostok back to the battlefields in Western Europe. Although Lenin had agreed to the Czechs undertaking this trip through Russia, local Bolshevik groups reacted reacted in hostile way. The armed Czechs became even more of a target when they aligned themselves with anti-Bolshevik Socialist Revolutionary units to form an independent republic in the Volga. The resulting battles against the Reds meant that Czech Legion had to fight its way across the vast countryside until they could escape Russia.
February 1919 to March 1921: Polish-Soviet War
This war was fought primarily over the Ukraine, but a Soviet victory would have threatened Poland’s very existence as an independent state. Poland was strategically important to Lenin because control would allow easier exportation of revolutionary agitation to other European nations. Trotsky’s Red Army drove quickly through Poland until an unexpected defeat in the Battle of Warsaw. The result was a ceasefire, and a formal peace treaty called the Treaty of Riga was signed in Latvia on the 18th of March 1921. The treaty not only established the Polish-Soviet border but also allowed the Bolsheviks to defeat the last White Russian general, Wrangel.
Civil War poetry
The Russian poet Mayakovsky wrote a poem summarising the foreign intervention in the Civil War. While the complete poem is cited in The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1930), some lines follow:
‘They came and fought like mad,
They marched on Petrograd…
They came supplied with tanks,
With dollars, pounds and francs,
They came and thought they’d win,
But got their heads bashed in.’
Why did the Bolsheviks win the Civil War?
At the lowest point of the war, the Bolsheviks only retained control of one-fifth of the old Russian Empire. So how was the new government able to conquer both an internal and foreign opposition?
I. The Red Army
The Red Army was crucial to the survival of the Bolsheviks. It was formed in January 1918 by the Council of People’s Commissars and should not be confused with the Red Guard that was established in preparation to defend Petrograd against General Kornilov in August 1917. Workers and peasants were conscripted to the army, which meant that the new government could claim not only to be the saviours of the nation, but also saviours actively supported by the proletariat.
Trotsky became their leader because of his appointment as Commissar of War in March 1918. He enforced strict military discipline that was best encapsulated by the compulsory Oath of the Red Warrior. This oath of loyalty committed each individual to ‘observe the strictest revolutionary discipline’, to protect all public property from damage and robbery, and to defend the Soviet republic against all foreign invaders. To these causes the Red Army pledged to ‘give my whole strength and life itself’. By 1920, the Red Army had grown to five million men, but in doing so had to appoint loyal Bolsheviks to watch their every move to ensure their allegiance to the Reds.
II. The CHEKA
‘Like the sound of a bolt being shot, the two syllables Che-ka, would stop any conversation.’ -Volkogonov
The CHEKA, along with the Red Army, became significant instruments of terror. They stringently enforced compliance to the communist government by committing atrocities against both the White armies and dissident workers and peasants. Stories included waiting outside upper-class schools and killing the children as they came out, imprisoning the wives of political opponents, and seriously wounding prisoners before burying them alive, and tying hot tin cans full of rats to victims’ stomachs.
The official CHEKA figures revealed that in just 20 provinces in 1918 alone, they exposed 142 counter-revolutionary organisations and were confronted with 245 separate revolts that required suppression. At least 8,389 people were shot and 87,000 arrested. According to historian Steven Smith, the overall number of executions carried out by the CHEKA during the three years of the Civil War was 140,000, with another 140,000 killed in the process of eliminating peasant and other uprisings. By comparison, the Tsar’s Okhrana had executed 14,000 people in a period of 50 years.
Nikolai Bukharin made a famous quote in a speech om 1921 that is often attributed to Lenin: ‘One cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs.’ He perceived the Civil War period where the Bolsheviks acted as a sledgehammer that smashed the eggs open.
Dzerzhinsky committed incredible atrocities but also had a surprising humane side. He not only ran the violent CHEKA but also headed a large children’s charity.
III. Unity of purpose
Patriotism was a key psychological factor as it bred high morale and dedication. The Reds had a greater commitment to the cause as they were defending their nation on their own soil. It became an urgent battle for survival: victory would consolidate the revolution, but defeat would see their recent gains evaporated. Bolshevik propaganda represented the Whites as the combined evil forces of tsarism, the bourgeoise, superstition and foreign capitalists.
IV. Defending a central location
Although the White armies controlled the majority of Russian soil, the area retained by the Reds included the cities of Petrograd and Moscow. The surrounding areas were industrial strongholds, which meant that equipment, ammunition, war supplies and, most significantly, the hub of the railway system were able to be controlled and utilised by the Reds.
Why did the White Army lose?
I. Divided in purpose and strategy
The Whites had no common unity or purpose because they were drawn from a vast background of foreign motivation and political ideology. Some Whites were socialists, whereas others were conservatives who promoted a return to tsarism. Geographical distance meant a lack of cooperation or unification of leadership. Equipment was not shared. Military tactics were not forged in common. White offensives were often months apart rather than launched simultaneously. Ultimately, instead of fighting a combined White force, the Red Army simply fought several separate battles, one after the other, until each White army was defeated, surrendered or simply withdrew.
II. Lack of propaganda
The Whites were unable to capitalise on the despair of the peasant communities with effective propaganda. Despite the starvation and desperation of the rural communities exacerbated by the war, the Whites did not present themselves as a better alternative to the Reds. As the White armies were drawn primarily from the old middle and upper classes, they did not approve of seizing land from the traditional landowners. The White armies therefore experienced less commitment from the peasant recruits and also a greater desertion as the Reds were considered to be the lesser of two evils in the eyes of the lower class. The Whites also relied on the practical support from the Allies, triggering Lenin’s declaration that the opposition were merely puppets of foreign enemies.
Greenwood in The Modern World (1973) argues that the Whites lost rather than the Reds winning:
‘Much was due to the driving initiative, the disciplined order and the ruthlessness of the Bolsheviks themselves. They possessed in Lenin a leader of great strength and astuteness, and in Trotsky an organiser of extraordinary capacity. The policy of terror subdued opposition and aided their cause… The Bolsheviks were faced by a motley array of oppositionists, who had little in common. It was difficult to maintain effective co-operation between socialist revolutionary leaders and army generals of the old regime. There was little co-operation of policy or strategy between the White leaders, and this lack of unity was to prove fatal to the counter-revolutionary cause.’
In Red vs White III, we will discuss the significance of the Russian Civil War and its impact on the Bolshevik party and the years following its conclusion.