RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR

Russian Civil War

Russian Civil War

Introduction

Russian Civil War (1917-21), conflict in which the Red Army successfully defended the newly formed Bolshevik government against various Russian and interventionist anti-Bolshevik armies.

[chart during the Civil conflict of Russia]

Apartition originated between the Bolsheviks or Communists and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries over the periods of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, in which Russia had made sizeable land concessions to Germany. The LSR left the coalition. There were two major assemblies opposed to Lenin.

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, whereby Russia yielded large portions of its territory to Germany, initiated a breach between the Bolsheviks (Communists) and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, who thereupon left the coalition. In the next months there was a assessed drawing together of two major assemblies of Russian adversaries of VladimirI. Lenin: (1) the non-Bolshevik left, who had been eventually alienated from Lenin by his dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and (2) the rightist whites, whose major asset was the Volunteer armed detachment in the Kuban steppes. This armed detachment, which had endured large hardships in the winter of 1917-18 and which came under the order of General AntonI. Denikin, was now a fine fighting force, though little in numbers.

At the same time, the Western Allies, despairingly pushed by the new German attack in to the north France in the spring of 1918, were keen to conceive another front in the east by reviving at smallest a part of the Russian army. In stride 1918 a small British force was landed at Murmansk with the consent of the localizedized soviet. On April 5 Japanese forces set down at Vladivostok, without any acceptance.

Afarther component was the Czechoslovak Legion, composed of Czech and Slovak deserters from the Austro-Hungarian army, whom preceding Russian governments had permitted to pattern their own units. In stride 1918 the Bolshevik government acquiesced to let these flats depart Russia by the Far East, but in May brutal occurrences took location during the evacuation, and on May 29 Leon Trotsky, commissar for conflict, ordered them to surrender their arms. They denied, beaten attempts of the localized soviets to disarm them, and took control of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. In the vacuum created by this activity, two anti-Bolshevik authorities appeared: the West Siberian Commissariat, of predominantly liberal complexion, based at Omsk; and the managing group of constituents of the Constituent Assembly, composed of Socialist Revolutionaries, founded at Samara.

The non-Bolshevik left was antagonise with Lenin for having dissolved the Constituent Assembly and the White Rightists had their own grievances to grudge. The latter's major strength was its armed detachment of volunteers stationed in the Kuban Steppes. The assembly had endured greatly, was decreased in numbers but under General Denikin was still an efficient force to contend with.

[overhead: A map displaying the position of Murmansk (click map to enlarge)]

Impact of the Civil War of Russia

These events initiated the Moscow government to crack down heavily on non-Bolshevik socialists. The Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary deputies were expelled from the centered and ...