1918 Civil War Flashcards
(24 cards)
What were the years of the Civil war?
1918-1920
How would war have an impact on how Russia was governed?
Bolshevik control would be further tightened
What did Lenin state about Civil war?
‘Who does not know that the world history of all revolutions leads not accidentally but inevitably into civil war.’
What type of area did the Bolsheviks control
A small but vital area of the Russia empire (central)
In which region was the war sparked
The Czech region.
Czechoslovakian Army of Liberation numbering 45,000 by 1918.
This legion had been given permission by the Bolsheviks to travel eastwards through Siberia to continue to fight the Allies on the Western Front
What did the Czech legion do in May?
came across Bolshevik officials who tried to arrest some of the Czech soldiers.
Fighting broke out.
The Czech legion seized the Trans-Siberian railway line through much of western Siberia and parts of easter European Russia.
The Czech legion abandoned their original plan, joined forces with anti-Bolsheviks and began to march westwards towards Moscow.
Other anti-Bolshevik forces
- Intervention by European powers and the USA
- Denikin in South Russia
- Kolchak in Siberia
- Yudenich in the north west
Intervention by European powers and the USA
- Allies were angry the Russians had surrendered to Germany
- Opposed communism
- Hoped to forced Russia back into WW1
- Angry the Bolsheviks had refused to pay back money borrowed in tsarist times and had nationalised foreign-owned industries
Where did Bolsheviks move their capital?
Threats from foreign forces meant they moved their capital from Petrograd to Moscow
What happened in July 1918
Tsar and his family were murdered
When was the red army set up?
January 1918
Who was the red army leader
Trotsky.
Under Trotsky the army became a well-disiplined force
He organised the Red Army along tsarist lines
- 48,000 tsarist officers were drafted in, causing arguments especially between Trotsky and Stalin
Who was the red army made up of
Factory workers, peasants and ex-soldiers
Why did peasants join the red army?
They did not wish to see a restoration of the old system; they hated landlords more than Bolsheviks.
(Lenin had made seizures of land legal)
Who did Trotsky employ to supervise each unit?
180,000 loyal political commissars to supervise each unit.
They indoctrinated soldiers with marxist theories to justify harsh measures of war communism.
Where was Trotsky’s HQ
A train carriage.
This enabled him to visit front lines speedily
(he covered 65,000 miles)
What area did the Reds command?
The most densely populated areas in central Russia and controlled the hub of the railways in Moscow and armament factories.
Whites
No unified command structure, operating independently of each other and were fighting for different objectives
(some officers lived in brothels in a haze of cocaine and vodka)
Whites geographically
They were at a disadvantage.
They were scattered around the edges of the central area controlled by the Reds, making coordination difficult.
Propaganda
Foreign intervention made propaganda easier for the Reds
(Whites failed to see the value of propaganda)
as this invasion by an outside force portrayed the Whites as unpatriotic
When did foreign powers withdraw
When a peace was concluded in the West (1919)
1920
By the end of the year most of the former Russian Empire was in the hands of the Communists
- approximately 10 million had died from fighting, hunger and disease.
1921
War continued as the Poles invaded Western Ukraine, reaching Kiev.
(Poles= an independent state was created at the Paris Peace conference)
Lenin ordered Marshal Tukhachevsky to counter-attack but he was defeated.
March 1921
Treaty of Riga
= Independence of Poland and the Baltic States was confirmed.
Lenin had hoped Tukhachevsky’s initial invasion into Poland would lead to a revolution but this did not occur.
