Civil War Flashcards
1918 - 1920
When was the Red Army created?
January 1918
What was Trotsky’s slogan?
“Everything for the front”
What was Trotsky’s strategy?
> Defend railway lines – these assure communication and supplies
> Prevent the gathering of large White forces in one place
> Disrupt supply lines of White armies
What was Trotsky appointed as Commissar for War?
13th March 1918
What was the purpose of Trotsky’s train? (In the words of Richard Pipes)
“Touring the front in his train, he could assess the situation on the spot and, cutting through red tape, solve shortages of manpower and material. He was also a spellbinding speaker, able to galvanize dispirited troops…”
How many men volunteered to be in the Red Army in May 1918?
Only 360,000 men
How man were recruited for the Red Army as a result of mass conscription?
3 million
What was the ratio of Reds:Whites in major battles of 1919
2:1
How many conscripts desert during the Civil War?
4 million
How did the Bolsheviks prevent more conscript leaving the army?
> Death penalty reintroduced.
> Propaganda circulated to convince the peasants that they are fighting to defend their land and rights from the Whites
Who were The Whites?
> A wide variety of anti-Bolshevik generals and their supporters
> Three White generals waged particularly dangerous campaigns with the goal of capturing Moscow and deposing the Bolsheviks during mid to late 1919
Who was General Anton Denikin?
> South area
> Created the ‘Volunteer Army’ in the Caucausus region
> Supported by Kornilov, Miliukov, Rodzianko, Don and Kuban Cossacks
> Carried out many pogroms which killed 50,000-100,000 Russian Jews
Who was General nikolai Yudenich?
> Supporters: the ‘Russian Committee’ – mostly ex-Tsarist officials who had fled Petrograd into Finland or Latvia
> Created the ‘Northwestern Government’ in Estonia and controlled the Baltic states
Who was Admiral Alexander Kolchak?
> Supported by Britain and (originally, before disagreements) Siberian SRs
> Declared himself ‘Supreme Ruler of Russia’ in late 1918
Why were the Whites defeated? (In the words of Orlando Figes)
“At the root of the Whites’ defeat was a failure of politics… there were too many supporters of a tsarist restoration within their ranks, which created the popular image…that they were associated with the old regime”
Why were the Whites defeated? (In the words of Richard Pipes)
“The victory of the Red Army was a foregone conclusion, given its immense superiority… A civil war is not a popularity contest…there exists no evidence that the Russian or Ukrainian peasants, given a free choice between the Reds and Whites, would have opted for the former”
Why did the Red win the Civil war?
> Leadership > Mobility (Controlled railways, flexibility, supply lines) > Propaganda > Size and industry > Nation-building
What was the Bolshevik’s propaganda?
- The Bolsheviks exploited foreign intervention and the involvement of socialist parties in the civil war, to give the Red Army a sense of pride and purpose.
How large were White armies in comparison to the Red Army?
250,000 men vs. 3 million
What was the Bolshevik’s ‘nation-building’?
At the same time that they were fighting a war, the Reds were passing new laws, creating new rights and making promises of a new era of change
What was Kolchak’s stance on nation-building?
“Don’t you understand that no matter what fine laws you write, if we lose, they will shoot us all the same?”
What was the human cost of the civil war?
5-10 million between 1918 and 1921
