Civil War

Question 1

When was the Red Army created?

Answer 1

January 1918

Question 2

What was Trotsky’s slogan?

Answer 2

“Everything for the front”

Question 3

What was Trotsky’s strategy?

Answer 3

> Defend railway lines – these assure communication and supplies

> Prevent the gathering of large White forces in one place

> Disrupt supply lines of White armies

Question 4

What was Trotsky appointed as Commissar for War?

Answer 4

13th March 1918

Question 5

What was the purpose of Trotsky’s train? (In the words of Richard Pipes)

Answer 5

“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…”

Question 6

How many men volunteered to be in the Red Army in May 1918?

Answer 6

Only 360,000 men

Question 7

How man were recruited for the Red Army as a result of mass conscription?

Answer 7

3 million

Question 8

What was the ratio of Reds:Whites in major battles of 1919

Answer 8

2:1

Question 9

How many conscripts desert during the Civil War?

Answer 9

4 million

Question 10

How did the Bolsheviks prevent more conscript leaving the army?

Answer 10

> Death penalty reintroduced.

> Propaganda circulated to convince the peasants that they are fighting to defend their land and rights from the Whites

Question 11

Who were The Whites?

Answer 11

> 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

Question 12

Who was General Anton Denikin?

Answer 12

> 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

Question 13

Who was General nikolai Yudenich?

Answer 13

> 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

Question 14

Who was Admiral Alexander Kolchak?

Answer 14

> Supported by Britain and (originally, before disagreements) Siberian SRs

> Declared himself ‘Supreme Ruler of Russia’ in late 1918

Question 15

Why were the Whites defeated? (In the words of Orlando Figes)

Answer 15

“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”

Question 16

Why were the Whites defeated? (In the words of Richard Pipes)

Answer 16

“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”

Question 17

Why did the Red win the Civil war?

Answer 17

> Leadership
> Mobility (Controlled railways, flexibility, supply lines)
> Propaganda
> Size and industry
> Nation-building

Question 18

What was the Bolshevik’s propaganda?

Answer 18

• 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.

Question 19

How large were White armies in comparison to the Red Army?

Answer 19

250,000 men vs. 3 million

Question 20

What was the Bolshevik’s ‘nation-building’?

Answer 20

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

Question 21

What was Kolchak’s stance on nation-building?

Answer 21

“Don’t you understand that no matter what fine laws you write, if we lose, they will shoot us all the same?”

Question 22

What was the human cost of the civil war?

Answer 22

5-10 million between 1918 and 1921