How significant was the role of leadership in determining the outcome of the Civil War? Flashcards
Trotsky’s leadership strengths for Reds Cossacks
he organisational skills of the Bolsheviks strong leadership, role of Trotsky, a sense of unity, and the skill of the Red Army.
Tough discipline of Red Army – death penalty for desertion or cowardice.
Propaganda, Red exploitation of White weaknesses (eg efficient use of propaganda, terror).
Trotsky, Commissar of War, who formed the Red Army, used oratory, propaganda machine, the train, to invoke unity and organisation and centralised communications.
His inspirational leadership, tough management of the army, attaching political commissars to each unit, introducing death penalty, military specialists, forming labour battalions and recruiting ex-Tsarist officers showed the decisive and strong leadership needed.
Lenin’s support of Trotsky against the likes of Stalin and Zinoviev, his leadership, although he was more risk-averse than Trotsky – eg in routing Petrograd of the Whites.
Geographical land held
Initially Whites controlled more land, but it was a case of quantity not quality.
Geographical advantages of Reds were marked as they had control of central Russian ‘Sovdepia’ including Moscow and Petrograd. Moving capital to Moscow.
Access to raw materials to make armaments/heavily populated for conscription.
Control of railway network making it easier to transport troops, armaments and propaganda tools.
Allied intervention backfired and gradually dwindled resulting in patriotic support for the Bolsheviks who used it to gain patriotic support as defenders of mother Russia from foreign invaders.
Economic Resources
Economic Resources
Superior economic resources which led to Red victory.
Whites had little access to raw materials to peruse war effort or build
an economic base.
War Communism, whereby the Bolsheviks requisitioned grain from
the peasants, gave priority to the Red Army.
Industrial plants were taken over by the government. The regime
had at its disposal the entire national resources to carry on a war against its enemy.
Land policies
Support of the Peasantry as Whites were not offering land.
Peasants believed support for Whites would be return to Tsarism and
landlords.
Wrangle’s Land degree came too late in 1920.
Failure to get support from the peasantry on Land issue. Kolchak
returned land to pre-revolution landlords.
Political
Role of non-White opposition to the Bolsheviks
Whites lost the support of the nationalist groups by their pre-1917 policy on the borders which would deny autonomy to some.
Foreign Intervention
Limited impact of foreign interventionists and their half-hearted attempts did little to aid the White cause. Here the Reds did not win, the Whites were losing.
Other Groups
The motivation of the Greens and Makhno’s Insurgent Army. G Swain described ‘the unknown civil war’ and notes that their influence and potential success is greater than previously thought.
Difficulties at the front, with the Whites having problems maintaining a cohesive front-line force, given the variety of people involved – conscripts, workmen, peasants, colonists.
Nationalities – White Great Russian nationalism caused problems, as did anti-Semitism, which was pandemic.
Role of Czech Legion.
Bolsheviks
Bolsheviks’ cause was a patriotic one and they exploited whites using foreign intervention as an invasion of ‘Mother Russia”.
“Peace, Bread & Land” had universal appeal was easily understood.
Peasants already had land from Bolsheviks whereas white support
might restore former landowners.
R service leadership
Trotsky’s brilliance
R Pipes geographical
sees the objective factors (like the territory the Reds controlled) as the cause of victory, rather than leadership or motivation.
Orlando Figes
suggests the crucial advantage the Reds had, which meant more men volunteered to be part of the fighting force, was the claim that they were defending ‘the Revolution.’
B Lincoln
also highlights this in Wrangel’s attempt in 1920 to offer land to the peasants as well.
Weaknesses of white leaders
Weakness of white leaders
At first Kornilov was inspiring, part of the Don Cossack army but killed, April 1918.
At the beginning the Volunteer Army (3,000) was largely an officers’ army, and much better organised – Denikin’s defeat of the Red Army in the Don region.
Inability of the Whites to forge a common purpose or military front against the Reds, the inadequacies of the White leaders policies and methods.
Disunity between White leadership and soldiers – Denikin “I can do nothing with my army”.
Leaders never coordinated their attacks, in theory they had Reds surrounded.
Often White leaders were at odds to the extent that it had an impact eg Alexeev and Kornilov had to communicate by messenger (even though offices next to each other).
Denikin had no time for separatism and so lost support of Southern Volunteer Army, Ukraine and the Caucasus. This leader condoned the ‘ethnic cleansing’ practices of Cossacks and he helped landowners recover their estates, alienating the peasants.
Yudenich was successful and did reach Petrograd by October 1919, but was then beaten by larger Bolshevik forces.
Kolchak in the east was defeated because of internal fighting and apathy; SR power struggles weakened the army (Czechs); he had hundreds of SR activists killed which meant little control. SRs revolted and undermined his campaign.
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In Omsk there was indiscipline and corruption eg uniforms and munitions given by foreign interventionist governments sold on black market and “officers lived in brothels in a haze of cocaine and vodka”.
Denikin and Wrangel had initial successes but Trotsky’s counter- attack forced retreat. Wrangel held out but evacuation by 1920.
They were split geographically and politically, did not communicate or see value in propaganda, particularly Denikin.
