Reasons Reds won- unit 3 Flashcards
1
Q
Red strengths:
A
- Concentrated area, easy to communicate.
- Petrograd and Moscow, most of railway.
- Brilliantly organised and led by Trotsky.
1
Q
White weaknesses:
A
- White armies fought as separate detachments.
- Not bound together by a single aim.
- Not willing to sacrifice own interests for a united anti-Bolshevik front.
- Too widely scattered.
- Relied on West for resources.
- Leaders lacked qualities of Trotsky.
2
Q
Trotsky’s role:
A
- Reds Commissar for War, strategies:
Defend Red’s Army internal lines for communication.
Deny White’s opportunity to concentrate large forces in any one location.
Prevent White’s maintaining regular supplies. - Controlled railways effectively, defence around Petrograd and Moscow, able to exhaust White’s and drive them back on major front until they surrendered.
3
Q
Importance of morale:
A
- White’s collection of socialists, liberals and moderates whose differences led to bitter disputes.
- White’s didn’t have common purpose.
4
Q
Train lines:
A
- Breaking supply lines to White army, preventing them from coordinating activity.
- Trotsky also had own train, travelled 65,000 miles during war, could travel quickly.
5
Q
Resources:
A
- Reds and White’s used conscription to boost forces, Trotsky turned old red army of workers and peasants into more professional and disciplined organisation.
- 1920, Trotsky managing over 3 million troops compared with 500,000 whites.
- Red cavalry nits formed to oppose White’s use of Cossack’s in South.
- Reds controlled industrial units.
6
Q
When were the Foreign Interventions?
A
1918-20
7
Q
What was the main worry when tsardom fell?
A
- To Western allies, wanted Russia to continue the war.
- If Revolutionary Russia made peace with Germany, Germany would be free to divert huge military resources from eastern to western front, which is why West were funding Russia for so long.
- PG, pro-war funded by allies, anti-war Bolsheviks funded by Germany.
- Oct rev destroyed the balance.
- When Bolsheviks took power, David Lloyd George declared he wasn’t pro or anti- Bolshevik, just anti-German.
- Hope destroyed at Treaty of Brest Litovsk.
8
Q
What happened after ending of WWI?
A
- Allies thought of offensive against Bolsheviks.
- Eager were Winston Churchill and Marshal Foch, French military leader.
- Alarmed by creation of Comintern, March 1919 to organise worldwide revolution.
- 1918-19, short-lived communist republic establishment in Bavaria.
- March 1919, Hungary, Marxist gov. was set up under Bela Kun, fell five months later.
9
Q
Interventions spread:
A
- Russia nationalise large number of foreign companies and froze foreign assets in Russia.
- Regarded as international theft.
- French propose campaign against Reds.
10
Q
French campaign against Reds:
A
- British wardships enter Russian Baltic waters and Black Sea, where French naval vessels join.
- French establish land base around Black Sea port of Odessa.
- Not coordinated, little united interest.
11
Q
Failure of Interventions:
A
-Resisted with ease.
- No incentive to carry on the war.
- Withdrew in 1920s.
12
Q
Propaganda:
A
- Lenin’s government presented itself as saviour of nation from foreign conquest.
- Seen as imperialist invasion.
- Helped Russia recover from esteem lost from TBL.
13
Q
The Red Terror:
A
- 1918-21. Repression.
- Cheka.
- Murder of Romanovs.
14
Q
Murder of Romanovs:
A
- Local cheka executed ex-tsar and his family in basement in Urals, 17 July 1918.
