Civil War (7 Nov 1917 – 25 Oct 1922)

Question 1

Explain which groups opposed the Bolsheviks and why

Answer 1

White Armies
- Monarchist who wanted to reinstate the Romanov dynasty
- Patriots who resented the losses in the Treaty of Brest-Litvosk
- People who wanted the Constituent Assembly restored/wanted to be a republic
- Refugees forced to flee due to social class
- Minorities, who wanted greater autonomy
- Political leaders ousted by the Bolsheviks
- Foreign interventionalists
Green Armies
- Peasant insurgencies who fought both Red and White armies
Czech Legion
- 40,000 well-armed men granted permission to trail through Russia via railway. They hoped to board boats from France to help with the fighting along the western front. Hostility from local governments angered them and they began overthrowing local soviet governments along the railway.

Question 2

Explain the challenges facing the Red Army at the start of the Russian Civil War

Answer 2

• The Czech legion, angered by the hostility from the local Soviet Governemnt and the Bolsheviks ordering them to disarm, they overthrew local Soviet governments along the railway, sparking the peasant rebellions.
• Examples such as the on 8 June 1918 establishing the Komuch in the town of Samsara, which later formed a ‘People’s Army’.

Question 3

Explain how Leon Trotsky influenced the new society after 1917

Answer 3

• 500,000 men in the Red Guard at the end of 1918, 5 million in the Red Army after 2 years under Trotsky
• Harsh discipline and death penalty for soldiers
• ‘Recruited’ former tsarist officers as ‘military experts
• Attached a political commissar to each commanding officer; they carried out propaganda amongst rank-and-file soldiers and supervised commanding officers, making sure that orders were being carried out effectively
• Fostered a sense of loyalty amongst troops and former tsarist officers by rewarding and praising them
• Decisive leadership; trained via an armored train car to race from front to front. It had its own library, radio station, and printing press for the newspaper, ‘On The Road. The train was also loaded with tobacco, boots, and food for the soldiers to boost morale
• Good speaker
• ‘son of a bitch, but the greatest Jew since Jesus’

Question 4

Explain the reasons for Sovnarkom’s defeat in the Polish-Soviet war

Answer 4

• The Red Army was overconfident and overstretched. They thought that the Polish workers would accept them as ‘proletarian liberators’, but they were percieved instead as invaders. They rallied together to surround the Red Army, who were forced to retreat.

Question 5

Explain the significance of the Treaty of Riga

Answer 5

• It enabled Russia to stop fighting Poland and instead focus on other pressing short-term concerns (Kronstadt Rebellion, peasant revolts in Ukraine, White forces)
• It transformed Russia’s communist foreign policy from direct assault to a more cautious approach

Question 6

Find 2 views on why the Bolsheviks were able to overcome armed resistance to their rule

Answer 6

‘Half a million Red Army soldiers joined the bolshevik party during the civil war. These were the missionaries of the revolution. They carried bolshevism.’ Orlando Figes

‘The guillotine of the revolution was the gun’ Dmitri Volkogonov

Question 7

Who was the Commissar of War?

Answer 7

Leon Trotsky

Question 8

Who was the leader of the Armed Forces of Southern Russia?

Answer 8

General Denikin

Question 9

Which White army leader declared himself ‘Supreme Ruler of the Russian State?

Answer 9

Admiral Kolchak

Question 10

Who commanded the North-Western White Army? Why were its campaigns significant?

Answer 10

General Yudenich
Their November campaign reached the Petrograd suburbs before being turned back following Trotsky’s arrival

Question 11

Which foreign powers were involved in the Civil War?

Answer 11

• British and Commonwealth
• Japan
• US
• France

Question 12

How did Lenin describe the Green Armies?

Answer 12

‘far more dangerous than all the Denikins, Yudeniches and Kolchaks combined’

Question 13

Which battle in the Polish-Soviet War was a significant turning point?

Answer 13

Battle of Warsaw

Question 14

How did the following factors impact Red victory in the Civil War:
- Geography
- Ideology
- Strength of Red Armies
- Weakness of White Armies

Answer 14

Geography
- Bolsheviks controlled most of central European Russia, which contained a larger population to draw recruits. There were 70 million people in Soviet Russia compared to an average of 8-10 million in White held areas.
- They also had access to key factories in Moscow and Petrograd, as well as control of a very extensive railway system
- White armies in comparison were scattered and had supply issues, resulting in irregular attacks and communication issues.
Ideology
- Bolsheviks made effective use of propaganda and had a more united sense of purpose compared to the Whites
- Class war against the capitalist bourgeoisie and exploitative kulaks and patriotic defense of the fatherland against imperialist foreign invaders
Strength of the Red Army
- Disciplined and organized
- Morale was kept high due to unified ideology and Trotsky’s speeches
- Railways and population, as well as supplies
Weakness of White armies
- literally everything else