Lesson 5-Why did the Civil War break out and how did it develop?

Question 1

Define civil war

Answer 1

a war between citizens of the same coutnry

Question 2

Who were the Reds?

Answer 2

The Bolsheviks and their supporters

Question 3

Who were the Whites?

Answer 3

The Bolsheviks’ opponents, including monarchists looking for a tsarist restoration, Liberals, military leaders, national minorities, Mensheviks and SRs. There was also the Czech Legion who had been stranded in Russia as prisoners of war.

Question 4

Who were the Greens?

Answer 4

Largely made up of groups from nationals minorities, they were nationalists, struggling for independence from central Russian control.

Question 5

Define nationalists

Answer 5

A person who advocates political independence for a country.

Question 6

Define counter-revolutionary

Answer 6

anyone who opposes a revolution, particularly those who act after a revolution to try to overturn or reverse it, in full or in part.

Question 7

Define Cheka

Answer 7

The name of the terror police force created by Lenin.
Their main purpose was to arrest, imprison and execute political opponents.
Ran a concentration camp system called the ‘Gulag’.

Question 8

Define totalitarianism

Answer 8

A dictatorship: a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc. )

Question 9

Between what years was the Russian Civil War?

Answer 9

1918-1921

Question 10

Who did the Whites receive help from during the Civil War?

Answer 10

The Allies in WW1 which included France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan and later, the United States

Question 11

What was the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk?

Answer 11

the peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, between the new Bolshevik government of Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey). It ended Russia’s participation in World War I.

Question 12

What happened as a result of the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk?

Answer 12

Opposition to the Bolshevisks mounted resulting in a series of military campaigns

Question 13

It was not until the end of what year that the Bolsheviks had defeated the whites and secured Communist rule over the country?

Answer 13

1920

Question 14

Why did the Bolsheviks not have a chance of winning at the start of the war?

Answer 14

The area directly under bolshevik control was limited to a central core based on Moscow, stretching to Petrograd in the north-west.
They were surrounded on all sides by white forces

Question 15

How did the Bolsheviks still win the war despite having slim chances?

Answer 15

Bolsheviks had better organisation in military, political and economic terms

Question 16

What faults did the Whites have that helped the Bolsheviks win in the Civil war?

Answer 16

Whites-combination of different groups, the only thing that united them was their desire to remove the Bolsheviks, co-operation was limited, had a long front to fight on and despite the help from Allies they did not put this to good use.

Question 17

By what end of what year, had all the Whites strongholds been defeated?

Answer 17

1920

Question 18

Who should have been credited in large because eof the Bolsheviks victory?

Answer 18

Leon Trotsky
Became the Commissar for War in 1918 and turned the Red Army into an effective fighting machine.

Question 19

Who were the Red Army?

Answer 19

Red Guard units and pro-Bolshevik elements of the old Tsarist army

Question 20

What Was introduced to increase the numbers of soldiers to 5 million by the end of the war?

Answer 20

Conscription