The largest swamp. The Pantanal is the world's largest wetland
Since the civil war was characterized by monstrous chaos and absolute confusion, even after 80 years, absolute chaos and ignorance of basic things reigns in people’s minds. Let's consider the most popular misconceptions and prejudices that have been firmly rooted in our heads over 70 years of Soviet historiography and 20 years of post-Soviet history.
The people supported the Bolsheviks
The most common misconception. Undoubtedly, the Bolsheviks had no equal in terms of demagoguery and populism, but there is no talk of mass support for the Bolsheviks. According to the results of the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the Bolsheviks received only 24% of the votes, almost twice as much as the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Moreover, even at the fronts, with the most attractive slogan “Down with war!” The Bolsheviks managed to get only 40% of the votes. The Social Revolutionaries, in turn, received 85-90% of the votes in some regions.
Another argument against popular support for the Bolsheviks can be the more than a dozen mass peasant uprisings that occurred between 1918 and 1921, in which entire regions and tens of thousands of people participated. Only a complete idiot can believe in popular prints of peasants joyfully greeting the Bolsheviks who came to starve them to death, taking away their bread and grain. But even an idiot will see the light after looking at the results of the elections to the Constituent Assembly.
Intervention
The role of intervention is exaggerated by Soviet historiography by approximately several thousand times. Firstly, the intervention began even before the signing Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and the British landed in Murmansk under the pretext of protecting the railway from the Germans with the permission of the Bolsheviks. The cries that foreign capitalists wanted to ruin the cause of the revolution are nothing more than a wartime propaganda ploy. The Bolsheviks were as interested in the interventionists as they were in the insects crawling under their feet. They did not enter into clashes with the Red Army (with rare exceptions in the North, however, even there, due to their small numbers, the clashes were not serious), occasionally lazily exchanging fire with the Reds. Sometimes they actually collaborated with the Reds, as in the case of the American Expeditionary Force “Siberia”, which guarded a section of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Most of the foreign legions left the RSFSR a year later - in 1919. Japanese on Far East stayed longer, but they big countries forced to leave the region by 1922.
Volunteers fought
An absolutely incorrect statement both in relation to the Red Army and the White Army. The Reds tried to create an army on a voluntary basis, but a month later they announced a transition to forced mobilization, because... it became clear that there were negligibly few people willing to give their lives for the international. During the civil war, at least 2.6 million people deserted from the Red Army. This is 8 times more than the entire strength of the White Army (!).
The White Army, which was also initially recruited on a volunteer basis, after a few months moved on to the mobilization of peasants and captured Red Army soldiers, since within a few months of its existence the basis of the White forces - the Volunteer Army - was able to recruit about 6 thousand people. It is worth noting that the parties were in unequal conditions. The Bolsheviks controlled large territories and famine often reigned in these regions, so enlisting in the Red Army was easier and more profitable, because the soldiers were provided with food. The Whites controlled territories that did not know hunger; in addition, to get to them from other regions, it was necessary to do long haul through the territories captured by the Bolsheviks, who shot at officers traveling south. The Reds controlled territories with a population of just over 100 million people, the Whites controlled a maximum of 40-50 million.
Tsarist officers went over to the side of the Reds
It is impossible to talk about the mass transition of tsarist officers to the side of the Reds. According to the MOST inflated estimates, which were reported by the Bolsheviks themselves and which are not considered reliable by almost any researcher, before the decree on forced mobilization was adopted, 8 thousand officers went over to the side of the Reds. Most likely, their reliable number was half that, about 3-4 thousand. After mobilization, their number was 35 thousand; by the end of the war, this figure increased to 55 thousand. 170 thousand officers fought on the side of the whites. On the side of the Reds are about 20% of the officers of the tsarist army (Volkov’s data). IN Soviet time the figure was 30% (Kavtaradze). At the same time, Whites lost more officers than red ones. About 55 thousand white officers died, while only 10 thousand red officers died. Larger number losses are explained, firstly, by the much larger ratio of officers to privates in the white armies (officer regiments), and secondly, by the fact that red officers often occupied staff positions.
What guided the officers when they went over to the Red side?
Quite a difficult moment. Everyone had their own motivation. Some joined the Bolsheviks because they saw power in them (he who sits in the capital is the power), some - to escape hunger, some were forcibly mobilized. And of course, we must not forget about vanity. Former tsarist officers, especially middle and low ranks, had fantastic careers in the Red Army. Lieutenant (albeit from the Semenovsky regiment) Tukhachevsky became an army commander in a few months, and then a front commander, sergeant Budyonny commanded the army, and colonels Vatsetis and Kamenev became commanders-in-chief of the armed forces of the RSFSR. With such fantastic careers, it is difficult to resist the demon of vanity. For the whites, all officer positions were occupied by the corresponding officers, there was an overabundance of officers, and therefore an immediate rise to general positions was not possible.
If it was so good under the whites, then where did the partisans come from?
Suffice it to say that the so-called “Siberian partisans” who fought with Kolchak were led by the outstanding “native Siberian” Nestor Kalandarishvili, nicknamed Grandfather, who before the revolution was a professional Georgian militant and raider (robbed jewelry stores), and who ended up in Siberia several years before the revolution , hiding from persecution by the authorities. He looked like a natural Shamil Basayev:
In addition to Grandfather, detachments of Korean partisans (!) were noted in the fight against the anti-people white regime. Irkutsk, for example, liberated a Chinese-Korean detachment. As the report of the Primorsky branch of the Bolsheviks stated: “The Chinese and Koreans took an active part in the partisan movement during 1919. In addition to direct participation, the Chinese and Koreans provided and continue to provide great assistance with their fans scattered everywhere, as well as food and tobacco.” Another patriarch of the partisan movement was Han Changgol aka Gregory Han, who distributed weapons received from the Bolsheviks to the “Korean workers.” The Koreans were so worried about the fate of the world international that they created 36 partisan detachments in Primorye alone.
It is especially interesting that the “partisans” agitated the peasants to fight against Kolchak with the help of such leaflets: “I, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich secretly landed in Vladivostok in order, together with the people's Soviet government, to begin the fight against the traitor Kolchak, who had sold himself to foreigners. All Russian people are obliged to support me. Grand Duke Nicholas. Truly true, commanders-in-chief of the popular front of the Yenisei province Kravchenko and Shchetinkin.” By the way, Shchetinkin was a staff captain in the tsarist army, immediately after the revolution he became an active Bolshevik. And Kravchenko was killed a couple of years later by grateful peasants. Another prominent partisan was the Georgian courier (before the revolution he transported weapons clandestinely) Surguladze, who was also killed by grateful local residents.
And of course, the history of the “partisans” will be incomplete without Yakov Tryapitsyn. This wonderful man went down in history by destroying the whole city"just". With his detachment, he drove the Japanese out of Nikolaevsk 7-on-Amur, after which he gave the city residents a rural hour, shooting a lot of the population, then drove the rest into the taiga, and set the city on fire and blew it up, leaving only ruins. Even seasoned Bolsheviks were amazed at this initiative and quickly shot Tryapitsyn. He had a wife, Nina, a brunette with languid eyes, who served as the chief of staff of the Red Army; she was also shot for company. The Bolsheviks themselves (!!) wrote about him: “A bunch of adventurers led by Tryapitsyn, hiding behind loud, beautiful-sounding slogans, seized power into their own hands and, supposedly caring for the welfare of the people, shot without trial right and left, right and wrong, finally brought it to the point that this people, so diligently cared for, was so terrorized, so frightened that each of us could not say with certainty whether he would be alive tomorrow. Bringing everyone under the category of whites, Tryapitsyn’s guardsmen tore apart old, proven partisans, shot women and children, including infants. And at least they shot, or stabbed with bayonets and smashed their skulls with butts, and infants and young children were torn in half and thrown into the river, women and children were first dishonored, and then, in their characteristic expression: “Kotsali.”
Why did the Reds win?
The Reds won completely natural reasons. Firstly, by the end of the war the strength of the Red Army was 5.5 million people. While the number of white armies at the peak of their development in 1919 was no more than 300 thousand (according to the highest estimates - 500 thousand) people. In addition, through forced mobilizations and enticements with goodies, the Red Army managed to attract not only criminals and saboteurs, but also professional military men. The warehouses of the tsarist army passed into the hands of the Reds, and the Whites were left with practically nothing.
In addition, the Bolsheviks had great amount professional saboteurs, raiders, terrorists, thieves, murderers and other scammers who were well known in criminal and political circles even before the revolution. It was not difficult for them to harass the regions that were occupied by whites with sabotage. At the start of the war, the Reds had a proven and extensive terrorist network.
Among other things, other countries supported the Reds much more than the Whites. Despite the fact that formally assistance was provided to the whites, the fact that the interventionists did not touch the reds testified to a lot (in Hungary the reds were hanged from trees in a few days). And the assistance provided by the Entente to the white armies was, to put it mildly, of very low quality (a textbook example: fencing swords “by mistake” sent to Yudenich instead of weapons).
The fragmentation of the movement also played a role. If in the south the white armies were well organized (although not all was well with the Don army there), then in Siberia things were not going well for Kolchak. Not only were the Siberian troops noticeably inferior in combat qualities to the troops of Yudenich or the south of Russia, but also under his command were shady characters like Semenov, Annenkov or Ungern, who were more like anarchist detachments.
Finally, main role lack of awareness of the population played a role. Where the Soviet Government managed to visit, people almost without exception signed up for the White armies. Where there was no Soviet power, the peasants simply did not believe the stories about the horrors of Bolshevism, considering them propaganda and fantasies. As a result, as we know, Soviet reality turned out to be many times cooler than even the wildest fantasies. But it was already too late...
COMMENTS
Worth adding to the FAQ.
And not only officers. The soldiers' families were also held hostage.
In addition, which is no less significant, even geographically the whites and reds were in obviously unequal starting conditions. Being in the center of the country, the Reds owned the main transport communications, and thanks to this they could effectively maneuver troops, transferring them from calm sectors of the front to threatened ones. White, at the start Civil War were on the periphery and did not have such an opportunity. This is the key reason, by the way.
Well, of course, it’s worth mentioning efficiency. The ratio of losses per killed was 1 to 3 in favor of the whites. Similar to the ratio of losses of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht two decades later. An army organized by Europeans and consisting of white people en masse will always be more effective than the Horde army.
vadimkrasnoyar
Anyone who wants to know why the Reds won, I recommend reading fundamental work about this theme. The beginning is slow, you have to be patient, but the whole book gives an accurate idea of what happened in 17th. The book is based on memoirs. And about Tryapitsyn there in detail. And most importantly, this is Trotsky, Trotsky and his inexhaustible line of credit and supplies American weapons and the uniforms did their job. (the interventionists were introduced precisely for this purpose, to supply Trotsky with weapons and materiel) The book is called “There Will Be No Rehabilitation” here about the role of the Czech Legion, formed in Europe specifically to support Trotsky, http://zarubezhom.com/antigula... Also very interesting are the memoirs of the right Socialist Revolutionary Pitirim Sorokin, Kerensky's secretary http://zarubezhom.com/Sorokin.... Catastrophe: the revolution of 1917.
I would not say that the United States as a state, but bankers from the United States, who could carry out such transactions as supplying the revolution in Russia without much publicity in their country. And for what? Trotsky paid for everything with royal gold and gold that he pumped out of the population of Russia, tearing out the crowns and the last gold coins from our great-grandfathers. through robbery and famine. That’s exactly why they made the revolution. They cleaned out all the gold and threw it to the communists, who then made a big concentration camp.
Cry0gen Bondarenko Mikhail
The reason was simple: Trotsky. He created several state institutions, which allowed the Reds to gain a strategic advantage. Firstly, these are the military registration and enlistment offices that still exist. In each city where the Red Army was a part, a military registration and enlistment office, a Cheka and a cell of the Bolshevik Party were created. The military registration and enlistment office registered the male population capable of fighting and carried out periodic conscription into the Red Army. And these institutions were created for always, and not for a while. The territories captured by the Reds regularly and centrally supplied fighters. The whites didn’t do anything like that; they came to the city or village and hung up posters calling for people to join the army; if people didn’t come, they carried out a forced conscription and as soon as the troops left there, the deserters returned back to their threshing floors and stacks. The Reds took over the country slowly but methodically. Of course, desertion from the Red Army was widespread, but still even those who remained were more numerous than white fighters. Of course, there were also successes, well, these were weapons warehouses in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Ufa, which Chapaev defended. But their most important asset was the factories that produced cartridges, there were a lot of weapons in the country, and only the Reds had cartridges and Europe could not help them, they had a different cartridge, and it was expensive to import both weapons and cartridges. There was also tsarist money, which the Bolsheviks used to pay peasants for bread in battlefields; the whites had cut paper own production, and the Reds had real rubles, although they had cut paper and both, but the force of habit took its toll. Trotsky also quite cleverly organized the Red Army, this is described in many memoirs, he created a template for the division and described how to create it in a special package of documents, which was accompanied by 30-50 specially trained people who, going to the site, helped organize the division, half of them were commissars and CheKists who brainwashed and performed counter-intelligence functions, the other half were military. specialists (former officers) who were specialists in specific areas (artillerymen, logistics officers, staff officers, etc.).
Workers' and Peasants' White Army: What school textbooks are silent about
The social composition of the White Army does not correspond to the myth of landowner-capitalists
White Guards. Adjutants, assistants and deputies to the commander of the Volunteer Army, Lieutenant General V.Z. May-Maevsky, against the backdrop of his personal train, Poltava, July 31, 1919. Photo from wikimedia.org
On September 5, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued the Decree on the Red Terror. This decision was presented as a response to the activities of counter-revolutionary elements, and many are still convinced that the Bolsheviks switched to harsh measures only as a response to the White Terror. Well, let's turn to the chronology of events.
After October revolution the front completely collapsed. A sea of military personnel poured home, but for many this trip turned out to be their last.
In early January 1918, at the Ilovaiskaya station, officers led by the commander were removed from the echelon of the 3rd Elisavetgrad Hussar Regiment and taken to the Uspenskaya station, where they were shot on the night of January 18.
In Evpatoria, on January 15–18, 1918, over 800 people were arrested and executions began. People were killed on the transport "Truvor" and the hydrocruiser "Romania". Between January 15 and 17, about 300 people died on both ships.
On January 13, 1918, Yalta was occupied by the Bolsheviks, and large-scale arrests of officers immediately began, most of them were shot.
Around the same time, in Kyiv, the “red units” killed about 3 thousand people. Among them are not only officers and “bourgeois”, but also students.
Reprisals on “class” grounds were not stopped by the central Bolshevik government. There was not even a formal condemnation of extrajudicial executions. Therefore, the current attempts of the neo-Sovietists to present these crimes in the form of arbitrariness on the ground “contrary to the will of Lenin” look ridiculous.
It is clear that when people are killed, at least some of them resist. Realizing that officers and other “bourgeois” would face death under “people’s power,” the most strong-willed and courageous of them began to gather in detachments.
This is exactly how the White Army was formed, since at first the absolute majority of “class alien elements” did not even think of taking up arms. Soviet power was triumphantly established throughout the country, and at this stage practically no one offered resistance to it. Even the Cossacks as a whole did not want to fight against the Reds.
Kaledin and Alekseev tried to create a Cossack army, but only a handful of cadets, cadets and students initially responded to their calls. On February 11, 1918, Kaledin had 147 bayonets in the Don direction. I repeat, not 147 thousand, but 147 bayonets.
It must be said that on the eve of the First World War, a little more than half of the officers were nobles. During the war, another 260 thousand people became officers (minimum estimate). Of these, about 70% come from peasant backgrounds, 25% are bourgeois, workers and representatives of the intelligentsia.
That is, the absolute majority of the officers did not consist of nobles and other “world-eaters”. Their ancestors did not flog anyone in the stables, did not have any estates, and did not squander people’s money in any “Paris”. These were people of simple origin who rose to prominence during the war years thanks to personal courage and other abilities. Accordingly, the White Army for the most part did not consist of the notorious “sons of landowner-capitalists.” Judging by social composition, then, without any exaggeration, the White Army was a workers' and peasants' army. Moreover, according to the leaders of the White movement themselves, the best units of the White armies consisted of yesterday’s Red Army soldiers captured.
The Bolshevik terror and endless robberies of the population under the pretext of establishing “social justice” did more for the White cause than all the White generals combined.
All these facts are well known to professional historians, but absolutely inconvenient for Soviet propagandists and current neo-Soviet-minded agitators. Why nothing was written about this in the old school textbooks is not a mystery. However, even now the thesis about the Workers’ and Peasants’ White Army is perceived as an insane heresy.
Causes of defeat white movement during the civil war in Russia
Οʜᴎ are diverse. One of the main ones was the system of political structure in Russia, as it developed since the 14th century.
For 700 years government Russia was an extremely rigid vertical structure that held together all spheres of social life. As a result, the entire social infrastructure of the country turned out to be distorted, due to the lack of horizontal connections that would connect people with each other regardless of the state. Cohesion was not created in society, and hence the lack of balance between it and the government.
Under such regimes, the country was held together only by the firmness and determination of the government, but as soon as it weakened, society immediately turned into turmoil.
A major mistake of the whites was their failure to understand the changing nature of the fight against the Bolsheviks as a result of the end of the First World War.
The war from external, with Germany, turned into internal, with the Bolsheviks. Continuing to follow outdated slogans led to the fact that the goals of the struggle were not understood by the population, and the white movement, thus, did not receive extremely important support.
The next reason for White's defeat is strategic position white and red forces.
The Bolsheviks, maintaining power over the industrial heart of Russia with a developed network of railways, skillfully took advantage of this circumstance to concentrate forces and resources in decisive areas.
On the other hand, the scattering of white armies along the outskirts of Russia, the heterogeneity of leadership, the long path to unification (June 12, 1919 ᴦ.) and the impossibility of coordinating action due to the lack of acceptable communication, did not allow the whites not only to maneuver their armies, but even to choose the moment of simultaneous going on the offensive.
An important reason for the defeat of the whites was the inability of their leaders to rely on their own people in solving their problems.
A simplified approach to resolving the land issue, the abolition of the October Decree on Land, turned the peasants against them precisely when the peasants were dissatisfied with the surplus appropriation policy of the Bolsheviks. This gave rise to accusing them of allegedly hidden monarchism
Absence in the country necessary conditions for the introduction of the Western value system it became main reason the defeat of the white movement during the civil war in Russia, as well as the collapse of the Bolshevik plans to “make happy Russian people”
First of all, thanks to the active, purposeful activities of the Bolshevik Party.
The importance of their propaganda and organizational work cannot be underestimated. Seeds of propaganda fell on the loosened soil. The growth was significant. The majority of peasants and workers believed that landowners and capitalists, together with the Entente, strive to put on the age-old yoke again. It was class consciousness that made it possible, despite the hardships of the war, mistakes, miscalculations, and excesses of the Bolsheviks, to ensure support for Soviet power among the broad masses.
Meanwhile, the Soviet regime by the spring of 1921 ᴦ. was at a crossroads. It has been experiencing a serious internal crisis since its formation. The revolution and civil war claimed the lives of 9-10 million people, 4 times more than the entire World War. Almost 2 million people, incl. a significant part of the wealthy and educated elite fled abroad. The worst famine in decades was approaching the village. Industrial production fell by 16 percent from the level of 1912.
An armed uprising of peasants in Tambov and other places forced the end of the food dictatorship and put an end to the experiment with a non-market economy of planning and distribution. Opposition groups demanded a partial return to Soviet democracy, which caused open disobedience of the Kronstadt sailors.
The Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the Soviet government were not slow in responding.
The Οʜᴎ brought the village under their control, allowing limited free trade.
Οʜᴎ eliminated emergency bodies, which had caused a lot of criticism, and abolished the special powers of other government bodies.
Moreover, with the exception of the new economic policy the reforms did not go beyond cosmetic amendments. The X Congress of the RCP (b) laid the foundation for the NEP in March 1921. forever outlawed any formation of factions, and in fact, free expression of opinions.
The Civil War left a noticeable imprint on the Bolshevik Party itself. Before the civil war, the party was relatively small (24 thousand in February 1917, about 400 thousand in October of the same year), weak and divided into groups that had different story. Some worked underground, others worked abroad in exile. The authority and power of the revolutionary intelligentsia in the party was unconditional. But the civil war radically changed the party itself. A new party bureaucracy arose and became extremely stronger - the “cogs” of the new, Stalinist party.
Further, the party grew enormously in numbers during the Civil War and now became something much more than a revolutionary organization of Moscow and Petrograd alone. It covered the entire country. As the old guard dwindled in numbers and the field of activity expanded, a new generation of communists from the provinces formed a new foundation for the party. In J. Stalin's brief formulation, this group was firm, practical, possessed of a sense of superiority and not interested in the disputes so common among the revolutionary intelligentsia.
However, the civil war contributed to the promotion of Stalin, the destruction of the old guard of revolutionaries and the transformation of the party from a relatively small group dissatisfied intellectuals in powerful car led by Stalin.
The last stage of the civil war saw the most difficult period and restoration of the state: education of the USSR.
During the revolution and civil war, the Russian Empire collapsed. Poland declared independence and distance from it. Finland, Ukraine, Baltic lands, Transcaucasian territories, Moldova. Various kinds of state associations arose in the North Caucasus, in the Volga region, in Central Asia and Kazakhstan. This was not just self-determination of peoples. It was the collapse of the state, anarchy.
In total, the territorial territories amounted to 800 thousand square kilometers with a population of 30-32 million people. The formation of new state borders took place. These losses were palpable. Granting independence to Poland and Finland was historically inevitable, but Soviet republic managed to stop the collapse Russian state, to find a form of government acceptable for that time.
With all the enormous material losses and costs of the civil war that slowed down and hampered the development of the country, there was one circumstance that was extremely important for understanding subsequent history . This is the very fact of the victory of the Soviet Republic . It is difficult to overestimate its importance. For the first time in history, the exploiters were overthrown. Everything happened as the Marxist-communists predicted and calculated. In other words, the Soviet system received undeniable political and moral support from the majority of the population. Victims and losses charged political explanation and justification. The main thing has happened.
Why did the Reds win? - concept and types. Classification and features of the category “Why did the Reds win?” 2017, 2018.
Workers' and Peasants' White Army: What school textbooks are silent about
The social composition of the White Army does not correspond to the myth of landowner-capitalists
White Guards. Adjutants, assistants and deputies to the commander of the Volunteer Army, Lieutenant General V.Z. May-Maevsky, against the backdrop of his personal train, Poltava, July 31, 1919. Photo from wikimedia.org
On September 5, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued the Decree on the Red Terror. This decision was presented as a response to the activities of counter-revolutionary elements, and many are still convinced that the Bolsheviks switched to harsh measures only as a response to the White Terror. Well, let's turn to the chronology of events.
After the October Revolution, the front completely disintegrated. A sea of military personnel poured home, but for many this trip turned out to be their last.
In early January 1918, at the Ilovaiskaya station, officers led by the commander were removed from the echelon of the 3rd Elisavetgrad Hussar Regiment and taken to the Uspenskaya station, where they were shot on the night of January 18.
In Evpatoria, on January 15–18, 1918, over 800 people were arrested and executions began. People were killed on the transport "Truvor" and the hydrocruiser "Romania". Between January 15 and 17, about 300 people died on both ships.
On January 13, 1918, Yalta was occupied by the Bolsheviks, and large-scale arrests of officers immediately began, most of them were shot.
Around the same time, in Kyiv, the “red units” killed about 3 thousand people. Among them are not only officers and “bourgeois”, but also students.
Reprisals on “class” grounds were not stopped by the central Bolshevik government. There was not even a formal condemnation of extrajudicial executions. Therefore, the current attempts of the neo-Sovietists to present these crimes in the form of arbitrariness on the ground “contrary to the will of Lenin” look ridiculous.
It is clear that when people are killed, at least some of them fight back. Realizing that officers and other “bourgeois” would face death under “people’s power,” the most strong-willed and courageous of them began to gather in detachments.
This is exactly how the White Army was formed, since at first the absolute majority of “class alien elements” did not even think of taking up arms. Soviet power was triumphantly established throughout the country, and at this stage practically no one offered resistance to it. Even the Cossacks as a whole did not want to fight against the Reds.
Kaledin and Alekseev tried to create a Cossack army, but only a handful of cadets, cadets and students initially responded to their calls. On February 11, 1918, Kaledin had 147 bayonets in the Don direction. I repeat, not 147 thousand, but 147 bayonets.
It must be said that on the eve of the First World War, a little more than half of the officers were nobles. During the war, another 260 thousand people became officers (minimum estimate). Of these, about 70% come from peasant backgrounds, 25% are bourgeois, workers and representatives of the intelligentsia.
That is, the absolute majority of the officers did not consist of nobles and other “world-eaters”. Their ancestors did not flog anyone in the stables, did not have any estates, and did not squander people’s money in any “Paris”. These were people of simple origin who rose to prominence during the war years thanks to personal courage and other abilities. Accordingly, the White Army for the most part did not consist of the notorious “sons of landowner-capitalists.” Judging by the social composition, then, without any exaggeration, the White Army was a workers' and peasants' army. Moreover, according to the leaders of the White movement themselves, the best units of the White armies consisted of yesterday’s Red Army soldiers captured.
The Bolshevik terror and endless robberies of the population under the pretext of establishing “social justice” did more for the White cause than all the White generals combined.
All these facts are well known to professional historians, but absolutely inconvenient for Soviet propagandists and current neo-Soviet-minded agitators. Why nothing was written about this in the old school textbooks is not a mystery. However, even now the thesis about the Workers’ and Peasants’ White Army is perceived as an insane heresy.
Briefly about the civil war of 1917-1922
The first civil war in Russia still causes a lot of controversy today. First of all, historians do not have a common opinion about its periodization and reasons. Some scientists believe that the chronological framework of the civil war is October 1917 - October 1922. Others believe that it is more correct to call the date of the beginning of the civil war 1917, and the end - 1923. There is also no consensus on the causes of the civil war in Russia.
But, among the most important reasons scientists call:
- Social inequality in Russian society accumulated over centuries, and at the beginning of the 20th century it reached its apogee, as workers and peasants found themselves in a completely powerless position, and their working and living conditions were simply unbearable. The autocracy did not want to smooth out social contradictions and carry out any significant reforms. It was during this period that it grew revolutionary movement, who managed to lead the Bolshevik party.
- Against the backdrop of the protracted First World War, all these contradictions intensified noticeably, which resulted in the February and October revolutions.
- As a result of the revolution in October 1917, the political system in the state changed, and the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia. But the overthrown classes could not come to terms with the situation and made attempts to restore their former dominance.
- The establishment of Bolshevik power led to the abandonment of the ideas of parliamentarism and the creation of a one-party system, which prompted the Cadets, Socialist Revolutionaries, and Mensheviks to fight Bolshevism, that is, the struggle between the “whites” and the “reds” began.
- In the fight against the enemies of the revolution, the Bolsheviks used undemocratic measures - the establishment of a dictatorship, repression, persecution of the opposition, and the creation of emergency bodies. This, of course, caused discontent in society, and among those dissatisfied with the actions of the authorities were not only the intelligentsia, but also the workers and peasants.
- The nationalization of land and industry caused resistance from former owners, which led to terrorist actions on both sides.
- Despite the fact that Russia ceased its participation in the First World War in 1918, there was a powerful interventionist group on its territory that actively supported the White Guard movement.
Scientists distinguish 3 stages of the civil war. The first stage lasted from October 1917 to November 1918. This was the time the Bolsheviks came to power. Since October 1917, isolated armed clashes gradually turned into full-scale military operations. It is characteristic that the beginning of the civil war of 1917 - 1922 unfolded against the backdrop of a larger military conflict - the First World War. This was the main reason for the subsequent intervention of the Entente. It should be noted that each of the Entente countries had its own reasons for participating in the intervention. Thus, Türkiye wanted to establish itself in Transcaucasia, France wanted to extend its influence to the north of the Black Sea region, Germany wanted to Kola Peninsula, Japan was interested in Siberian territories. The goal of England and the United States was both to expand their own spheres of influence and to prevent the strengthening of Germany.
The second stage dates from November 1918 – March 1920. It was at this time that the decisive events of the civil war took place. Due to the cessation of hostilities on the fronts of the First World War and the defeat of Germany, military operations on Russian territory gradually lost intensity. But, at the same time, a turning point came in favor of the Bolsheviks, who controlled most territory of the country.
The final stage in the chronology of the Civil War lasted from March 1920 to October 1922. Military operations during this period took place mainly on the outskirts of Russia (the Soviet-Polish War, military clashes in the Far East). It is worth noting that there are other, more detailed, options for periodizing the civil war.
The end of the civil war was marked by the victory of the Bolsheviks. Historians call its most important reason the broad support of the masses. The development of the situation was also seriously influenced by the fact that, weakened by the First World War, the Entente countries were unable to coordinate their actions and strike at the territory of the former Russian Empire with all our might.
The results of the civil war in Russia were terrifying. The country was virtually in ruins. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Western Ukraine, Bessarabia and part of Armenia left Russia. In the main territory of the country, population losses, including as a result of famine, epidemics, etc. amounted to at least 25 million people. They are comparable to total losses countries that took part in the hostilities of the First World War. The country's production levels fell sharply. About 2 million people left Russia, emigrating to other countries (France, USA). These were representatives of the Russian nobility, officers, clergy, and intelligentsia.
11 reasons why whites lost in the Civil War
The civil war was one of the most terrible for Russia. The number of those killed in battle, executed, and died from hunger and epidemics exceeded ten million people. In that terrible war White was defeated. We decided to find out why.
Inconsistency. Failure of the Moscow campaign
In January 1919, Denikin’s army won a major victory over the almost hundred thousand Bolshevik army and occupied North Caucasus. Next, the white troops advanced to the Donbass and Don, where, united, they were able to repel the Red Army, exhausted by Cossack uprisings and peasant riots. Tsaritsyn, Kharkov, Crimea, Ekaterinoslav, Aleksandrovsk were taken. At this time, French and Greek troops landed in southern Ukraine, and the Entente was planning a massive offensive. The White Army advanced north, trying to approach Moscow, capturing Kursk, Orel and Voronezh along the way.
At this time, the party committee had already begun to be evacuated to Vologda. On February 20, the white army defeated the red cavalry corps and captured Rostov and Novocherkassk. The totality of these victories inspired the troops, and it would seem that victory was imminent for Denikin and Kolchak. However, the Whites lost the battle for Kuban, and after the Reds took Novorossiysk and Yekaterinodar, the main White forces in the south were broken. They left Kharkov, Kyiv and Donbass. The Whites' successes on the northern front also ended: despite the financial support of Great Britain, Yudenich's autumn offensive against Petrograd failed, and the Baltic republics rushed to sign a peace treaty with Soviet government. Thus, Denikin’s Moscow campaign was doomed.
Personnel shortage
One of the most obvious reasons for the defeat of the anti-Bolshevik forces is the insufficient number of well-trained officers. For example, despite the fact that in Northern Army there were as many as 25,000 people, of which only 600 were officers. In addition, captured Red Army soldiers were recruited into the army, which did not in any way contribute to morale. White officers were trained thoroughly: British and Russian schools trained them.
However, frequent occurrences Desertion, mutinies and murder of allies remained: “3 thousand infantrymen (in the 5th Northern Rifle Regiment) and 1 thousand military personnel of other branches of the army with four 75-mm guns went over to the Bolshevik side.” After Great Britain stopped supporting the Whites at the end of 1919, the White army, despite a short-term advantage, was defeated and capitulated to the Bolsheviks. Wrangel also described the shortage of soldiers: “The poorly supplied army fed exclusively from the population, placing an unbearable burden on them. Despite large influx volunteers from places newly occupied by the army, its numbers almost did not increase.”
At first there was also a shortage of Reds in the army officers, and instead of them, commissars were recruited even without military experience. It was for these reasons that the Bolsheviks suffered many defeats on all fronts at the beginning of the war. However, by decision of Trotsky, experienced people from the former tsarist army, who knew what war was first-hand, began to be hired as officers. Many of them went to fight for the Reds voluntarily.
Mass desertion
In addition to individual cases of voluntary departure from the White Army, there were more widespread cases of desertion. Firstly, Denikin’s army, despite the fact that it controlled quite large areas, was never able to significantly increase its numbers at the expense of the inhabitants living on them. Secondly, gangs of “greens” or “blacks” often operated in the rear of the whites, who fought against both the whites and the reds. Many whites, especially from among the former prisoners of the Red Army, deserted and joined foreign troops. However, one should not exaggerate about desertion from the anti-Bolshevik ranks: at least 2.6 million people deserted from the Red Army in just one year (from 1919 to 1920), which exceeded the total number of white troops.
Fragmentation of forces
Another important factor that ensured the Bolsheviks’ victory was the solidity of their armies. White forces were widely scattered throughout Russia, which made it impossible to competently command the troops. The disunity of the whites also manifested itself on a more abstract level - the ideologists of the anti-Bolshevik movement were unable to win over all the opponents of the Bolsheviks, showing excessive persistence in many political issues.
Lack of ideology
Whites were often accused of trying to restore the monarchy, separatism, and transferring power to a foreign government. However, in reality their ideology did not consist of such radical but clear guidelines. The program of the white movement included the restoration of the state integrity of Russia, “the unity of all forces in the fight against the Bolsheviks” and the equality of all citizens of the country.
A huge mistake of the white command is the lack of clear ideological positions, ideas for which people would be willing to fight and die. The Bolsheviks proposed a very specific plan - their idea was to build a utopian communist state in which there would be no poor and oppressed, and for this they could sacrifice everything moral principles. Global idea unification of the whole world under the red flag of the Revolution defeated the amorphous white resistance.
This is how he characterized his psychological state white general Slashchev: “Then I didn’t believe in anything. If they ask me what I fought for and what my mood was, I will sincerely answer that I don’t know... I won’t hide the fact that sometimes thoughts flashed in my mind about whether the majority of the Russian people were on the side of the Bolsheviks - after all, it’s impossible, that they are still triumphant thanks only to the Germans.” This phrase quite succinctly reflects the state of mind of many soldiers fighting against the Bolsheviks.
Poor education
Denikin, Kolchak and Wrangel, speaking with their abstract slogans, did not present clear instructions to the people and did not have an ideal goal, unlike the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks organized a powerful propaganda machine, which was specifically engaged in the development of ideologies. As the American historian Williams wrote, “The First Council People's Commissars, based on the number of books written by its members and the languages they spoke, was superior in culture and education to any cabinet of ministers in the world." Thus, the white military commanders lost the ideological war to the more educated Bolsheviks.
Excessive softness
The Bolshevik government did not hesitate to carry out drastic and cruel reforms. Paradoxically, it was precisely this kind of rigidity that was important in war time: people did not believe politicians who doubted and delayed decisions. The big mistake of the white command was the delay in land reform - its project involved the expansion of farms at the expense of landowners' lands. However, a law was issued that until the Constituent Assembly prohibited the seizure of lands and kept them in the possession of the nobles. Of course, the peasant population, 80% of the Russian population, took this order as a personal insult.
Proletarians of all countries
In the spring of 1918, after news that the Bolsheviks had concluded a separate peace with the Germans, England, France, Italy, the USA and Japan decided to “punish” Russia for its betrayal and begin intervention on the territory of its former ally. Formally, all this was covered up by a call for help from the whites; in fact, it was a betrayal of the ideals and interests of the Bolsheviks’ opponents in exchange for semi-mythical support in the fight against Lenin.
In Soviet historiography, they diligently avoided the issue of the participation of military formations from other countries on the Red side and emphasized ostentatious internationalism: they say, anyone could join the Red banner, and it didn’t matter what their nationality was. Nevertheless, it is known that the Red Army formed entire detachments of Chinese, Latvian and other volunteers who willingly went to die for Lenin and their comrades because they were paid well in royal gold. They were not ideological communists, and their atrocities in the country, torn by the Civil War, were legendary.
Command staff and military experts
When the Bolsheviks took power in Petrograd in the fall of 1917, they had no plans for the old leadership and management system, other than their complete destruction. But after the Germans stopped complying with the terms of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and anti-Bolshevik unrest began to break out everywhere, a full-scale civil war began, and for the Reds the question of creating a new and combat-ready army became obvious.
At first they decided to recruit workers, sympathizers, just communists, and put political workers and commissars as commanders, even without military experience. It was a disaster: such units could not conduct full-fledged combat operations and, in clashes with whites, simply fled or suffered humiliating defeats. Trotsky decided to act differently. Stepping on your throat own song, he decided to recruit new army former tsarist officers - seemingly enemies of the new system - but only such “enemies” knew how to fight correctly, and they could bring victory to the young proletarian state of workers and peasants.
The key was the entry into the Red Army of the most talented of former commanders: Brusilov, Bonch-Bruevich, Kork, Shaposhnikov, Egorov and others. Almost half of the former royal General Staff began to serve the Bolsheviks, and many did it voluntarily. Hence the result: the white generals could not cope with their own former colleagues, who turned out to be more pragmatic and flexible, which was what the “gold chasers” lacked for victory.
Faith in a new world
IN Soviet years it was taken for granted and there was no doubt that the Red Army men believed that their cause was just and that after victory they would definitely build communism - heaven on earth. After the collapse of the USSR, everyone began to vying with each other to claim that the Reds defeated the Whites by numbers, and not by skill, that they were driven forward by commissar detachments and that the main thing for them was only unlimited power and the satisfaction of base instincts; finally, that in general the entire revolution and civil war were carried out with money from the Kaiser’s General Staff, and Lenin was a German spy.
It is not easy to admit, living in the globalized and completely mercantilized 21st century, that there is something more important than money, for example an idea. The key reason the Bolsheviks won 100 years ago was that they believed in their idea, and they had it. But the whites simply didn’t have it, their whole struggle was fanatical and sometimes simply sadistic in nature, such as, for example, the actions of Baron von Ungern in Siberia, who proclaimed himself the incarnation of Buddha and dreamed of uniting Eurasia under his leadership, while at the same time taking scalps and mocking Jews and communists.
No one more eloquently proves the ideological victory of the Reds than the white General Slashchev, who declared after the Civil War: “Back then I didn’t believe in anything. If they ask me what I fought for and what my mood was, I will sincerely answer that I don’t know... I won’t hide the fact that sometimes thoughts flashed in my mind about whether the majority of the Russian people were on the side of the Bolsheviks - after all, it’s impossible, that they are still triumphant thanks only to the Germans.”
Control
In fact, even if the Whites managed to take Moscow and St. Petersburg, it is not a fact that they would have stayed there for a long time, simply because the generals and admirals had little idea of how to govern the country. They were professional soldiers and had little understanding of people's mentalities. The Reds had a government with clearly separated legislative (VTsIK) and executive (Sovnarkom) branches. And the whites were disparate military headquarters, which could not always agree with each other. Yes, in certain moments The Reds were on the verge of defeat, because the Whites were, after all, professional soldiers, and many of their units consisted of slightly less than entirely volunteers, but due to conflicts in the White camp itself and the numerical superiority of the Reds, the most talented of the White leaders (Kappel , Drozdovsky, Markov, etc.), having managed to do quite a lot, left the game very early.