Katana VentraIP

Russian Civil War

The Russian Civil War[a] was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the overthrowing of the social-democratic Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. It resulted in the formation of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and later the Soviet Union in most of its territory. Its finale marked the end of the Russian Revolution, which was one of the key events of the 20th century.

For other uses, see Russian Civil War (disambiguation).

The Russian monarchy ended with the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II during the February Revolution, and Russia was in a state of political flux. A tense summer culminated in the October Revolution, where the Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government of the new Russian Republic. Bolshevik seizure of power was not universally accepted, and the country descended into civil war. The two largest combatants were the Red Army, fighting for the establishment of a Bolshevik-led socialist state headed by Vladimir Lenin, and the loosely allied forces known as the White Army, which functioned as a political big tent for right- and left-wing opposition to Bolshevik rule. In addition, rival militant socialists, notably the Ukrainian anarchists of the Makhnovshchina and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, were involved in conflict against the Bolsheviks. They, as well as non-ideological green armies, opposed the Bolsheviks, the Whites and the foreign interventionists.[9] Thirteen foreign nations intervened against the Red Army, notably the Allied intervention, whose primary goal was re-establishing the Eastern Front of World War I. Three foreign nations of the Central Powers also intervened, rivaling the Allied intervention with the main goal of retaining the territory they had received in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Soviet Russia.


The Bolsheviks initially consolidated control over most of the former empire. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was an emergency peace with the German Empire, who had captured vast swathes of the Russian territory during the chaos of the revolution. In May 1918, the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia revolted in Siberia. In reaction, the Allies began their North Russian and Siberian interventions. That, combined with the creation of the Provisional All-Russian Government, saw the reduction of Bolshevik-controlled territory to most of European Russia and parts of Central Asia. In 1919, the White Army launched several offensives from the east in March, the south in July, and west in October. The advances were later checked by the Eastern Front counteroffensive, the Southern Front counteroffensive, and the defeat of the Northwestern Army.


By 1919, the White armies were in retreat and by the start of 1920 were defeated on all three fronts.[10] Although the Bolsheviks were victorious, the territorial extent of the Russian state had been reduced, for many non-Russian ethnic groups had used the disarray to push for national independence.[11] In March 1921, during a related war against Poland, the Peace of Riga was signed, splitting disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between the Republic of Poland and Soviet Russia. Soviet Russia sought to re-conquer all newly independent nations of the former Empire, although their success was limited. Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania all repelled Soviet invasions, while Ukraine, Belarus (as a result of the Polish–Soviet War), Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia were occupied by the Red Army.[12][13] By 1921, Soviet Russia had defeated the Ukrainian national movements and occupied the Caucasus, although anti-Bolshevik uprisings in Central Asia lasted until the late 1920s.[14]


The armies under Kolchak were eventually forced on a mass retreat eastward. Bolshevik forces advanced east, despite encountering resistance in Chita, Yakut and Mongolia. Soon the Red Army split the Don and Volunteer armies, forcing evacuations in Novorossiysk in March and Crimea in November 1920. After that, anti-Bolshevik resistance was sporadic for several years until the collapse of the White Army in Yakutia in June 1923, but continued on with the Muslim Basmachi movement in Central Asia and Khabarovsk Krai until 1934. There were an estimated 7 to 12 million casualties during the war, mostly civilians.[15]

The Road to Calvary (1922–41) by

Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy

(1923) by Dmitri Furmanov

Chapaev

The Iron Flood (1924) by

Alexander Serafimovich

(1926) by Isaac Babel

Red Cavalry

The Rout (1927) by

Alexander Fadeyev

Conquered City (1932) by

Victor Serge

Futility (1922) by

William Gerhardie

(1934) by Nikolai Ostrovsky

How the Steel Was Tempered

(1934) by Vsevolod Vishnevsky

Optimistic Tragedy

(1928–1940) by Mikhail Sholokhov

And Quiet Flows the Don

(1940) by Mikhail Sholokhov

The Don Flows Home to the Sea

(1957) by Boris Pasternak

Doctor Zhivago

(1965) by Maria Iordanidou

Holidays in Caucasus

(1966) by Mikhail Bulgakov

The White Guard

(1981) by Michael Moorcock

Byzantium Endures

Chevengur (written in 1927, first published in 1988 in the USSR) by .

Andrei Platonov

(2010) by Ken Follett

Fall of Giants

A Splendid Little War (2012) by

Derek Robinson (novelist)

Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War

Index of articles related to the Russian Revolution and Civil War

Nikolayevsk incident

Revolutionary Mass Festivals

Timeline of the Russian Civil War

Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War

Newsreels about Russian Civil War // Net-Film Newsreels and Documentary Films Archive

Mawdsley, Evan: , in: 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.

International Responses to the Russian Civil War (Russian Empire)

Read, Christopher: , in: 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.

Revolutions (Russian Empire)

Beyrau, Dietrich: , in: 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.

Post-war Societies (Russian Empire)

Brudek, Pawe³: , in: 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.

Revolutions (East Central Europe)

Melancon, Michael S.: , in: 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.

Social Conflict and Control, Protest and Repression (Russian Empire)

Archived 7 September 2014 at the Wayback Machine

Russian Revolution and Civil War archive at libcom.org/library

(3 February 2007)

"BBC History of the Russian Revolution"

(Spartacus History, downloaded 3 January 2006)

"Russian Civil War"

(On War website, downloaded 4 January 2006)

"Russian Civil War 1918–1920"

(3 February 2007)

"Civil War of 1917–1922 at Encyclopedia of Russian History