The Russian Civil War (1917-1921)

 

 

The pressures of the Great War and the demands of the allies proved too be too much for the Russian government to bear.  The nation's inability to supply its soldiers with proper weapons and adequate ammunition led to mass desertion in the ranks.  Conditions on the home front were little better as shortages began to take their toll.  In the midst of these troubled times, Bolshevik agitators undermined morale in the ranks and spread dissent back home.  They demanded many changes.  Some wanted the election of officers while others wanted an end to the war altogether.  Mutinies and desertion were daily occurrences.  Seeing how the situation was rapidly deteriorating Tsar Nicholas II chose to abdicate and a provisional government was formed.  This government had little legal basis and was merely a caretaking body until a proper Constituent Assembly could be elected.  Led by Prince George Lvov then Alexander Kerensky, the Provisional Government was doomed to failure.

The party that would bring down Kerensky's government was only a small minority party in the Duma at the time.  It lacked effective leadership and was poorly organized.  That all changed when Lenin arrived in Petrograd's Finland Station.  Lenin took advantage of the breakdown of Russian society to spread his message to a disaffected people.  The growing Bolshevik movement swung quickly into action after seizing Petrograd.  They spred their message across the country.  In most places they were well received, but Moscow only fell to them after a week of fighting.

It did not take long for Lenin's opponents to mount a challenge to his hold on power.  Within a few months fighting erupted across Russia.  The Bolsheviks found themselves engaged in combat with various factions led by nationalists, Tsarist generals (the White Armies) and Anarchists.  Foreign powers desperate to keep Russia in the war also sent in troops to stabilize the situation.  France, England, Japan, and the United States all sent forces into Russia to assist in the destruction of the Red Army.

For a time it seemed that all would be lost.  Finland, Ukraine, the Baltic Republics, and Poland had all broken free of Russian control.  Germans and other foreign armies were running across the country.  The White armies had also made gains against Lenin's government.  The Tsar and his family were executed in Erkatenburg to prevent them from becoming a rallying point for the White forces.  It was only through the actions of heroic revolutionaries that the situation was stabilized and then turned back in their favor.  Leon Trotsky rushed from battle to battle in his armored train to boost the morale of tired Red Army soldiers.  Joseph Stalin had stopped the advancing White forces at Tsarisyn, a city that would one day be known as Stalingrad.  Other heroes of the revolution - Budenney, Voroshilov, and Blucher - fought equally heroic actions against both White and foreign forces.

One by one the White armies were beaten or fled.  Ukraine was retaken after the German occupation forces there were moved back to Germany at the end of the Great War.  The western allies also brought their troops home in the years following World War one.  This gave Lenin and his forces the chance they needed to sweep across Russia.

With growing confidence the Red Army moved to re-take Poland and Finland.  This proved to be a mistake.  The Finnish forces under General Mannerheim solidly defeated Bolshevik forces within his own country and then repelled all Soviet invasions.  The war with Poland was a much more involved affair, but the result was the same.  By crushing the Red Army at the Vistula river, Poland assured its future as a nation and prevented Lenin's revolution from spreading further westward.