The civil war and military intervention of 1917-1922 in Russia is an armed struggle for power between representatives of various classes, social strata and groups of the former Russian Empire with the participation of the troops of the Quadruple Alliance and the Entente.

The main reasons for the Civil War and military intervention were: the irreconcilability of positions, groups and classes in matters of power, economic and political course of the country; the stake of the opponents of the Soviet regime on the overthrow of it by force of arms with the support of foreign states; the desire of the latter to protect their interests in Russia and prevent the spread of the revolutionary movement in the world; the development of national separatist movements on the outskirts of the former Russian Empire; the radicalism of the Bolshevik leadership, which considered revolutionary violence to be one of the most important means of achieving its political goals, and its desire to put into practice the ideas of the "world revolution".

As a result of the year, the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks) and the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party, which supported it (until July 1918), came to power in Russia, which mainly expressed the interests of the Russian proletariat and the poorest peasantry. They were opposed by the motley in their social composition and often scattered forces of the other (non-proletarian) part of Russian society, represented by numerous parties, trends, associations, etc., often at odds with each other, but which, as a rule, adhered to an anti-Bolshevik orientation. An open clash in the power struggle between these two main political forces in the country led to the Civil War. The main instruments for achieving the set goals in it were: on the one hand, the Red Guard (then the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army), on the other, the White Army.

In November-December 1917, Soviet power was established over most of the territory of Russia, but in a number of regions of the country, mainly in the Cossack regions, local authorities refused to recognize the Soviet government. Riots broke out in them.

Foreign powers also intervened in the internal political struggle unfolding in Russia. After the withdrawal of Russia from the First World War, German and Austro-Hungarian troops in February 1918 occupied part of Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States and southern Russia. To preserve Soviet power, Soviet Russia agreed to the conclusion of the Brest Peace (March 1918).

In March 1918, Anglo-French-American troops landed in Murmansk; in April - Japanese troops in Vladivostok. In May, the revolt of the Czechoslovak corps began, which consisted mainly of former prisoners of war who were in Russia and were returning home through Siberia.

The mutiny revived the internal counter-revolution. With its help, in May-July 1918, the Czechoslovakians captured the Middle Volga region, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East. To fight them, the Eastern Front was formed.

The direct participation of the Entente troops in the war was limited. They mainly carried out guard duty, participated in battles against the rebels, provided material and moral assistance to the White movement, and performed punitive functions. The Entente also imposed an economic blockade on Soviet Russia, capturing critical economic regions, putting political pressure on neutral states interested in trade with Russia, and introducing a naval blockade. Large-scale military operations against the Red Army were conducted only by units of the Separate Czechoslovak Corps.

In the south of Russia, with the help of the interventionists, hotbeds of counter-revolution arose: the White Cossacks on the Don, led by Ataman Krasnov, the Volunteer Army of Lieutenant General Anton Denikin in the Kuban, bourgeois-nationalist regimes in the Transcaucasus, Ukraine, etc.

By the summer of 1918, three-quarters of the country's territory had formed numerous groups and governments that opposed the Soviet regime. By the end of the summer, Soviet power remained mainly in the central regions of Russia and in part of the territory of Turkestan.

To combat external and internal counter-revolution, the Soviet government was forced to increase the size of the Red Army, improve its organizational and staff structure, operational and strategic management. Instead of veils, front-line and army formations began to be created with the appropriate command and control bodies (Southern, Northern, Western and Ukrainian fronts). Under these conditions, the Soviet government nationalized large and medium-sized industry, took control of the small one, introduced labor conscription for the population, food appropriation (the policy of "war communism") and on September 2, 1918, declared the country a single military camp. All these measures made it possible to turn the tide of the armed struggle. In the second half of 1918, the Red Army won its first victories on the Eastern Front, liberated the Volga region and part of the Urals.

After the revolution in Germany, which took place in November 1918, the Soviet government annulled the Brest-Litovsk Peace, Ukraine and Belarus were liberated. However, the policy of "war communism", as well as "decossackization" caused peasant and Cossack uprisings in various regions and enabled the leaders of the anti-Bolshevik camp to form numerous armies and launch a broad offensive against the Soviet Republic.

At the same time, the end of the First World War freed the hands of the Entente. The released troops were thrown against Soviet Russia. In Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Vladivostok and other cities, new units of the invaders landed. Assistance to the White Guard troops increased sharply. As a result of the military coup, the military dictatorship of Admiral Alexander Kolchak, a protege of the Entente, was established in Omsk. In November-December 1918, his government created an army on the basis of various White Guard formations that existed before in the Urals and Siberia.

The Entente decided to deliver the main blow to Moscow from the south. For this purpose, large formations of the invaders landed in the Black Sea ports. In December, Kolchak's army, which captured Perm, stepped up its actions, but units of the Red Army, having captured Ufa, suspended its offensive.

At the end of 1918, the Red Army began an offensive on all fronts. Left-bank Ukraine, Don region, South Ural, a number of areas in the north and north-west of the country were liberated. The Soviet Republic organized active work to decompose the troops of the interventionists. In them, revolutionary actions by soldiers began, and the military leadership of the Entente hastily withdrew its troops from Russia.

In the territories occupied by the White Guards and interventionists, a partisan movement was operating. Partisan formations were created spontaneously by the population or at the initiative of local party bodies. The partisan movement gained the greatest scope in Siberia, the Far East, Ukraine and the North Caucasus. It was one of the most important strategic factors that ensured the victory of the Soviet Republic over numerous enemies.

At the beginning of 1919, the Entente developed a new plan for an offensive against Moscow, which relied on the forces of the internal counter-revolution and small states adjacent to Russia.

The main role was assigned to the army of Kolchak. Auxiliary strikes were delivered: from the south - the army of Denikin, from the west - the Poles and the troops of the Baltic states, from the northwest - the White Guard Northern Corps and Finnish troops, from the north - the White Guard troops of the Northern Region.

In March 1919, Kolchak's army launched an offensive, delivering the main blows in the Ufa-Samara and Izhevsk-Kazan directions. She captured Ufa and began a rapid advance to the Volga. The troops of the Eastern Front of the Red Army, having withstood the enemy's blow, launched a counteroffensive, during which the Urals were occupied in May-July and in the next six months, with the active participation of partisans, Siberia.

In the summer of 1919, the Red Army, without stopping the victorious offensive in the Urals and Siberia, repulsed the offensive of the North-Western Army created on the basis of the White Guard Northern Corps (General Nikolai Yudenich).

In the fall of 1919, the main efforts of the Red Army were focused on fighting Denikin's troops, which launched an offensive against Moscow. The troops of the Southern Front defeated Denikin's armies near Orel and Voronezh and by March 1920 pushed their remnants back to the Crimea and the North Caucasus. At the same time, Yudenich's new offensive against Petrograd failed, and his army was defeated. The Red Army completed the destruction of the remnants of Denikin's troops in the North Caucasus in the spring of 1920. In early 1920, the northern regions of the country were liberated. The Entente states completely withdrew their troops and lifted the blockade.

In the spring of 1920, the Entente organized a new campaign against Soviet Russia, in which the main striking force was the Polish militarists, who were planning the restoration of the Commonwealth within the borders of 1772, and the Russian army under the command of Lieutenant General Pyotr Wrangel. Polish troops dealt the main blow in Ukraine. By mid-May 1920, they advanced to the Dnieper, where they were stopped. During the offensive, the Red Army defeated the Poles and reached Warsaw and Lvov in August. Poland withdrew from the war in October.

Wrangel's troops, trying to break through to the Donbass and the Right-Bank Ukraine, were defeated in October-November during the counteroffensive of the Red Army. Their remains went abroad. The main centers of the Civil War on the territory of Russia were eliminated. But on the outskirts, it still continued.

In 1921-1922, anti-Bolshevik uprisings were suppressed in Kronstadt, in the Tambov region, in a number of regions of Ukraine, etc., the remaining centers of interventionists and White Guards in Central Asia and the Far East were eliminated (October 1922).

The civil war on the territory of Russia ended with the victory of the Red Army. The territorial integrity of the state, which collapsed after the collapse of the Russian Empire, was restored. Outside the union of Soviet republics, the basis of which was Russia, only Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia remained, as well as Bessarabia, annexed to Romania, Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, which became Poland.

The civil war had a detrimental effect on the state of the country. The damage to the national economy amounted to about 50 billion gold rubles, industrial production fell to 4-20% of the 1913 level, agricultural production was almost halved.

Irrecoverable losses of the Red Army amounted to 940 thousand (mainly from typhus epidemics) and sanitary losses - about 6.8 million people. The White Guard troops, according to incomplete data, lost only 125 thousand people in battles. The total losses of Russia in the Civil War amounted to about 13 million people.

During the Civil War, the most distinguished military leaders in the Red Army were Joachim Vatsetis, Alexander Egorov, Sergei Kamenev, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Vasily Blucher, Semyon Budyonny, Vasily Chapaev, Grigory Kotovsky, Mikhail Frunze, Ion Yakir, and others.

Of the military leaders of the White movement, the most prominent role in the Civil War was played by generals Mikhail Alekseev, Pyotr Wrangel, Anton Denikin, Alexander Dutov, Lavr Kornilov, Evgeny Miller, Grigory Semyonov, Nikolai Yudenich, Alexander Kolchak, and others.

One of the controversial figures in the Civil War was the anarchist Nestor Makhno. He was the organizer of the "Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine", which in different periods fought against Ukrainian nationalists, Austro-German troops, White Guards and units of the Red Army. Makhno three times concluded agreements with the Soviet government on a joint struggle against "domestic and world counter-revolution" and each time violated them. The core of his army (several thousand people) continued to fight until July 1921, when it was completely destroyed by the troops of the Red Army.

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After the end of the existence of the Soviet Union, the spirit of the Civil War hovers in the atmosphere. Dozens of local conflicts have brought and are bringing countries to the brink of war: in Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh, Chechnya, Ukraine. All these regional clashes require modern politicians of all states to study past mistakes in the example of the bloody Civil War of 1917-1922. and did not allow their recurrence in the future.

Studying the facts about the Russian Civil War, it is worth noting the moment that it is possible to judge it only unilaterally: the coverage of events in literature occurs either from the position of the white movement, or red.

In contact with

The reason for this lay in the desire of the Bolshevik government to create a long time interval between the October Revolution and the Civil War, so that it would be impossible to determine their interdependence, and blame the war on intervention from outside.

Causes of the bloody events of the Civil War

Russian Civil War was an armed struggle that flared up between different groups of the population, which was initially regional, and then acquired a national character. The reasons that provoked the Civil War were the following:

Participants in the Civil War

As noted above, Г civil War is an armed clash of different political forces, social and ethnic groups, specific individuals fighting for their ideas.

Stages of the Civil War in Russia 1917-1922 (briefly)

Most of the current Russian historians believe that the initial stage of the local conflict was the clashes in Petrograd that took place during the October armed uprising, and the final one was the defeat of the last significant armed groups of the White Guards and interventionists during the victorious battle for Vladivostok in October 1922.

According to some researchers, the beginning of the Civil War is associated with the battles in Petrograd, when the February Revolution took place. And the preparatory period from February to November 1917, when the first division of society into different groupings took place, they single it out.

In 1920-1980, discussions were held that did not cause any particular controversy about the milestones of the Civil War isolated by Lenin, which included the "Triumphal Procession of Soviet Power", which took place from October 25, 1917 to March 1918. Another part of the authors is associated with Civil war only timewhen the most intense military battles took place - from May 1918 to November 1920.

In the Civil War, three chronological stages can be distinguished, which have significant differences in the intensity of military battles, the composition of the participants and the conditions of the foreign policy conjuncture.

Good to know: who are they, their role in the history of the USSR.

First stage (October 1917 - November 1918)

During this period, the creation of and the formation of full-fledged armies of the opponents of the conflict, as well as the formation of the main fronts of confrontation between the conflicting parties. When the Bolsheviks came to power, the White movement began to form, whose vocation was to destroy the new regime and improve, in Denikin's words, “the country's feeble poisoned organism”.

Civil war at this stage gained momentum against the backdrop of the ongoing world war, which led to the active participation of the military formations of the Quadruple Alliance and the Entente in the struggle within Russia of political and armed groups. Initial hostilities can be characterized as local clashes that did not lead to real success for either side, eventually developing into a large-scale war. According to the former head of the Foreign Ministry of the Provisional Government, Milyukov, this stage was a general struggle of forces opposing both the Bolsheviks and the revolutionaries.

Second stage (November 1918 - April 1920)

It is characterized by the holding of the main battles between the Red and White armies and a turning point in the Civil War. This chronological stage stands out due to the sudden decrease in the intensity of military operations carried out by the interventionists. This was due to the end of the world war and the withdrawal of almost the entire contingent of foreign military groups from Russian territory. Military actions, the scale of which covered the entire territory of the country, brought first victory to the white, and then to the red. The latter defeated the enemy's military formations and took control of a large territory of Russia.

Third stage (March 1920 - October 1922)

During this period, significant clashes took place on the outskirts of the country and ceased to be a direct threat to the Bolshevik government.

In April 1920, Poland launched a military campaign against Russia. In May, the Poles were Kiev was captured, which was only a temporary success. The Western and Southwestern fronts of the Red Army organized a counteroffensive, but due to poor preparation they began to suffer losses. The opposing sides did not have the opportunity to further conduct hostilities, therefore, in March 1921, peace was concluded with the Poles, according to which they received part of Ukraine and Belarus.

At the same time as the Soviet-Polish battles, there was a struggle with whites in the south and in the Crimea. The fighting continued until November 1920, when the Reds completely captured the Crimean Peninsula. With the taking Crimea in the European part of Russia the last white front was eliminated. The military question ceased to occupy a dominant place in Moscow's affairs, but the battle on the outskirts of the country continued for some time.

In the spring of 1920, the Red Army reached the Trans-Baikal District. Then the Far East was ruled by Japan. Therefore, in order to avoid clashes with it, the Soviet leadership assisted in the creation in April 1920 of a legally independent state - the Far Eastern Republic (FER). After a short period of time, the DDA army began fighting against the whites, who were supported by the Japanese. In October 1922 Vladivostok was occupied by the Reds, the Far East is completely cleared of the White Guards and interventionists, which is displayed on the map.

The reasons for the success of the Reds in the war

Among the main reasons that brought the Bolsheviks victory are the following:

Results and consequences of the Civil War

It is worth noting, what a victorious outcome for the Soviet regime did not bring peace to Russia. Among the results, the following are worth highlighting:

It is important that the Civil War of 1917-1922. and today remains one of the most important events in Russian history. The events of those times left an unforgettable imprint in the memory of people. The consequences of that war can be traced in different spheres of life and modern society, from political to cultural.

Works, covering the events of the Civil War, found their reflection not only in historical literature, scientific articles and documentary publications, but also in art cinema, theater and musical creativity. It is worth mentioning that there are over 20 thousand books and scientific papers devoted to the topic of the Civil War.

So, summing up all of the above, it is worth noting that contemporaries have ambiguous and often distorted visions regarding this tragic page in Russian history. There are supporters of both the White movement and the Bolshevik movement, but often the history of that time is presented in such a way that people are imbued with sympathy even for gangster groups that bring only destruction.

It is common for our society at different stages of development to revise assessments of the historical events of its history. For decades, the era of the Civil War was fanned by the heroism and romance of the struggle of the oppressed masses for the right to have their own state structure. The ideological conjuncture has changed, but the objective facts remain irrefutable. As a rule, the results of the Civil War in Russia 1918-1920 are briefly and without political overtones referred to as a national tragedy. The deaths of millions of people will be a waste if future generations do not draw the right conclusions.

Chronology

In official historiography, there is no consensus regarding a clear chronological framework for the periodization of this era. But it is the methodology that allows us to identify the socio-psychological aspects of the Time of Troubles in the 1920s and allows us to objectively assess the results of the Civil War in Russia. There are two opinions regarding the starting point of the years of bloodshed. According to the first, the confrontation began in February 1917, when the Provisional Government was created. The new bourgeois power was opposed by both military formations (Kornilov revolt) and civilians (the April crisis). According to another point of view, the beginning of the confrontation was laid by the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks in October of the same year. According to V.I. Lenin, any revolution is worth something only if it is able to defend itself. The establishment of the new power of the workers and peasants, except by means of fire and sword, did not imply any other strategy. Some historians attribute the beginning of the war to May 1918: the landing in the south, in Murmansk and Vladivostok, of the expeditionary forces of the Entente countries and the Czechoslovak mutiny. Most scientists attribute the end of the era to the capture of Vladivostok by the Red Army in October 1922. There are well-reasoned points of view that call the end of the war November 1920 or even 1923.

Results of the Civil War in Russia 1918-1920

As a result of many years of fierce confrontation throughout Russia, as well as in most of the national outlying areas, the power of one political structure was established - the RCP (b). The terrible results of the Civil War in Russia are briefly expressed by the figure of 10 million killed at the fronts and died from hunger and disease. In addition, more than two and a half million people emigrated. Numerous social groups of the population in subsequent years were subjected to repression (nobility, Cossacks, clergy, the so-called kulaks). The thousand-year cultural tradition of the great nation was interrupted. The Russian world was split into red and white for many decades. One of the largest economies in the world lay in ruins.

Economic devastation

The social confrontation turned out to be the greatest tragedy for the country. The results of the Civil War in Russia 1917-1922 testify to the catastrophic consequences for industrial production. The total amount of material damage amounted to about 40 billion rubles in gold, and taking into account the property losses of citizens, the figure increases by another 10 billion. The decline in industrial production was 80%, coal production fell by 70%, oil more than half. The enterprises of the Donetsk coal basin and the Baku oil province were practically destroyed. The volume of pig iron smelting in 1923 was only 4% of the pre-war. At the same time, the material and technical base of industrial enterprises and transport infrastructure, which had not been updated for many years, was in a deplorable state. Agricultural production fell by 40%. The food appropriation policy has put the villagers on the brink of survival. The deplorable situation of the villagers was aggravated by the almost complete absence of trade with the city. In modern terms, the results of the Civil War in Russia in the economic sphere are estimated at losses of $ 40 trillion. This is not only direct destruction, but also lost potential.

Territorial losses

The Bolshevik government failed to keep the state within the borders of the former Russian Empire. The result of the defeat from the army of Pilsudski was the falling away of Poland and, along with it, Western Ukraine and Belarus. The Baltic peoples, once saved by Peter's army from complete destruction by the Swedes, declared their state sovereignty. Romania tore off Bessarabia. Failed to keep Russian possessions in China. The results of the Civil War in Russia testify to the loss of more than 800 thousand square kilometers of territory with a population of about 30 million people.

Stolen victory

The Bolsheviks, not wishing to further participate in the World War, concluded a separate peace with Germany. And this at a time when the fate of the German Empire was sealed and the Russian military machine was prepared for a decisive offensive on the Western Front. According to the enslaving Brest-Litovsk agreement, the state of workers and peasants yielded to former opponents a significant part of the western territories. This, however, did not save from a military confrontation with the Quadruple Alliance, but Russia was excluded from the number of the victor countries.

Irretrievable losses

At the end of the 19th century D. Mendeleev calculated that while maintaining the current birth rate in Russia, the country's population in 2000 will be more than 1 billion people. The October coup and the outbreak of war dealt a colossal blow to the gene pool. The combat losses of the Red Army are comparatively small - a little more than 900 thousand people. But our compatriots also fought and died on the side of the whites. The most succinct presentation of the results of the Civil War in Russia is Table 1:

According to demographers' estimates, if we take into account the number of unborn children, the population of the state received less from 30 to 40 million people. The ideological cleansing of the Bolshevik regime led to the fact that the nation lost its intellectual elite.

Preventing the collapse of the state

The weakening of central authority inevitably leads to centrifugal political phenomena. The struggle for local power is intensifying. Even those peoples who vowed eternal unity with Russia declared their self-determination. The governments of the borderlands mostly represented the interests of the petty-bourgeois circles. The aggravation of the most acute social and ethnic contradictions could lead to even greater bloodshed. An example is Poland's attack on Soviet Russia. The war was the desire of the new political elites in Warsaw to restore the borders of the former Rzeczpospolita. In the event of the victory of the White movement, liberal circles would not be able to keep the state from internal chaos at the next stage and keep the borders inviolable from ambitious neighbors in the west and east. The proclamation of the socialist republics in the Transcaucasus in order to please modern political realities is now commonly referred to as the overthrow of national governments. In this regard, the results of the Civil War in Russia are being rethought. However, the inexorable witness - time - proves that the creation in 1922 of the centralized federal state of the USSR was the only correct decision in the political situation of that time.

Contradictory facts

Taking into account the diametrically opposite assessments of this period in the history of the Fatherland, it is possible to formulate the results.

Results of the Civil War in Russia 1917-1922, table 2:

Domestic political results of the Civil War in Russia 1917-1922

As a result of continuous hostilities for five years, combat-ready armed forces were created. The victory of the Red Army made it possible to strengthen the world's first state of workers and peasants. Instead of a declaration of democratic freedoms, the only party in power has adopted a cruel dictatorship. The lack of alternatives to the one-party political system was declared the highest achievement of democracy. However, despite all the flaws, the new government really expressed the interests of the proletariat and, to some extent, the rural population. And this was a precedent in history.

At the same time, the Bolsheviks waged an irreconcilable struggle against their ideological opponents. Extraordinary management measures, which were fully justified in the critical period of state formation, were extended to the post-war peacetime. In the thirties, this spilled over into an absurd policy of unreasonable in the overwhelming majority of repression of the population.

Summing up the results of the Civil War in Russia of 1918-1922, we can say that it was the natural end of the long-term spineless policy of the tsarist administration. The fierce class struggle expressed the hatred of the socially disadvantaged lower classes for everything that the fallen regime personified.

CIVIL WAR 1917-22 in Russia, a chain of armed conflicts between various political, social and ethnic groups. The main hostilities in the civil war in order to seize and retain power were fought between the Red Army and the armed forces of the White movement - the White armies (hence the established names of the main opponents in the civil war - "red" and "white"). An integral part of the civil war was also the armed struggle on the national "outskirts" of the former Russian Empire (attempts to proclaim independence were rebuffed by the "whites" who advocated a "united and indivisible Russia", as well as the leadership of the RSFSR, who saw the growth of nationalism as a threat to the conquests of the revolution) and an insurrectionary movement of the population against the troops of the opposing sides. The civil war was accompanied by military operations on the territory of Russia by the troops of the countries of the Quadruple Alliance, as well as by the troops of the Entente countries (see Foreign military intervention in Russia 1918-22).

In modern historical science, many issues related to the history of the civil war remain controversial, among them - questions about the chronological framework of the civil war and its causes. Most modern researchers consider the fighting in Petrograd during the October Revolution of 1917 carried out by the Bolsheviks to be the first act of the civil war, and the time of its end - the defeat of the last large anti-Bolshevik armed formations by the Reds in October 1922. Some researchers believe that the period of the civil war covers only the most active hostilities that took place from May 1918 to November 1920. Among the most important causes of the civil war, it is customary to single out the deep social, political and national-ethnic contradictions that existed in the Russian Empire and exacerbated as a result of the February Revolution of 1917, as well as the readiness to widely use violence for achieving their political goals by all its participants (see "White Terror" and "Red Terror"). Some researchers see in foreign intervention the reason for the particular bitterness and duration of the civil war.

The course of the armed struggle between the “red” and “white” can be divided into 3 stages, which differ in the composition of the participants, the intensity of hostilities and the conditions of the foreign policy situation.

At the first stage (October / November 1917 - November 1918), the armed forces of the opposing sides and the main fronts of the struggle between them were formed. During this period, the civil war was going on in the conditions of the continuing World War I and was accompanied by the active participation in the internal struggle in Russia of the troops of the countries of the Quadruple Alliance and the Entente.

In October - November 1917, during the October Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks suppressed armed protests by supporters of the Provisional Government in Petrograd and its environs (see Kerensky - Krasnov speech in 1917) and in Moscow. By the end of 1917, Soviet rule had been established in most of European Russia. The first major uprisings against the Bolsheviks took place in the Cossack territories of the Don, Kuban and the Southern Urals (see in the articles of Kaledin's speech in 1917-18, Kuban Rada and Dutov's speech in 1917-18). In the first months of the civil war, hostilities were fought in separate detachments, mainly along railway lines, for large settlements and railway junctions (see "Echelon War"). In the spring of 1918, local skirmishes began to develop into larger-scale armed clashes.

The dispersal of the Constituent Assembly and the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty of 1918 intensified opposition to the SNK policy throughout the country. The underground anti-Bolshevik organizations created in February - May (the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom, the Union for the Renaissance of Russia, the National Center) tried to unite the forces that fought against Soviet power and receive foreign aid, and were engaged in transporting volunteers to the centers of concentration of anti-Bolshevik forces. At this time, the territory of the RSFSR was reduced due to the advance of the German and Austro-Hungarian troops (continued after the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty of 1918): in February - May 1918 they occupied Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States, part of the Transcaucasia and the South of European Russia. In the spring of 1918, the Entente countries, striving to resist German influence in Russia, landed armed landings in Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok, which led to the fall of the SNK power here. The 1918 uprising that began in May by the Czechoslovak Corps liquidated Soviet power in the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia, and also cut off the Turkestan Soviet Republic in Central Asia from the RSFSR.

The fragility of Soviet power and support from the interventionists contributed to the creation in the summer and autumn of 1918 of a number of anti-Bolshevik, mainly Socialist-Revolutionary, governments: the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch; June, Samara), the Provisional Siberian Government (June, Omsk), the Supreme Administration of the Northern Region (August, Arkhangelsk), Ufa Directory (September, Ufa).

In April 1918, the Don Army was created on the territory of the Don Cossack Army, which by the end of summer ousted the Soviet troops from the territory of the Don Army Region. The volunteer army (began to form in November 1917), consisting mainly of officers and cadets of the former Russian army, occupied the Kuban in August 1918 (see the article Kuban campaigns of the Volunteer Army).

The successes of the opponents of the Bolsheviks caused the reform of the Red Army. Instead of the volunteer principle of the formation of the army, in May 1918, the RSFSR introduced universal military service. By attracting officers of the former Russian army to the Red Army (see Military Specialist), the command staff was strengthened, the institute of military commissars was established, in September 1918 the RVSR was created (chairman - L.D. Trotsky) and the post of commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic was introduced (I.I. ). Also in September, instead of the curtains that had existed since March 1918, front-line and army associations of the Red Army were formed. In November, the Council of Workers 'and Peasants' Defense was established (chaired by V. I. Lenin). The strengthening of the army was accompanied by the strengthening of the internal situation in the RSFSR: after the defeat of the Left Social Revolutionaries of the uprising of 1918, there was no organized opposition to the Bolsheviks on the territory of the republic.

As a result, at the beginning of autumn 1918, the Red Army managed to change the course of the armed struggle: in September 1918 it stopped the offensive of the troops of the Volga People's Army of Komuch (started in July), by November it had pushed them back to the Urals. At the first stage of Tsaritsyn's defense of 1918-19, units of the Red Army repulsed the attempts of the Don army to seize Tsaritsyn. The successes of the Red Army somewhat stabilized the position of the RSFSR, but neither side was able to gain a decisive advantage in the course of hostilities.

At the second stage (November 1918 - March 1920), the main battles took place between the Red Army and the White armies, a turning point in the civil war came. In connection with the end of World War I, the participation of interventionist troops in the civil war sharply decreased during this period. The withdrawal of German and Austro-Hungarian troops from the territory of the country allowed the SNK to return under its control a significant part of the Baltic States, Belarus and Ukraine. Despite the landing in November - December 1918 of additional military units of the Entente countries in Novorossiysk, Odessa and Sevastopol, the advance of British troops in Transcaucasia, the direct participation of the Entente troops in the civil war remained limited, and by the fall of 1919 the main contingent of the Allied forces was withdrawn from the territory of Russia. Foreign states continued to provide material and technical assistance to anti-Bolshevik governments and armed groups.

In late 1918 and early 1919, the anti-Bolshevik movement consolidated; its leadership from the Socialist-Revolutionary and Cossack governments passed into the hands of the conservative "white" officers. As a result of the coup in Omsk on 11/18/1918, the Ufa directory was overthrown and Admiral A. V. Kolchak came to power, declaring himself the Supreme Ruler of the Russian state. 8.1.1919 on the basis of the Volunteer and Don armies, the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (ARSUR) were created under the command of Lieutenant General A.I.Denikin.

Kolchak's army was the first to launch a decisive offensive. At the end of 1918, the Siberian army overcame the Ural ridge and took Perm. In March 1919, Kolchak's general offensive of 1919 followed. The troops of the Western Army of Lieutenant General MV Khanzhin, who captured Ufa (March), and at the end of April reached the approaches to the Volga, achieved the greatest success. It became possible to connect Kolchak's armies with the AFSR, a threat to Soviet power in the central regions of the RSFSR was created. However, in May 1919, units of the Red Army, reinforced by reinforcements, seized the initiative and during the counteroffensive of the Eastern Front in 1919 defeated the enemy and threw him back to the Urals. As a result of the offensive of the Eastern Front, undertaken by the command of the Red Army in 1919-20, Soviet troops occupied the Urals and most of Siberia (Omsk was captured in November 1919, and Irkutsk in March 1920).

In the North Caucasus, the mountain governments, relying on the military assistance of the countries of the Quadruple Alliance, spoke out against the power of the SNK. After the withdrawal of foreign troops from the territory of the so-called Mountain Republic, it was occupied by units of the ARSUR, under pressure from which at the end of May 1919 the Mountain Government ceased its activities.

The first defeats of Kolchak's armies coincided with the start of Denikin's 1919 Moscow campaign, which represented the most serious threat to the power of the Bolsheviks during the years of the civil war. Its initial success was facilitated by the lack of reserves in the Red Army, which were on the Eastern Front, as well as the massive influx of Cossacks into the AFSR as a result of the policy of "decossackization" carried out by the leadership of the RSFSR. The presence of Cossack cavalry and well-trained military personnel allowed the ARSUR to seize the Donbass and the Don region, take Tsaritsyn and occupy most of Ukraine. Attempts by Soviet troops to counterattack the enemy during the August 1919 offensive were unsuccessful. In August - September, the defense of the Red Army was disorganized by Mamontov's raid in 1919. In October, the ARSUR occupied Orel, creating a threat to Tula and Moscow. The offensive of the AFSR was stopped, and then gave way to a rapid retreat due to the counteroffensive of the Southern Front undertaken by the leadership of the Red Army in 1919 (it was carried out after large mobilizations in the RSFSR and the creation of the First Cavalry Army, which made it possible to eliminate the advantage of the AFSR in cavalry), weak control of the AFSR over the occupied territories and the desire of the Cossacks confine ourselves to the defense of the Oblast troops of the Don and Kuban. During the offensive of the Southern and Southeastern Fronts of 1919-20, units of the Red Army forced the ARSUR to withdraw to the North Caucasus and Crimea.

In the summer - fall of 1919, the Northern Corps attacked Petrograd (from June 19 the Northern Army, from July 1 the North-Western Army) under the general command of Infantry General N.N. Yudenich (see Petrograd Defense 1919). In October - November 1919, it was stopped, the Northwest Army was defeated, and its remnants retreated to Estonian territory.

In the north of the European part of Russia, troops formed by the Provisional Government of the Northern Region (the successor to the Supreme Directorate of the Northern Region) of the Northern Region, supported by the Allied Expeditionary Force, fought with units of the Soviet Northern Front. In February - March 1920, the troops of the Northern region ceased to exist (this was facilitated by the failures of the White armies in the main directions and the withdrawal of the allied expeditionary corps from the territory of the region), parts of the Red Army occupied Arkhangelsk and Murmansk.

At the third stage (March 1920 - October 1922), the main struggle took place on the periphery of the country and did not pose an immediate threat to Soviet power in the center of Russia.

By the spring of 1920, the largest of the "white" military formations was the "Russian Army" (formed from the remnants of the Armed Forces of Yugoslavia), Lieutenant General PN Wrangel, located in the Crimea. In June, taking advantage of the diversion of the main forces of the Red Army to the Polish front (see Soviet-Polish War of 1920), this army attempted to seize and fortify itself in the northern districts of the Tauride province, and also landed troops on the coast of the North Caucasus in July and August in order to raise the action against the RSFSR of the Cossacks of the Oblast by the troops of the Don and Kuban (see Landings of the "Russian Army" 1920). All these plans were defeated, in October - November the "Russian Army" was defeated during the counteroffensive of the Southern Front in 1920 and the Perekop-Chongar operation in 1920 (its remnants were evacuated to Constantinople). After the defeat of the White armies in November 1920 - January 1921, the Dagestan ASSR and the Mountain ASSR were formed in the North Caucasus.

The last battles of the civil war took place in Eastern Siberia and the Far East. In 1920-22, the largest anti-Bolshevik formations there were Lieutenant General G.M.Semenov's Far Eastern Army (controlled the Chita region) and Lieutenant General M.K.Diterikhs' Zemskaya army (controlled Vladivostok and part of Primorye). They were opposed by the People's Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Far Eastern Republic (created by the leadership of the RSFSR in April 1920 to avoid a military clash with Japan, which retained a military presence in the Far East), as well as detachments of "red" partisans. In October 1920, the NRA captured Chita and forced Semyonov's detachments to leave along the Chinese Eastern Railway in Primorye. As a result of the Primorsky operation of 1922, the Zemsky army was defeated (its remnants were evacuated to Genzan, and then to Shanghai). With the establishment of Soviet power in the Far East, the main battles of the civil war ended.

The armed struggle on the national "outskirts" of the former Russian Empire unfolded simultaneously with the main battles between the Red Army and the White armies. In the course of it, various national-state formations and political regimes arose and were liquidated, the stability of which depended on their ability to successfully maneuver between the “red” and “white”, as well as support from third powers.

The right to national self-determination of Poland was recognized by the Provisional Government in the spring of 1917. During the civil war, Poland did not want to strengthen any of the opponents and during the main battles remained neutral, at the same time seeking international recognition in European capitals. A clash with Soviet troops followed during the Soviet-Polish war of 1920, after the defeat of the main forces of the "whites". As a result, Poland managed to maintain its independence and expand its borders (approved by the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921).

Finland declared independence immediately after the October Revolution in Petrograd. The union with Germany, and then with the countries of the Entente, allowed to consolidate it. Contrary to the hopes of the command of the White armies for active Finnish assistance in the campaign against Petrograd, Finland's participation in the civil war was limited to the invasion of Finnish troops into the territory of Karelia, which was repulsed by the Red Army (see the Karelian operation of 1921).

In the Baltics, the formation of independent states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is the result of the simultaneous weakening of Russia and Germany and the prudent policy of national governments. The Estonian and Latvian leadership was able to win over the bulk of the population under the slogan of land reform and opposition to the German barons, while the German occupation in 1918 did not allow the Soviet authorities to strengthen. Subsequently, diplomatic support from the Entente countries, the unstable position of Soviet power in the region and the successes of the national armies forced the leadership of the RSFSR to conclude peace treaties in 1920 with Estonia (February), Lithuania (July) and Latvia (August).

In Ukraine and Belarus, the national movement was weakened by the lack of unity on the future socio-political structure of these countries, as well as by the greater popularity of social rather than national slogans among the population. After the October Revolution in Petrograd, the Central Rada in Kiev and the Belorusskaya Rada (see Belarusian Rada) in Minsk refused to recognize the power of the Council of People's Commissars, but were unable to consolidate their position. This was hampered by the offensive of both Soviet and German troops. In Ukraine, successive national-state formations were fragile. The Ukrainian State, created in April 1918, headed by Hetman P.P. Skoropadsky, existed only due to the support of Germany, and the Ukrainian People's Republic of S.V. Petlyura survived while its main opponents (RSFSR and AFSR) were occupied on other fronts of the civil war. The Belarusian national governments were entirely dependent on the support of the German and Polish armies located on their territory. In the summer of 1920, after the defeat of the main White armies and the withdrawal of the Polish occupation troops from the territory of Ukraine and Belarus, the power of the Ukrainian SSR and the BSSR was established there.

In Transcaucasia, the course of the civil war was predetermined by conflicts between national governments. The Transcaucasian Commissariat, created in November 1917 in Tiflis, declared that it did not recognize the power of the Council of People's Commissars. Proclaimed by the Transcaucasian Sejm (convened by the Transcaucasian Commissariat) in April 1918, the Transcaucasian Democratic Federal Republic already in May, due to the approach of Turkish troops, disintegrated into the Georgian Democratic Republic, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and the Republic of Armenia with different political orientations: Azerbaijanis acted in alliance with the Turks; Georgians and Armenians sought support from Germany (her troops entered Tiflis and other cities of Georgia in June 1918), and then from the Entente countries (in November - December 1918, British troops entered the Caucasus). After the end of the intervention of the Entente countries in August 1919, the national governments were unable to restore the economy and were bogged down in the border conflicts that erupted between Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. This allowed the Red Army during the Baku operation of 1920 and the Tiflis operation of 1921 to extend Soviet power to the Transcaucasus.

In Central Asia, the main hostilities took place on the territory of Turkestan. There, the Bolsheviks relied on Russian settlers, which exacerbated the existing religious and national conflicts and alienated a significant part of the Muslim population from the Soviet regime, which widely participated in the anti-Soviet movement - Basmachism. An obstacle to the establishment of Soviet power in Turkestan was also the British intervention (July 1918-July 1919). The troops of the Soviet Turkestan Front took Khiva in February 1920, and Bukhara in September; The Khiva Khanate and the Bukhara Emirate were liquidated and the Khorezm People's Soviet Republic and the Bukhara People's Soviet Republic were proclaimed.

The insurrectionary movement in the civil war arose in 1918-19, and reached its greatest scope in 1920-21. The goal of the rebels was to protect the village from the policy of “war communism” pursued in the RSFSR (the main slogans of the insurgent units were “councils without communists” and freedom of trade in agricultural products), as well as from requisitions and mobilizations carried out by both the Bolsheviks and their opponents. The insurgent detachments consisted mainly of peasants (many of them deserted from the Red Army and the White armies), hid in the forests (hence their common name - "green") and enjoyed the support of the local population. The guerrilla tactics of struggle made them less vulnerable to regular troops. Rebel detachments, often for tactical reasons, rendered assistance to the "reds" or "whites", disrupting communications and diverting relatively large military units from the main combat operations; while their military organization remained independent of the command of their allies. In the rear of Kolchak's armies, the most numerous rebel detachments operated in the Tomsk and Yenisei provinces, in Altai, in the area of \u200b\u200bSemipalatinsk and the Amur River valley. On the decisive days of Kolchak's offensive in 1919, the insurgent raids on railroad trains disrupted the supply of supplies and weapons to the troops. In the southeast of Ukraine, the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine N.I.Makhno operated, which in different periods fought against Ukrainian nationalists, German troops, units of the Red Army and the Armed Forces of Yugoslavia.

In the rear of the Red Army, the first major insurrectionary movement emerged in March - April 1919 and was called the "chapan war". In late 1920 - early 1921, thousands of peasant detachments operated in the Volga region, on the Don, Kuban and the North Caucasus, in Belarus and Central Russia. The largest uprisings were the Tambov uprising of 1920-21 and the West Siberian uprising of 1921. In the spring of 1921, on a large territory of the RSFSR, Soviet power in the countryside actually ceased to exist. The wide scale of the peasant insurrectionary movement, along with the Kronstadt uprising of 1921, forced the Bolsheviks to replace the policy of "war communism" with NEP (March 1921). However, the main centers of the uprisings were suppressed by Soviet troops only in the summer of 1921 (some detachments continued to resist until 1923). In some areas, for example, in the Volga region, the uprisings stopped because of the famine that broke out in 1921.

Results of the Civil War. As a result of a 5-year armed struggle, the Soviet republics united most of the territory of the former Russian Empire (with the exception of Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bessarabia, Western Ukraine and Western Belarus). The main reason for the victory of the Bolsheviks in the civil war is the support by the bulk of the population of their slogans ("Peace to the peoples!", "Land to the peasants!", "Factories to the workers!", "All power to the Soviets!") And ), as well as the strategic advantage of their position, the pragmatic policy of the Soviet leadership and the fragmentation of the forces of opponents of Soviet power. Control over both capitals (Petrograd, Moscow) and the central regions of the country gave the SNK the opportunity to rely on large human resources (where even at the time of the greatest advancement of the opponents of the Bolsheviks, about 60 million people lived) to replenish the Red Army; to use the military reserves of the former Russian army and a relatively developed communications system, which made it possible to quickly transfer troops to the most threatened sectors of the front. The anti-Bolshevik forces were divided geographically and politically. They could not work out a single political platform (the "white" officers for the most part supported the monarchical system, and the Socialist-Revolutionary governments - for the republican system), as well as coordinate the time of their offensives and, due to their outlying location, were forced to use the help of the Cossacks and national governments, which did not supported the plans of the "whites" to recreate "one and indivisible Russia." Foreign aid to the anti-Bolshevik forces was insufficient to help them achieve a decisive advantage over the enemy. The mass peasant movement directed against the Soviet regime, not coinciding in time with the main battles of the civil war, could not overthrow the power of the Bolsheviks due to its defensive strategy, uncoordinated actions and limited goals.

During the civil war, the Soviet state created powerful armed forces (by November 1920 there were more than 5.4 million people) with a clear organizational structure and centralized leadership, in whose ranks were about 75 thousand officers and generals of the former Russian army (about 30% of its officers), whose experience and knowledge played an important role in the victories of the Red Army on the fronts of the Civil War. The most distinguished among them were I. I. Vatsetis, A. I. Egorov, S. S. Kamenev, F. K. Mironov, M. N. Tukhachevsky and others. The soldiers, sailors and non-commissioned officers of the former Russian army became skilled military leaders: V.K.Blyukher, S.M.Budyonny, G.I.Kotovsky, F.F.Raskolnikov, V.I. Chapaev and others, as well as M.V. Frunze, I.E. Yakir who did not have a military education and others. The maximum number (by the middle of 1919) of the White armies was about 600 (according to other sources, about 300) thousand people. Of the military leaders of the White movement, generals M.V. Alekseev, P.N. Wrangel, A.I.Denikin, A.I.Dutov, L.G. Kornilov, E.K. Miller, G. M. Semyonov, Ya.A. Slashchev, N.N. Yudenich, Admiral A.V. Kolchak and others.

The civil war brought huge material and human losses. It completed the collapse of the economy, which began during the First World War (industrial production by 1920 was 4-20% of the level of 1913, agricultural production was almost halved). The financial system of the state turned out to be completely disorganized: over 2 thousand types of banknotes were in circulation on the territory of Russia during the years of the civil war. The most striking indicator of the crisis was the famine of 1921-22, which affected over 30 million people. Massive malnutrition and related epidemics have resulted in high mortality rates. Irrecoverable losses of Soviet troops (killed, died of wounds, missing, did not return from captivity, etc.) amounted to about 940 thousand people, sanitary - about 6.8 million people; their opponents (according to incomplete data) have lost more than 225 thousand people only killed. The total number of those killed during the civil war, according to various estimates, ranged from 10 to 17 million people, and the share of military losses did not exceed 20%. Under the influence of the civil war, up to 2 million people emigrated from the country (see the section "Emigration" in the volume "Russia"). The civil war caused the destruction of traditional economic and social relations, archaization of society and aggravated the country's foreign policy isolation. Under the influence of the civil war, the characteristic features of the Soviet political system were formed: the centralization of state administration and the violent suppression of internal opposition.

Lit .: Denikin A.I. Essays on Russian Troubles: In 5 volumes. Paris, 1921-1926. M., 2006. T. 1-3; Directives of the command of the fronts of the Red Army (1917-1922). M., 1971-1978. T. 1-4; Civil War in the USSR: In 2 volumes. M., 1980-1986; Civil War and Military Intervention in the USSR: An Encyclopedia. 2nd ed. M., 1987; Kavtaradze A.G. Military specialists in the service of the Republic of Soviets. 1917-1920 years. M., 1988; Kakurin N.E. How the Revolution Fought: In 2 volumes, 2nd ed. M., 1990; Brovkin V.N. Behind the front lines of the Civil war: political parties and social movements in Russia, 1918-1922. Princeton, 1994; The Civil War in Russia: A Crossroads of Opinions. M., 1994; Mawdsley E. The Russian Civil war. Edinburgh, 2000.

The fighting during the Civil War lasted from 1917 to 1922 - during this time the state was depleted economically and demographically. The consequences of the civil war, as a socio-political phenomenon, manifested itself in all aspects of the life of the population.

A civil war in any country is an armed confrontation between individual social or national strata of society in one state. The main characteristics of such a conflict are the protracted nature of events and significant demographic losses. These signs are common to civil wars throughout the history of mankind. The economic, political and social consequences need to be considered, depending on the specific situation.

The civil conflict in Russia led the country to the complete destruction of the economy: industry did not develop, and the agrarian issue, which had not been resolved even before the war, became a problem of primary importance.

The consequences of the Civil War can be divided into several groups:

• Political: a radical change in the regime in the country;
• Economic: decline in the country's development in all areas of the economy;
• Social: changing the structure of the population;
• Demographic: high percentage of human casualties;
• Ideological - are closely related to the first group.

The main result of the war is the final confirmation of the Bolsheviks in power. The overthrow of the monarchy and the formation of the dictatorship of the ruling party completely changed the ideological foundations of Russia's existence.

The ideals proclaimed by the Bolsheviks at the first stage of the war have been distorted since 1922 - thus, in 5 years, the idea of \u200b\u200bforming a dictatorship of the proletariat turned into a dictatorship of one party. New authorities were formed - emergency and party authorities, which had special powers. A new bureaucracy began to take shape, and ubiquitous ideological control spilled over into the Red Terror. Gradually, the Communist Party abandoned its principles in favor of leaderism and a decrease in the level of democracy in the dominant ideology.

The reason for the growth of one-man management was the need to centralize and unite forces in the struggle against political opponents.

It is worth noting the territorial losses of the former Russian Empire - Bessarabia, Western Ukraine, the Baltic States, Poland, Finland, Belarus left the country.

Economic impact

After the war, the economy was completely destroyed. The damage caused was estimated at billions of gold rubles. Official data on the amount of damage say about 39,000,000,000.

The war almost completely destroyed the industry, which suffered during the First World War. The level of production of coal, oil, pig iron smelting has decreased several times. The performance indicators of various industries have decreased in comparison with the pre-war levels by 5-30 times.

The most difficult was the situation with the equipment of industrial enterprises - machinery, equipment, transport. Technical means fell into disrepair, morally outdated and were not updated throughout the entire period of the First World War and the Civil War.

One of the most important problems of economic development after the war is closely related to the categories of demographic and social consequences - a decrease in the number of labor in enterprises. This was felt in both industry and agriculture, where productivity declined by 35-45%.

Difficulties were created by the pre-war uneven development of the country's regions. The connection between the countryside and the city was practically lost - the exchange of goods stopped. The economy naturalized during the war years. The depreciation of the currency is worth noting.

Social impact

During the war years, the stratum of the intelligentsia and clergy suffered greatly. Thus, the most educated representatives of society were forced to emigrate. At the same time, the peasants and the proletariat improved their property status. Thus, the support of the regime became people without appropriate education, but "necessary" origin. There was a drop in the cultural level of the population.

The state ceased to have enough qualified specialists who could return the industrial development to its former indicators.

Demographic implications

Demographic losses are calculated by the number of deaths and emigrants. The total death toll is about 10-15 million people: victims of injuries during the hostilities, victims of hunger and terror. During the war, epidemics were common. Emigrated, according to official data, about 2 million people - this is the intelligentsia, the former nobles. All parties to the conflict suffered significant losses.

Ideological implications

The cultural development of the country has suffered the hardest blows:

• Educated people have emigrated;
• Education and cultural development was not a priority for the Bolsheviks;
• The Reds actively fought against religion, which also did not contribute to the cultural development of the country;
• The destruction of cultural monuments that did not correspond to the ideology of the ruling party was popular.

The civil war had enormous consequences that radically changed the fate of the state for many years.