Stages of the civil war. The Russian Civil War in brief The essence of the civil war 1917 1922

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

The main reasons for the Civil War and military intervention were: intransigence of positions, groups and classes on issues of power, economic and political course of the country; the bet of opponents of Soviet power on overthrowing it by armed means 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 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, expressing mainly the interests of the Russian proletariat and the poorest peasantry. They were opposed by the motley in their social composition and often disparate forces of the other (non-proletarian) part of Russian society, represented by numerous parties, movements, associations, etc., often at odds with each other, but which, as a rule, adhered to an anti-Bolshevik orientation. An open clash in the struggle for power between these two main political forces in the country led to the Civil War. The main instruments for achieving its goals 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 in most 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 among them.

Foreign powers also intervened in the internal political struggle that unfolded in Russia. After Russia's withdrawal from the First World War, German and Austro-Hungarian troops occupied parts of Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states and southern Russia in February 1918. To preserve Soviet power, Soviet Russia agreed to conclude the Brest Peace Treaty (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 returning home through Siberia.

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

The direct participation of 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 established an economic blockade of Soviet Russia, seizing key economic areas, exerting political pressure on neutral states interested in trading with Russia, and imposing a naval blockade. Large-scale military operations against the Red Army were carried out only by units of the Separate Czechoslovak Corps.

In the south of Russia, with the help of interventionists, pockets 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 Transcaucasia, Ukraine, etc.

By the summer of 1918, numerous groups and governments had formed on 3/4 of the country’s territory that opposed Soviet power. 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 structure, operational and strategic management. Instead of curtains, front-line and army associations with the corresponding governing bodies began to be created (Southern, Northern, Western and Ukrainian fronts). Under these conditions, the Soviet government nationalized large and medium-sized industries, took control of small ones, introduced labor conscription for the population, surplus appropriation (the policy of “war communism”), and on September 2, 1918 declared the country a single military camp. All these events 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 and liberated the Volga region and part of the Urals.

After the revolution in Germany in November 1918, the Soviet government annulled the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and Ukraine and Belarus were liberated. However, the policy of “war communism”, as well as “decossackization” caused peasant and Cossack uprisings in various regions and gave the opportunity to 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 gave the Entente a free hand. The released troops were thrown against Soviet Russia. New intervention units landed in Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Vladivostok and other cities. Aid to the White Guard troops increased sharply. As a result of the military coup in Omsk, the military dictatorship of Admiral Alexander Kolchak, a protege of the Entente, was established. In November-December 1918, his government created an army on the basis of various White Guard formations that had previously existed in the Urals and Siberia.

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

At the end of 1918, the Red Army began its offensive on all fronts. Left Bank Ukraine, the Don region, the Southern Urals, and a number of areas in the north and north-west of the country were liberated. The Soviet Republic organized active work to disintegrate the intervention troops. Revolutionary demonstrations by soldiers began there, and the military leadership of the Entente hastily withdrew troops from Russia.

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

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

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

In March 1919, Kolchak’s army went on the offensive, delivering the main attacks in the Ufa-Samara and Izhevsk-Kazan directions. She captured Ufa and began a rapid advance towards the Volga. The troops of the Eastern Front of the Red Army, having withstood the enemy's attack, launched a counter-offensive, during which in May-July they occupied the Urals 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, repelled 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 the fight against Denikin’s troops, who 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 into the Crimea and the North Caucasus. At the same time, Yudenich's new offensive against Petrograd failed, and his army was destroyed. The Red Army completed the destruction of the remnants of Denikin's troops in the North Caucasus in the spring of 1920. At the beginning of 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 planned to restore the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth within the borders of 1772, and the Russian army under the command of Lieutenant General Peter Wrangel. Polish troops delivered the main blow in Ukraine. By mid-May 1920, they had advanced to the Dnieper, where they were stopped. During the offensive, the Red Army defeated the Poles and reached Warsaw and Lvov in August. In October Poland left the war.

Wrangel's troops, trying to break into the Donbass and Right Bank Ukraine, were defeated in October-November during the counter-offensive of the Red Army. The rest of them went abroad. The main centers of the Civil War on Russian territory were eliminated. But on the outskirts it still continued.

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

The civil war on Russian territory ended with the victory of the Red Army. The territorial integrity of the state, which disintegrated 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 went to Poland.

The civil war had a detrimental effect on the situation of the country. The damage caused to the national economy amounted to about 50 billion gold rubles, industrial production fell to 4-20% of the 1913 level, and agricultural production decreased by almost half.

Irreversible 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 125 thousand people in battles alone. 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 Semenov, Nikolai Yudenich, Alexander Kolchak and others.

One of the controversial figures of the Civil War was the anarchist Nestor Makhno. He was the organizer of the "Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine", which at different periods fought against Ukrainian nationalists, Austro-German troops, White Guards and units of the Red Army. Makhno three times entered into agreements with the Soviet authorities on a joint fight against the “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 Red Army.

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49. Civil war in Russia: causes, course, results: Causes of the civil war in historical literature

World historical theory:Materialistic direction (Kim, Kukushkin Zimin, Rabakov, Fedorov): After the October Socialist Revolution, Soviet power was established throughout the country in a few months, the people began to build a new society on communist principles. The world bourgeoisie, with the aim of restoring the capitalist order, unleashed the Civil War in Russia. The territory of Russia was divided between capitalist countries, and the internal counter-revolution received political, economic, and military assistance from world capitalism.

Liberal direction (Ostrovsky, Utkin, Ionov, Pipes, Kobrin, Skrynnikov): As a result of the coup d'etat, the Bolsheviks seized power, began to liquidate private property and unleashed the Red Terror, which marked the beginning of the Civil War in Russia.

Regarding the beginning of the Civil War, historians of different directions also disagree. Materialist historians date the war from the entry of Entente troops into Russian territory and the emergence of counter-revolutionary armies, i.e. since November 1918. Liberal historians They consider the coming of the Bolsheviks to power to be the beginning of the Civil War - i.e. from October 1917

Causes of the war

The Russian Civil War was an armed struggle between various groups of the population, which initially had a regional (local) and then acquired a national scale. Among the reasons for the outbreak of the Civil War in Russia were:

changes in the political system in the state;

the Bolsheviks’ refusal of the principles of parliamentarism (dispersal of the Constituent Assembly), other undemocratic measures of the Bolsheviks, which caused discontent not only among the intelligentsia and peasants, but also among the workers.

The economic policy of the Soviet government in the countryside, which led to the actual abolition of the Decree on Land.

The nationalization of all land and the confiscation of the landowners caused fierce resistance from its former owners. The bourgeoisie, frightened by the scale of nationalization of industry, wanted to return factories and factories. The liquidation of commodity-money relations and the establishment of a state monopoly on the distribution of products and goods hit hard the property status of the middle and petty bourgeoisie.

The creation of a one-party political system alienated socialist parties and democratic public organizations from the Bolsheviks.

A feature of the Civil War in Russia was the presence on its territory of a large interventionist group of troops, which led to the prolongation of the war and increased human casualties.

Classes and political parties in the civil war

The armed confrontation between opponents and supporters of Soviet power began from the first days of the revolution. By the summer of 1918, the entire spectrum of political forces opposing the Bolsheviks was divided into three main camps.

The first of them was represented by a coalition of the Russian bourgeoisie, nobility, and political elite with the leading force of the Cadet Party.

The second camp of the so-called “third way” or “democratic counter-revolution” was made up of the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks who joined them at various stages, whose activities in practice were expressed in the creation of self-declared governments - Komuch in Samara, the Provisional Siberian Government in Tomsk, etc.

The third political camp was represented mainly by former allies of the Bolsheviks - anarchists and left Socialist Revolutionaries, who found themselves in opposition to the RSDLP(b) after the Brest Peace Treaty and the suppression of the left Socialist Revolutionary rebellion.

During the Civil War, the leading force in the fight against the Bolsheviks and Soviet power was a powerful military-political force represented by the white movement, whose representatives opposed the Bolsheviks for the salvation of a united and indivisible Russia. The number of white armies was relatively small. The outcome of the Civil War was largely determined by the behavior of the peasantry.

Main stages of the Civil War

First stage: October 1917 - May 1918. During this period, armed clashes were local in nature. After the October uprising, General Kaledin rose to fight the revolution, followed by the overthrown Prime Minister Kerensky, and the Cossack General Krasnov. By the end of 1917, a powerful center of counter-revolution arose in the south of Russia. The Central Rada of Ukraine spoke out against the new government here. A Volunteer Army was formed on the Don (commander-in-chief - Kornilov, after his death - Denikin). In March-April 1918, units of British, American and Japanese (in the Far East) troops landed.

Second stage: May - November 1918. At the end of May, an armed uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps in Siberia began. More than 200 peasant uprisings took place in the summer. Socialist parties, relying on peasant rebel groups, formed a number of governments in the summer of 1918 - Komuch in Samara; Ufa directory. Their programs included demands for the convening of the Constituent Assembly, the restoration of the political rights of citizens, the rejection of one-party dictatorship and strict state regulation of the economic activities of peasants.

In November 1918, in Omsk, Admiral Kolchak carried out a coup, as a result of which the provisional governments were dispersed and a military dictatorship was established, under which the whole of Siberia, the Urals, and the Orenburg province came under power.

Third stage: November 1918 - spring 1919. At this stage, the leading force in the fight against the Bolsheviks became the military dictatorial regimes in the East (Kolchak), South (Denikin), North-West (Yudenich) and North of the country (Miller).

By the beginning of 1919, the number of foreign armed forces had grown significantly, which caused a patriotic upsurge in the country, and in the world - a solidarity movement under the slogan “Hands off Soviet Russia!”

Fourth stage: spring 1919 - April 1920- characterized by a combined offensive of anti-Bolshevik forces. From the East, in order to unite with Denikin’s troops for a joint attack on Moscow, Kolchak’s army launched an offensive (the offensive was repelled by the Eastern Front under the command of Kamenev and Frunze), in the north-west, Yudenich’s army carried out military operations against Petrograd.

Simultaneously with the actions of the white armies, peasant uprisings began in the Don, Ukraine, the Urals, and the Volga region. At the end of 1919 - beginning of 1920, under the blows of the Red Army and peasant rebel detachments, Kolchak’s troops were finally defeated. Yudenich was pushed back to Estonia, the remnants of Denikin’s army, led by General Wrangel, fortified themselves in the Crimea.

Fifth stage: May - November 1920. In May 1920, the Red Army entered the war with Poland, trying to capture the capital and create the necessary conditions for the proclamation of Soviet power there. However, this attempt ended in military failure. Under the terms of the Riga Peace Treaty, a significant part of the territory of Ukraine and Belarus went to Poland.

The main event of the final period of the Civil War was the defeat of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, led by General Wrangel. During 1920-1921 With the help of Red Army detachments, the process of Sovietization in Central Asia and Transcaucasia was completed. The civil war ended by the end of 1920, but the peasant war continued.

Reasons for the Bolshevik victory.

The leaders of the white movement canceled the Decree on Land and returned the land to the previous owners. This turned the peasants against them.

The slogan of preserving a “united and indivisible Russia” contradicted the hopes of many peoples for independence.

The reluctance of the leaders of the white movement to cooperate with liberal and socialist parties narrowed its socio-political base.

Punitive expeditions, pogroms, mass executions of prisoners - all this caused discontent among the population, even to the point of armed resistance.

During the civil war, opponents of the Bolsheviks failed to agree on a single program and a single leader of the movement. Their actions were poorly coordinated.

The Bolsheviks won the civil war because they managed to mobilize all the country's resources and turn it into a single military camp. The Central Committee of the RCP(b) and the Council of People's Commissars created a politicized Red Army, ready to defend Soviet power. The Bolshevik leadership managed to present itself as a defender of the Fatherland and accuse its opponents of betraying national interests.

International solidarity and the help of the proletariat of Europe and the United States were of great importance, which undermined the unity of action of the Entente powers, weakening the strength of their military onslaught on Bolshevism.

Results of the civil war

The Bolsheviks, during fierce resistance, managed to retain power and, in the fight against the forces of intervention, preserve Russian statehood.

However, the Civil War led to a further deterioration of the economic situation in the country, to complete economic ruin. Material damage amounted to more than 50 billion rubles. gold. Industrial production decreased by 7 times. The transport system was completely paralyzed.

Many segments of the population, forcibly drawn into the war by the warring parties, became its innocent victims. In battles, from hunger, disease and terror, 8 million people died, 2 million people were forced to emigrate. Among them were many representatives of the intellectual elite.

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The civil war is certainly one of the most difficult events of the Soviet period. It is not for nothing that Ivan Bunin calls the days of this war “cursed” in his diary entries. Internal conflicts, the decline of the economy, the arbitrariness of the ruling party - all this significantly weakened the country and provoked strong foreign powers to take advantage of this situation in their interests.

Now let's take a closer look at this time.

Beginning of the Civil War

There is no common point of view among historians on this issue. Some believe that the conflict began immediately after the revolution, that is, in October 1917. Others argue that the origins of the war should be dated back to the spring of 1918, when the intervention began and strong opposition to Soviet power emerged. There is also no consensus on who is the initiator of this fratricidal war: the leaders of the Bolshevik Party or the former upper classes of society who lost their influence and property as a result of the revolution.

Causes of the Civil War

The nationalization of land and industry caused discontent among those from whom this property began to be taken away, and turned the landowners and bourgeoisie against Soviet power
The government's methods for transforming society did not correspond to the goals set when the Bolsheviks came to power, which alienated the Cossacks, kulaks, middle peasants and the democratic bourgeoisie
The promised “dictatorship of the proletariat” in fact turned out to be the dictatorship of only one state body - the Central Committee. The Decrees he issued “On the arrest of the leaders of the Civil War” (November 1917) and on the “Red Terror” legally gave the Bolsheviks a free hand to physically exterminate the opposition. This became the reason for the entry of the Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists into the Civil War.
Also, the Civil War was accompanied by active foreign intervention. Neighboring states helped financially and politically deal with the Bolsheviks in order to return the confiscated property of foreigners and prevent the revolution from spreading widely. But at the same time, they, seeing that the country was “bursting at the seams,” wanted to grab a “tidbit” for themselves.

1st stage of the Civil War

In 1918, anti-Soviet pockets formed.

In the spring of 1918, foreign intervention began.

In May 1918, there was an uprising of the Czechoslovak corps. The military overthrew Soviet power in the Volga region and Siberia. Then, in Samara, Ufa and Omsk, the power of the Cadets, Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks was briefly established, whose goal was to return to the Constituent Assembly.

In the summer of 1918, a large-scale movement against the Bolsheviks, led by the Socialist Revolutionaries, unfolded in Central Russia. But its result consisted only in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Soviet government in Moscow and activate the defense of the Bolshevik power by strengthening the power of the Red Army.

The Red Army began its offensive in September 1918. In three months, she restored the power of the Soviets in the Volga and Urals regions.

Climax of the Civil War

The end of 1918 - the beginning of 1919 is the period in which the White movement reached its peak.

Admiral A.V. Kolchak, trying to unite with the army of General Miller for a subsequent joint attack on Moscow, began military operations in the Urals. But the Red Army stopped their advance.

In 1919, the White Guards planned a joint attack from different directions: south (Denikin), east (Kolchak) and west (Yudenich). But it was not destined to come true.

In March 1919, Kolchak was stopped and pushed to Siberia, where, in turn, the partisans and peasants supported the Bolsheviks to restore their power.

Both attempts of Yudenich's Petrograd offensive ended in failure.

In July 1919, Denikin, having captured Ukraine, moved towards Moscow, occupying Kursk, Orel and Voronezh along the way. But soon the Southern Front of the Red Army was created against such a strong enemy, which, with the support of N.I. Makhno defeated Denikin's army.

In 1919, the interventionists liberated the Russian territories they had occupied.

End of the Civil War

In 1920, the Bolsheviks faced two main tasks: the defeat of Wrangel in the south and the resolution of the issue of establishing borders with Poland.

The Bolsheviks recognized the independence of Poland, but the Polish government made too large territorial demands. The dispute could not be resolved diplomatically, and Poland annexed Belarus and Ukraine in May. The Red Army under the command of Tukhachevsky was sent there to resist. The confrontation was defeated, and the Soviet-Polish war ended with the Peace of Riga in March 1921, signed on more favorable terms for the enemy: Western Belarus and Western Ukraine went to Poland.

To destroy Wrangel's army, the Southern Front was created under the leadership of M.V. Frunze. At the end of October 1920, Wrangel was defeated in Northern Tavria and was thrown back to the Crimea. Afterwards, the Red Army captured Perekop and captured Crimea. In November 1920, the Civil War actually ended with the victory of the Bolsheviks.

Reasons for the Bolshevik victory

Anti-Soviet forces sought to return to the previous order, to repeal the Decree on Land, which turned the majority of the population - the peasants - against them.
There was no unity among opponents of Soviet power. They all acted separately, which made them more vulnerable to the well-organized Red Army.
The Bolsheviks united all the forces of the country to create a single military camp and a powerful Red Army
The Bolsheviks had a single program understandable to the common people under the slogan of restoring justice and social equality
The Bolsheviks had the support of the largest segment of the population - the peasantry.

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Well, for connoisseurs, an article from Lurkmore

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

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Druzhinkina N. G.

The main stages of the civil war in Russia (1917 – 1922)

Introduction.

“The civil war in Russia began in the summer of 1918. Until that time, the country lived in separate, loosely connected regions: some occupied by Germany, like Ukraine, some under an independent government, like the Don or Chita region, some nominally recognizing the Council of People's Commissars, but in fact taking it into account little, like the Penza or Murmansk regions, some - being under the actual power of the Bolsheviks, like Petrograd and Moscow. Regionalism was especially strong in Siberia, where there were up to two dozen large local governments at war with each other. Nobody spoke out for the defense or restoration of central power, legality, order (be it pre-revolutionary tsarist or liberal from the time of Kerensky, or “true socialist” in the spirit of one or another party program): the regions wanted to live their own lives and avoided solving all-Russian problems... (4;243).

“However... the example of Russia showed especially clearly the cause-and-effect relationship between the essential features of the civil war and its long-term consequences: a huge social shake-up of society and its demographic deformation; the severance of economic ties and colossal economic devastation; changes in psychology, mentality of broad sections of the population.... Thus, it is more correct to define civil war as the most acute form of resolving social contradictions within the country; armed confrontation between social, ethnic, religious communities and groups for the realization of their fundamental economic, political and other interests, which is caused by attempts to seize or maintain power by illegitimate means” (2;10).

“Conventionally, the opposing forces can be divided mainly into two parts: 1) the Bolsheviks who won the revolution and the overwhelming number of their active supporters in the person of the industrial proletariat, the urban and rural poor, small artisans, and part of the intelligentsia (including the military); 2) landowners overthrown by the revolution, the big bourgeoisie, a significant part of the officers and generals of the tsarist army, officials of the former police and gendarmerie, the wealthy peasantry and Cossacks, the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia. Some of them occupied the “red” barricade, others – the “white” (1:9).

Periodization of the Civil War.

“In modern historiography of the civil war there is no consensus on the issue of periodization of the civil war. Some researchers consider 1918-1920 to be the years of the civil war. (the most established opinion), others - from July 1917 to 1922, others - from October 1917 to 1922... each of them has a greater or lesser degree of persuasiveness. However, those who consider the chronological facets of the civil war to be the time from the end of October 1917 (the beginning of the armed campaign of Kerensky and Krasnov’s troops against Petrograd) to the end of October 1922 (the complete defeat of the White Guard armies by the troops of the People’s Revolutionary Army and the partisans of the Far Eastern Republic) are obviously more right in the Far East and the liberation of Vladivostok from Japanese invaders).

The time from the summer of 1918 to the end of 1920, when the civil war and intervention merged into a single whole and the military issue became fundamental to the Soviet Republic, can be defined as the main period of the civil war in the history of the Soviet state. In turn, the entire five-year period of the civil war can, with a certain degree of convention, be divided into the following stages:

Beginning of the Civil War (October 1917 - May 1918). At this stage there is a struggle between the Red Guard and revolutionary soldiers and sailors against the anti-Soviet rebellions of Kerensky-Krasnov, the rebel cadets in Petrograd and Moscow, the counter-revolutionary headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief in Mogilev, the Cossack anti-Soviet protests in the Don, the Southern Urals, and Transbaikalia. In February–March 1918, the Soviet Republic tried to repel the military intervention of German troops, but was unsuccessful and, as a result, was forced to conclude the shameful or, as Lenin called it, “obscene” Peace of Brest-Litovsk.

Summer - autumn 1918. This stage includes the struggle of the Soviet Republic with the united forces of internal counter-revolution and the Czechoslovak rebellion, supported by the intervention of the Entente countries and Germany. By the end of the summer of 1918, the enemy managed to capture ¾ of the territory of the Soviet Republic, and it found itself surrounded by fronts. The front of the civil war increasingly turned into a ring that was supposed to shrink closer and closer around Moscow. To repel joint large-scale military actions of the white armies and interventionists in the Soviet Republic, the first fronts of the civil war are created: Eastern, Southern, Northern and Western defense regions. Further accelerated construction of the Red Army is underway, which is achieving its first successes.

End of 1918 and beginning of 1919. It is characterized by the end of the First World War (November 1918), the end of the Austro-German intervention and the liberation of the previously occupied territories of Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states, and the restoration of Soviet power in them. At the same time, an attempt is being made to strengthen the intervention of the Entente forces: at the end of November, Anglo-French troops land in Novorossiysk, Sevastopol and Odessa, and in December they occupy Baku and Batumi. In November, a military dictatorship was established in Omsk by Admiral A.V. Kolchak, who proclaimed himself the “supreme ruler” of Russia and the supreme commander-in-chief. The Entente's attempt to deploy its troops in southern Russia ended in complete failure due to anti-war and revolutionary sentiments among foreign soldiers and sailors. This stage of the war is also characterized by the intensification of the construction of the Red Army and the deepening of socio-economic transformations, the emergence of the system of “war communism”.

spring 1919 – spring 1920. The withdrawal of the main interventionist troops from Russia is completed. Spring and autumn of 1919 - a critical phase and the largest victorious battles of the Red Army over the White Guard armies of Kolchak in the East, Denikin in the South, Yudenich in the North-West. The year 1919 went down in the history of the war as the year of decisive victories of the Red Army. At the same time, the system of “war communism” was further developed.

Spring – autumn 1920. The Soviet-Polish war and the fight against the White Guard army of General P.V. Wrangel. complete victory over the armed forces of the internal counter-revolution and a “giantly unheard-of defeat” (Lenin) in the war with Poland, supported by the Entente. Elimination of the main centers of civil war. The apogee of the “war communism” system. Growing peasant discontent with surplus appropriation, peasant uprisings.

1921 – 1922 Elimination of the last local centers of civil war and foreign intervention. Suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion and peasant uprisings in the Tambov region, Saratov and other provinces, liquidation of the rebel detachments of Father Makhno. Volochaevskaya and Primorskaya operations to liberate the Far East. The fight against Basmachi in Central Asia (until the end of the 20s). Demobilization of the Red Army, the beginning of the transition to NEP and the country’s exit from diplomatic isolation” (1; 14-16).

V.P. Slobodin writes that “if the criterion for periodizing the civil war is the attitude towards Russia, the degree of involvement of foreign powers in its internal affairs, then three stages should be distinguished in it:

The first (October 1917 - November 1918) is the initial period of the organization of socio-political forces in Russia opposing each other. At this time, the parties are making desperate efforts to enlist the support of one of the powers that participated in the First World War, forming their governments and armies, and preparing for a large-scale armed struggle;

The second (November 1918 - March 1920) was the decisive period of the civil war. It is associated, first of all, with the end of the formation of alternative state structures on the territory of Russia and the transition to an organized armed conflict by large military formations with a gradual decrease in the intensity of interference in internal Russian affairs by foreign powers;

The third (March 1920 - autumn 1922) was the period of the peasant war against the Bolshevik regime. After the defeat of the white movement on the fronts of the civil war, peasant uprisings emerged throughout almost the entire territory of Soviet Russia. The brutal measures taken by the Bolshevik regime to suppress them did not yield results. Only thanks to a compromise associated with a change in the policy of the central government towards the countryside, the civil war in Russia ended. As for the foreign powers, they first resume economic and then political relations with Russia, thus de facto recognizing the Bolsheviks as a legitimate government and finally and irrevocably denying it to their opponents” (2:14-15).

“...the approach of Professor V.N. Brovkin...to the chronology of the civil war deserves attention. Emphasizing the importance of understanding its course from the point of view of the interaction of all social groups that took an active part in it, he names the following stages:

Stage 1 – 1918 – the period of the collapse of the Russian Empire. on the one hand, a parade of sovereignties (even the so-called Kaluga Republic expressed a claim to independence), on the other, the organization of an anti-Bolshevik movement by socialists. The latter at this stage are the main opponents of the Bolsheviks;

Stage 2 – 1919 – the year of the white movement. As the punitive policy of the Bolsheviks tightened and the methods of military communism took root in the territory under their control, the authority of their main opponent, the white movement, grew. By mid-1919, the latter managed to form its own, alternative to the Bolshevik, All-Russian government and launch an attack on the Bolsheviks on four fronts;

3rd stage – 1920-1921 – it’s time for the green ones. The growth of peasant protests against the Bolshevik regime, which caused its transformation into what was called the “New Economic Policy (NEP)” (2;13).

“There is a long tradition of interpreting the civil war as a period of acute class clashes. In this context, the revolution is viewed as an act of civil war. Therefore, many authors count the civil war in Russia from October 1917, and others even earlier, pointing to individual skirmishes, riots, and uprisings. At the same time, there is another definition of war as a way of resolving contradictions between parties with the help of armed forces. In this narrower, but more accurate and modern understanding, it means the confrontation of warring armies, the movement of fronts, the mobilization of the economy and other clear evidence that the country is in a state of war. From this point of view, the civil war in Russia should apparently be dated from mid-1918 to the end of 1920, although both before and after this time fighting broke out in the country here and there. There is also no doubt that the country was gradually “creeping” into civil war. In April 1918, an uprising began on the Don, caused by the leftist-dogmatic attitude of the Bolsheviks towards decossackization. In May, the so-called second Kuban campaign of the Volunteer Army began, occupying the entire Kuban, from where the Red units were able to withdraw with great difficulty. In May, a mutiny of the Czechoslovak corps began along the entire length of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The rebellion was supported by uprisings in a number of regions of the Volga region. The Middle Volga region and the Middle Urals unite against the Soviets under the authority of the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch government, “Samara Founder”). He is supported by the Ural and Orenburg Cossacks, led by Ataman Dutov. Cut off from the Center, Siberia, Central Asia and the Far East are gradually being captured by anti-Bolshevik forces. Anglo-American occupation troops land in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. With their support, a government of the Northern region is created, headed by a member of the Constituent Assembly, people's socialist N.I. Tchaikovsky. A sad fate befalls the Baku commune in Transcaucasia, which falls in the face of three hostile forces: local nationalists, Turkish and British occupation forces. There are riots and uprisings within the Soviet Republic, including in Moscow (revolt of the left Socialist Revolutionaries), in Yaroslavl (uprising organized by the “Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom” under the leadership of B. Savinkov and General Perkhushkov). On the vast area of Russia, many different state formations arise (5;73)…. Despite the participation of troops of foreign powers in the civil war, it was primarily an internal problem of Russia. In the summer and autumn of 1918, the main events unfolded on the Eastern Front, where the people's army of Komuch and Czechoslovak units advanced towards Moscow, occupied Kazan, and in the north threatened to unite with the troops of the government of the Northern Region and the British. The Soviet government is making feverish efforts to strengthen the Red Army. Already in May, mass conscription and forced recruitment began. The Constitution adopted at the V Congress of Soviets established the principle of compulsory military service. At the same congress, it was decided to begin the mobilization of conscription ages. By the fall, the number of the Red Army had grown to half a million. On September 30, 1918, the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Harrows (CO) was formed under the Council of People's Commissars to unite all activities in the military field. Measures were taken to tighten discipline. Representatives of the Revolutionary Military Council, endowed with emergency powers up to and including the execution of traitors and cowards without trial, went to the most tense areas of the front. The Cheka announced the formation of an internal front of the civil war, directing its efforts to exposing conspiracies and mercilessly punishing “class enemies” (5; 74-75).

“In the autumn of 1918, the Red Army managed to inflict a number of defeats on its opponents and clear the Volga region and the Urals of them. A favorable situation for Soviet Russia developed on the Western Front in connection with the revolution in Germany... Red units advanced on the heels of the departing German troops. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was annulled. Pskov and Narva, most of Belarus and the Baltic states were occupied. The Lithuanian-Belarusian, Latvian and Estonian Soviet republics were formed on the liberated territory, although Soviet power lasted only a few months in them... The successes of the Red Army on the Southern Front, especially in Ukraine, were significant. Even during the period of the pro-German occupation regime of Hetman Skoropadsky, a strong partisan and insurgent movement arose here, led by the Ukrainian Directory, in which Bolshevik detachments also took part. After the evacuation of German troops, a war began between the Petliurists and the Red troops, supported by the advancing Red Army, which ended in the defeat of the nationalists. In January 1919, Kharkov was occupied, in February - Kyiv, in April - Odessa, from where the French military squadron was urgently forced to leave, and Crimea. In May 1919, the Red Army occupied almost the entire Don region. The uprising of the local Cossacks was brutally suppressed...(5;75).

“In general, however, the successes of the Red Army turned out to be temporary and fragile. While she was winning victories on the Western and Southern fronts, a new, no less formidable round of the civil war began to flare up at the other end, marking the transition to its second stage, when the Soviet Republic was opposed by a number of military dictatorial regimes. First, the workers of the Izhevsk and Votkinsk factories in the Urals rebelled against them... The uprising was suppressed with difficulty, but the “Izhevsk” and “Votkin” people who crossed over to the enemy camp continued to inflict injections on the Reds as part of the White armies for a long time. In November 1918, Admiral A.V. Kolchak, the Minister of War of the Ufa Directory, a government that united a number of state entities in Russia under its authority, carried out a military coup. Kolchak proclaimed himself the “supreme ruler of Russia” with his capital in Omsk and for a time became the main enemy of Soviet power. At the beginning of 1919, his troops quickly advanced to the Volga, inflicting defeat after defeat on the Red Army, and came close to Samara. In the south, General Denikin united all anti-Bolshevik forces and in April 1919 launched an offensive in three directions at once: on Tsaritsyn, Voronezh and Kharkov. In the summer, Denikin’s troops occupy all of Ukraine, and in the fall they begin to advance towards Moscow. In the West, the Northern Corps, created under German auspices, turned into the Northwestern Army, which, under the command of first General A.P. Rodzianko and then General N.N. Yudenich, twice (in May and October) came close to the former proletarian capital - Petrograd . In the North, the offensive was led by the troops of General Miller. There were signs of consolidation in the “white” camp. In May 1919, Denikin announced his recognition of the power of the “supreme ruler of Russia.” Miller and other generals did the same. Soviet power once again hung by a thread.

But now...the advancing fronts are collapsing one after another. The Kolchak front was broken through in the area of Buguruslan and Bugulma, its significant forces were surrounded and destroyed, after which it was no longer able to recover. In November, Kolchak’s capital, Omsk, fell. The remnants of his army rolled further to the East. In October, Denikin's advancing units near Voronezh and Orel were defeated. Denikin's army rolled south. Defeated at the Pulkovo Heights near Petrograd, Yudenich took refuge in Estonia. The decaying regime of General Miller, having lost the support of British troops taken from Russia, was unable to resist the Bolsheviks. The insurgent and partisan movement that developed everywhere in the rear of the white armies provided great assistance to the Red Army. By the end of 1919, the tide of hostilities clearly turned in favor of the Soviets. Subsequently, neither the Polish-Soviet war nor the war with General Wrangel in Crimea posed an immediate threat to the existence of Soviet power” (5; 76-77).

“...Neither the brilliant victories in the civil war, nor the heroism of its participants saved Soviet Russia from the general and deepest crisis, the peak of which occurred at the end of 1920 - beginning of 1921. …. In 1920, fighting continued on the fronts. The main event was the war with Poland. Germany announced the creation of an independent state on Polish territory, which was part of the Russian Empire, during the First World War on November 5, 1916. However, the modern history of independent Poland begins only after the departure of German troops on November 14, 1918, when Yu came to power. Piłsudski, who proclaimed himself “chief of state.” The patriotic upsurge in Poland was so great that it completely eclipsed the actions of local revolutionaries traditionally associated with Russia. Local Soviets and local communists were quickly suppressed. Having formally recognized the independence of Poland, the Bolsheviks in Moscow nevertheless undoubtedly kept all these circumstances in mind.

Since the beginning of the new period of independence of the Polish state, the question of its borders has arisen. The complex of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth “worked” here. Therefore, as soon as Poland appeared on the map, it began an active struggle for territories both in the West and in the East, which could not but lead to a clash with Soviet Russia. Back in February 1919, Pilsudski's troops launched an attack on the Lithuanian-Belarusian Republic and occupied Vilna, part of the West. Belarus and Western Ukraine. After a short respite in April 1920, Polish units, together with the troops of S. Petlyura, resumed the war and occupied Kyiv. However, now they had to deal with the full might of the Red Army, which had a free hand on all fronts. Two groups, led by outstanding Soviet commanders... acted against the Polish troops: on the Western Front, led by M.N. Tukhachevsky, and on the Southern Front, led by A.I. Egorov. Tukhachevsky's troops, having broken the resistance of the Poles, quickly advanced towards their capital - Warsaw. In the ranks of the Bolshevik leadership, the ideas of world revolution came to life again, which, it seemed, could be brought to Europe at the bayonets of the Red Army. A Polish revolutionary committee was formed, headed by the communist Yu. Markhlewski” (5;83-84).

“However, the success achieved was temporary. The advanced units of the Red Army near Warsaw were far removed from their rear. Budyonny's first cavalry army... got stuck on the outskirts of Lvov, unsuccessfully storming the city. This allowed Polish troops to strike the North in the Lublin region and defeat the Red Army formations that had lost contact with each other. Part of it retreated to East Prussia, where it was interned. At the end of September, Polish troops launched a new offensive and advanced to the East beyond the Curzon Line (i.e. beyond the Polish territories proper, which the British Minister Lord Curzon proposed as the eastern border of the Polish state). Subsequently, both sides were too exhausted to conduct active combat operations. In addition, General Wrangel, who was entrenched in the Crimea, was in the rear of the Red Army. The peace signed with Poland bore traces of a kind of compromise, fixing the border at the time of the cessation of hostilities.

Having transferred troops to the Southern Front, the Red Army launched an offensive against Wrangel, who, after the defeat of Denikin, was proclaimed the supreme commander of the South of Russia. In November 1920, the troops of the Southern Front, whose commander-in-chief was appointed M.V. Frunze, who had previously distinguished himself in the East and Turkestan, crossed the Sivash and broke through the defensive lines of Wrangel on the Perekop Isthmus, and broke into the Crimea. The last battle between the “reds” and the “whites” was especially fierce and cruel, marking the final resounding chord of the civil war. Approximately 100 thousand people remaining from the once formidable Volunteer Army were transported by ship to Turkey.

But these events already took place on the periphery of the Soviet Republic and did not pose an immediate threat to the armed overthrow of the Bolshevik authorities...” (5;84).

“The civil war is one of the most difficult phases in the history of Soviet Russia to assess. Nevertheless, it is very important for understanding this history because of the profound impact that this struggle had on life and death, on the character of the future Soviet system and, in particular, on the model of socialism...” (6;328).

Conclusion.

“The Civil War was undoubtedly a decisive period in the history of the new Soviet regime. The demarcation line of this period is a controversial issue. It can be argued that it began in November 1917 and ended in mid-1922. These dates include the most important trends and features inherent in this period. By mid-1922, almost all important military operations, including those directed against the ubiquitous partisan detachments and bandits, were completed; the first, fairly abundant harvest made it possible to revive food supplies in order to begin to heal the terrible wounds, the consequences of the terrible famine of 1921; the war economy was returning to normal peacetime functioning. Thus, we are dealing with a time period of approximately four years, marked by coups, battles, and bloodshed. It was a protracted national agony, during which a new system arose and took shape” (6;252).

Civil war V Russia ...

D18 History of Russia XX - early XXI centuries

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