15.10.2019

Reds during the Civil War. White Army in the Civil War

So, we have come to understand that a civil war is a fratricidal war. However, the question of which forces opposed each other in this struggle is still controversial.

The question of the class structure and the main class forces of Russia during the civil war is quite complex and requires serious research. The fact is that in Russia classes and social strata, their relationships were intertwined in the most complex way. Nevertheless, in my opinion, there were three major forces in the country that differed in relation to the new government.

However, by mid-1918 it had become a minority party, ready to ensure its survival through mass terror. By this time, the Bolshevik Party was no longer a political party in the sense in which it had been before, since it no longer expressed the interests of any social group; it recruited its members from many social groups. Former soldiers, peasants or officials, having become communists, represented a new social group with their own rights. The Communist Party turned into a military-industrial and administrative apparatus.

The impact of the Civil War on the Bolshevik Party was twofold. Firstly, there was a militarization of Bolshevism, which affected, first of all, the way of thinking. Communists have learned to think in terms of military campaigns. The idea of building socialism turned into a struggle - on the industrial front, the collectivization front, etc. The second important consequence of the civil war was the Communist Party's fear of the peasants. The Communists have always been aware that they are a minority party in a hostile peasant environment.

Intellectual dogmatism, militarization, combined with hostility towards the peasants, created in the Leninist party all the necessary preconditions for Stalinist totalitarianism.

However, the white movement began only as an impulse of convinced and brave officers who fought against the communists, often without any hope of victory. White officers called themselves volunteers, motivated by ideas of patriotism. But at the height of the civil war, the white movement became much more intolerant and chauvinistic than at the beginning.

The main weakness of the white movement was that it failed to become a unifying national force. It remained almost exclusively a movement of officers. The white movement was unable to establish effective cooperation with the liberal and socialist intelligentsia. Whites were suspicious of workers and peasants. They did not have a state apparatus, administration, police, or banks. Personifying themselves as a state, they tried to compensate for their practical weakness by brutally imposing their own rules.

There was a huge cultural gap between the workers and peasants, on the one hand, and the Cadets, on the other, and the Russian Revolution was presented to most Cadets as chaos and rebellion. Only the white movement, according to the cadets, could restore Russia.

Finally, the largest group of the Russian population is the wavering part, and often simply passive, observing events. She looked for opportunities to do without the class struggle, but was constantly drawn into it by the active actions of the first two forces. These are the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie, the peasantry, the proletarian strata who wanted “civil peace,” part of the officers and a significant number of representatives of the intelligentsia.

But such a division of forces should be considered conditional. In fact, they were closely intertwined, mixed together and scattered throughout the vast territory of the country. This situation was observed in any region, in any province, regardless of whose hands were in power. The decisive force that largely determined the outcome of revolutionary events was the peasantry.

Analyzing the beginning of the war, it is only with great convention that we can talk about the Bolshevik government of Russia. In fact, in 1918 it controlled only part of the country's territory. However, it declared its readiness to rule the entire country after dissolving the Constituent Assembly. In 1918, the main opponents of the Bolsheviks were not the Whites or the Greens, but the Socialists. The Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries opposed the Bolsheviks under the banner of the Constituent Assembly. Immediately after the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, the Socialist Revolutionary Party began preparing for the overthrow of Soviet power. However, soon the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionaries became convinced that there were very few people willing to fight with weapons under the banner of the Constituent Assembly.

A very sensitive blow to attempts to unite anti-Bolshevik forces was dealt from the right, by supporters of the military dictatorship of the generals. The main role among them was played by the Cadets, who resolutely opposed the use of the demand for the convening of the Constituent Assembly of the 1917 model as the main slogan of the anti-Bolshevik movement. The Cadets headed for a one-man military dictatorship, which the Socialist Revolutionaries dubbed right-wing Bolshevism.

Moderate socialists, who rejected the military dictatorship, nevertheless compromised with the supporters of the generals' dictatorship. In order not to alienate the cadets, the general democratic bloc “Union for the Revival of Russia” adopted a plan for creating a collective dictatorship - the Directory. To govern the country, the Directory had to create a business ministry. The Directory was obliged to resign its powers of all-Russian power only before the Constituent Assembly after the end of the fight against the Bolsheviks. At the same time, the “Union for the Revival of Russia” set the following tasks:

1) continuation of the war with the Germans;
2) creation of a single firm government;
3) revival of the army;
4) restoration of scattered parts of Russia.

Having received power from the hands of the Czechoslovaks, five members of the Constituent Assembly - V.K. Volsky, I.M. Brushvit, I.P. Nesterov, P.D. Klimushkin and B.K. Fortunatov - formed the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) - the highest state body. Komuch transferred executive power to the Board of Governors. The birth of Komuch, contrary to the plan for creating the Directory, led to a split in the Socialist Revolutionary elite. Its right-wing leaders, led by N.D. Avksentiev, ignoring Samara, headed to Omsk to prepare from there the formation of an all-Russian coalition government.

Declaring himself the temporary supreme power until the convening of the Constituent Assembly, Komuch called on other governments to recognize him as the center of state. However, other regional governments refused to recognize Komuch's rights as a national center, regarding him as a party Socialist Revolutionary power.

Socialist Revolutionary politicians did not have a specific program for democratic reforms. The issues of the grain monopoly, nationalization and municipalization, and the principles of army organization were not resolved. In the field of agrarian policy, Komuch limited himself to a statement about the inviolability of ten points of the land law adopted by the Constituent Assembly.

The main goal of foreign policy was to continue the war in the ranks of the Entente. Relying on Western military assistance was one of Komuch's biggest strategic miscalculations. The Bolsheviks used foreign intervention to portray the struggle of Soviet power as patriotic and the actions of the Socialist Revolutionaries as anti-national. Komuch's broadcast statements about continuing the war with Germany to a victorious end came into conflict with the sentiments of the popular masses. Komuch, who did not understand the psychology of the masses, could rely only on the bayonets of the allies.

The anti-Bolshevik camp was especially weakened by the confrontation between the Samara and Omsk governments. Unlike the one-party Komuch, the Provisional Siberian Government was a coalition. It was headed by P.V. Vologda. The left wing in the government consisted of the Socialist Revolutionaries B.M. Shatilov, G.B. Patushinskiy, V.M. Krutovsky. The right side of the government is I.A. Mikhailov, I.N. Serebrennikov, N.N. Petrov ~ occupied cadet and pro-monarchist positions.

The government's program was formed under significant pressure from its right wing. Already at the beginning of July 1918, the government announced the cancellation of all decrees issued by the Council of People's Commissars, the liquidation of the Soviets, and the return of their estates to the owners with all inventory. The Siberian government pursued a policy of repression against dissidents, the press, meetings, etc. Komuch protested against such a policy.

Despite sharp differences, the two rival governments had to negotiate. At the Ufa state meeting, a “temporary all-Russian government” was created. The meeting concluded its work with the election of the Directory. N.D. was elected to the latter. Avksentyev, N.I. Astrov, V.G. Boldyrev, P.V. Vologodsky, N.V. Chaikovsky.

In its political program, the Directory declared the main tasks to be the struggle to overthrow the power of the Bolsheviks, the annulment of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty and the continuation of the war with Germany. The short-term nature of the new government was emphasized by the clause that the Constituent Assembly was to meet in the near future - January 1 or February 1, 1919, after which the Directory would resign.

On the night of November 17–18, 1918, the leaders of the Directory were arrested. The directory was replaced by the dictatorship of A.V. Kolchak. In 1918, the civil war was a war of ephemeral governments whose claims to power remained only on paper. In August 1918, when the Socialist Revolutionaries and Czechs took Kazan, the Bolsheviks were unable to recruit more than 20 thousand people into the Red Army. The people's army of the Social Revolutionaries numbered 30 thousand.

During this period, the peasants, having divided the land, ignored the political struggle that parties and governments waged among themselves. However, the establishment by the Bolsheviks of the Pobedy Committees caused the first outbreaks of resistance. From this moment on, there was a direct relationship between the Bolshevik attempts to dominate the countryside and the peasant resistance. The harder the Bolsheviks tried to impose “communist relations” in the countryside, the tougher the resistance of the peasants.

Whites, having in 1918 several regiments were not contenders for national power. Nevertheless, the white army of A.I. Denikin, initially numbering 10 thousand people, was able to occupy a territory with a population of 50 million people. This was facilitated by the development of peasant uprisings in areas held by the Bolsheviks. Nestor Makhno did not want to help the Whites, but his actions against the Bolsheviks contributed to the Whites' breakthrough. The Don Cossacks rebelled against the communists and cleared the way for the advancing army of A. Denikin.

It seemed that with the nomination of A.V. to the role of dictator. Kolchak, the whites had a leader who would lead the entire anti-Bolshevik movement. In the provision on the temporary structure of state power, approved on the day of the coup, the Council of Ministers, the supreme state power was temporarily transferred to the Supreme Ruler, and all the Armed Forces of the Russian state were subordinate to him. A.V. Kolchak was soon recognized as the Supreme Ruler by the leaders of other white fronts, and the Western allies recognized him de facto.

The political and ideological ideas of the leaders and ordinary participants in the white movement were as diverse as the movement itself was socially heterogeneous. Of course, some part sought to restore the monarchy, the old, pre-revolutionary regime in general. But the leaders of the white movement refused to raise the monarchical banner and put forward a monarchical program. This also applies to A.V. Kolchak.

What positive things did the Kolchak government promise? Kolchak agreed to convene a new Constituent Assembly after order was restored. He assured Western governments that there could be “no return to the regime that existed in Russia before February 1917,” the broad masses of the population would be allocated land, and differences along religious and national lines would be eliminated. Having confirmed the full independence of Poland and the limited independence of Finland, Kolchak agreed to “prepare decisions” on the fate of the Baltic states, Caucasian and Trans-Caspian peoples. Judging by the statements, the Kolchak government took the position of democratic construction. But in reality everything was different.

The most difficult issue for the anti-Bolshevik movement was the agrarian question. Kolchak never managed to solve it. The war with the Bolsheviks, while Kolchak was waging it, could not guarantee the peasants the transfer of landowners' land to them. The national policy of the Kolchak government is marked by the same deep internal contradiction. Acting under the slogan of a “united and indivisible” Russia, it did not reject “self-determination of peoples” as an ideal.

Kolchak actually rejected the demands of the delegations of Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, the North Caucasus, Belarus and Ukraine put forward at the Versailles Conference. By refusing to create in the regions liberated from the Bolsheviks against the Bolshevik conference, Kolchak pursued a policy doomed to failure.

Kolchak did not hide his antipathy towards Japan. The Japanese command responded with active support for the ataman system, which flourished in Siberia. Small ambitious people like Semenov and Kalmykov, with the support of the Japanese, managed to create a constant threat to the Omsk government deep in Kolchak’s rear, which weakened it. Semenov actually cut off Kolchak from the Far East and blocked the supply of weapons, ammunition, and provisions.

Strategic miscalculations in the field of domestic and foreign policy of the Kolchak government were aggravated by mistakes in the military field. The military command (generals V.N. Lebedev, K.N. Sakharov, P.P. Ivanov-Rinov) led the Siberian army to defeat. Betrayed by everyone, both comrades and allies, Kolchak resigned the title of Supreme Ruler and handed it over to General A.I. Denikin. Having not lived up to the hopes placed on him, A.V. Kolchak died courageously, like a Russian patriot.

The most powerful wave of the anti-Bolshevik movement was raised in the south of the country by generals M.V. Alekseev, L.G. Kornilov, A.I. Denikin. Unlike the little-known Kolchak, they all had big names. The conditions in which they had to operate were desperately difficult. The volunteer army, which Alekseev began to form in November 1917 in Rostov, did not have its own territory.

In terms of food supply and recruitment of troops, it was dependent on the Don and Kuban governments. The volunteer army had only the Stavropol province and the coast with Novorossiysk; only by the summer of 1919 did it conquer a vast area of the southern provinces for several months.

The leaders of the white movement rejected any significant concessions to supporters of national independence. All this stood in contrast to the Bolsheviks' promises of unlimited national self-determination. The reckless recognition of the right to secession gave Lenin the opportunity to curb destructive nationalism and raised his prestige much higher than that of the leaders of the white movement.

The government of General Denikin was divided into two groups - right and liberal. Right - a group of generals with A.M. Dragomirov and A.S. Lukomsky at the head. The liberal group consisted of cadets. A.I. Denikin took the position of center.

The most clearly reactionary line in the policy of the Denikin regime manifested itself on the agrarian issue. In the territory controlled by Denikin, it was planned to: create and strengthen small and medium-sized peasant farms, destroy latifundia, and leave landowners with small estates on which cultural farming could be conducted.

But instead of immediately starting to transfer the landowners' land to the peasants, the commission on the agrarian question began an endless discussion of the draft law on land. As a result, a compromise law was adopted. The transfer of part of the land to the peasants was supposed to begin only after the civil war and end 7 years later. In the meantime, the order for the third sheaf was put into effect, according to which a third of the collected grain went to the landowner. Denikin's land policy was one of the main reasons for his defeat. Of the two evils - Lenin's surplus appropriation system or Denikin's requisition - the peasants preferred the lesser.

A.I. Denikin understood that without the help of his allies, defeat awaited him. Therefore, he himself prepared the text of the political declaration of the commander of the armed forces of southern Russia, sent on April 10, 1919 to the heads of the British, American and French missions. It spoke of convening a national assembly on the basis of universal suffrage, establishing regional autonomy and broad local self-government, and carrying out land reform. However, things did not go beyond broadcast promises. All attention was turned to the front, where the fate of the regime was being decided.

In the fall of 1919, a difficult situation developed at the front for Denikin’s army. This was largely due to a change in the mood of the broad peasant masses. Peasants who rebelled in territory controlled by the whites paved the way for the reds. The peasants were a third force and acted against both in their own interests.

But this, as they say, is a separate topic that goes beyond the scope of my research. Although, undoubtedly, without a thorough analysis of the peasant war, it is simply impossible to study the history of the Civil War in Russia and draw the right conclusions.

One of the main features of the civil war was that all the armies participating in it, red and white, Cossacks and greens, went through the same path of degradation from serving a cause based on ideals to looting and outrages.

Ivanov Sergey

"Red" movement of the civil war of 1917-1922.

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1 slide. “Red” movement of the civil war 1917 – 1921.

2 slide V.I. Lenin is the leader of the “red” movement.

The ideological leader of the “red” movement was Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, known to every person.

V.I. Ulyanov (Lenin) - Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician and statesman, founder of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks), main organizer and leader of the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia, first chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (government) of the RSFSR, creator the first socialist state in world history.

Lenin created the Bolshevik faction of the Social Democratic Party of Russia. She was determined to seize power in Russia by force, through revolution.

3 slide. RSDP (b) - the party of the “Red” movement.

Russian Social Democratic Bolshevik Workers' Party RSDLP(b),in October 1917, during the October Revolution, it seized power and became the main party in the country. It was an association of intelligentsia, adherents of the socialist revolution, whose social base was the working classes, urban and rural poor.

During different years of its activity in the Russian Empire, the Russian Republic and the Soviet Union, the party had different names:

Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks) RSDP(b)
Russian Communist Bolshevik Party RKP(b)
All-Union communistparty (Bolsheviks) CPSU(b)
Communist Party of the Soviet Union CPSU

4 slide. Program goals of the “Red” movement.

The main goal of the red movement was:

Preservation and establishment of Soviet power throughout Russia,
suppression of anti-Soviet forces,
strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat
World revolution.

5 slide. The first events of the “Red” movement

On October 26, the “Decree on Peace” was adopted , which called on the warring countries to conclude a democratic peace without annexations and indemnities.
October 27 accepted "Decree on Land"which took into account peasant demands. The abolition of private ownership of land was proclaimed, the land became the public domain. The use of hired labor and land rental were prohibited. Equal land use was introduced.
October 27 accepted "Decree on the creation of the Council of People's Commissars"Chairman – V.I. Lenin. The composition of the Council of People's Commissars was Bolshevik in composition.
Jan. 7 The All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided todissolution of the Constituent Assembly. The Bolsheviks demanded the approval of the “Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People,” but the meeting refused to approve it. Dissolution of the constituent assemblymeant the loss of the opportunity to establish a multi-party political democratic system.
November 2, 1917 accepted “Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia”, which gave:

equality and sovereignty of all nations;
the right of peoples to self-determination up to and including secession and the formation of independent states;
free development of the peoples that make up Soviet Russia.

July 10, 1918 accepted Constitution of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.It determined the foundations of the political system of the Soviet state:

dictatorship of the proletariat;
public ownership of the means of production;
federal structure of the state;
the class nature of suffrage: it was deprived of the landowners and bourgeoisie, priests, officers, policemen; workers compared to peasants had advantages in the norms of representation (1 worker’s vote was equivalent to 5 peasant votes);
election procedure: multi-stage, indirect, open;

Economic policywas aimed at the complete destruction of private property and the creation of centralized government of the country.

nationalization of private banks, large enterprises; nationalization of all types of transport and communications;
introduction of a foreign trade monopoly;
introduction of workers' control in private enterprises;
introduction of a food dictatorship - ban on grain trade,
the creation of food detachments (food detachments) to seize “grain surpluses” from wealthy peasants.

December 20, 1917 created All-Russian Extraordinary Commission - VChK.

The tasks of this political organization were formulated as follows: to pursue and eliminate all counter-revolutionary and sabotage attempts and actions throughout Russia. As punitive measures, it was proposed to apply to enemies such as: confiscation of property, eviction, deprivation of food cards, publication of lists of counter-revolutionaries, etc.

September 5, 1918 accepted "Decree on Red Terror"which contributed to the development of repression: arrests, the creation of concentration camps, labor camps, in which about 60 thousand people were forcibly detained.

Dictatorial political transformations of the Soviet state became the causes of the Civil War

6 slide. Propaganda of the “Red” movement.

The Reds have always paid great attention to propaganda, and immediately after the revolution they began intensive preparations for the information war. We created a powerful propaganda network (political literacy courses, propaganda trains, posters, films, leaflets). The slogans of the Bolsheviks were relevant and helped quickly form the social support of the “Reds”.

From December 1918 to the end of 1920, 5 specially equipped propaganda trains operated in the country. For example, the propaganda train "Red East" served the territory of Central Asia throughout 1920, and the train "Nameed by V.I. Lenin" began work in Ukraine. The steamship "October Revolution", "Red Star" sailed along the Volga. By them and other propaganda trains and propaganda. About 1,800 rallies were organized by steamboats.

The responsibilities of the team of propaganda trains and propaganda ships included not only holding rallies, meetings, conversations, but distributing literature, publishing newspapers and leaflets, and showing films.

Slide 7 Propaganda posters of the “Red” movement.

Agitation and propaganda materials were published in large quantities. These included posters, appeals, leaflets, cartoons, and a newspaper was published. The most popular among the Bolsheviks were humorous postcards, especially with caricatures of the White Guards.

Slide 8 Creation of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA)

January 15, 1918 . The Council of People's Commissars was created by decreeWorkers 'and Peasants' Red Army, January 29 – Workers' and Peasants' Red Fleet. The army was built on the principles of voluntariness and a class approach, consisting only of workers. But the volunteer principle of recruitment did not contribute to enhancing combat effectiveness and strengthening discipline. In July 1918, a Decree was issued on universal military service for men aged 18 to 40 years.

The size of the Red Army grew rapidly. In the fall of 1918, there were 300 thousand soldiers in its ranks, in the spring - 1.5 million, in the fall of 1919 - already 3 million. And in 1920, about 5 million people served in the Red Army.

Much attention was paid to the formation of team personnel. In 1917–1919 Short-term courses and schools were opened to train mid-level commanders from distinguished Red Army soldiers, and higher military educational institutions.

In March 1918, a notice was published in the Soviet press about the recruitment of military specialists from the old army to serve in the Red Army. By January 1, 1919, about 165 thousand former tsarist officers had joined the ranks of the Red Army.

Slide 9 The Reds' biggest wins

1918 – 1919 – establishment of Bolshevik power in the territory of Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia.
Beginning of 1919 - The Red Army launches a counteroffensive, defeating Krasnov’s “white” army.
Spring-summer 1919 - Kolchak’s troops fell under the attacks of the “Reds”.
Beginning of 1920 - the “Reds” ousted the “Whites” from the northern cities of Russia.
February-March 1920 - defeat of the remaining forces of Denikin’s Volunteer Army.
November 1920 - the “Reds” ousted the “Whites” from Crimea.
By the end of 1920, the “Reds” were opposed by disparate groups of the White Army. The civil war ended with the victory of the Bolsheviks.

Slide 10 Commanders of the Red Movement.

Like the “Whites,” the “Reds” had many talented commanders and politicians in their ranks. Among them, it is important to note the most famous, namely: Leon Trotsky, Budyonny, Voroshilov, Tukhachevsky, Chapaev, Frunze. These military leaders showed themselves excellently in battles against the White Guards.

Trotsky Lev Davidovich was the main founder of the Red Army, which acted as a decisive force in the confrontation between “whites” and “reds” in the Civil War.In August 1918, Trotsky formed a carefully organized “train of the Pred.Revolutionary Military Council,” in which, from that moment, he basically lived for two and a half years, continuously traveling along the fronts of the Civil War.As the "military leader" of Bolshevism, Trotsky displays undoubted propaganda abilities, personal courage and outright cruelty. Trotsky's personal contribution was the defense of Petrograd in 1919.

Frunze Mikhail Vasilievich.one of the most important military leaders of the Red Army during the Civil War.

Under his command, the Reds carried out successful operations against the White Guard troops of Kolchak, defeated Wrangel’s army in the territory of Northern Tavria and Crimea;

Tukhachevsky Mikhail Nikolaevich. He was the commander of the troops of the Eastern and Caucasian Front, with his army he cleared the Urals and Siberia of the White Guards;

Voroshilov Kliment Efremovich. He was one of the first marshals of the Soviet Union. During the Civil War - commander of the Tsaritsyn group of forces, deputy commander and member of the Military Council of the Southern Front, commander of the 10th Army, commander of the Kharkov Military District, commander of the 14th Army and the internal Ukrainian Front. With his troops he liquidated the Kronstadt rebellion;

Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich. He commanded the second Nikolaev division, which liberated Uralsk. When the whites suddenly attacked the reds, they fought bravely. And, having spent all the cartridges, the wounded Chapaev set off running across the Ural River, but was killed;

Budyonny Semyon Mikhailovich. In February 1918, Budyonny created a revolutionary cavalry detachment that acted against the White Guards on the Don. The First Cavalry Army, which he led until October 1923, played an important role in a number of major operations of the Civil War to defeat the troops of Denikin and Wrangel in Northern Tavria and Crimea.

11 slide. Red Terror 1918-1923

On September 5, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued a decree on the beginning of the Red Terror. Tough measures to retain power, mass executions and arrests, hostage-taking.

The Soviet government spread the myth that the Red Terror was a response to the so-called “White Terror.” The decree that marked the beginning of the mass executions was a response to the murder of Volodarsky and Uritsky, a response to the assassination attempt on Lenin.

Execution in Petrograd. Immediately after the assassination attempt on Lenin, 512 people were shot in Petrograd, there were not enough prisons for everyone, and a system of concentration camps appeared.
Execution of the royal family. The execution of the royal family was carried out in the basement of the Ipatiev house in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17, 1918 in pursuance of the resolution of the executive committee of the Ural Regional Council of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies, headed by the Bolsheviks. Along with the royal family, members of her retinue were also shot.
Pyatigorsk massacre. On November 13 (October 31), 1918, the Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, at a meeting chaired by Atarbekov, decided to shoot another 47 people from among the counter-revolutionaries and counterfeiters. In fact, most of the hostages in Pyatigorsk were not shot, but hacked to death with swords or daggers. These events were called the “Pyatigorsk massacre.”
“Human slaughterhouses” in Kyiv. In August 1919, the presence in Kyiv of the so-called “human slaughterhouses” was reported by the provincial and district Extraordinary Commissions: “.

« The entire... floor of the large garage was already covered... with several inches of blood, mixed into a terrifying mass with the brain, cranial bones, tufts of hair and other human remains.... the walls were spattered with blood, on them, next to thousands of holes from bullets, particles of brain and pieces of head skin were stuck... a gutter a quarter of a meter wide and deep and about 10 meters long... was filled with blood all the way to the top... Near this place of horrors in in the garden of the same house lay hastily superficially buried 127 corpses of the last massacre... all the corpses had crushed skulls, many even had their heads completely flattened... Some were completely headless, but the heads were not cut off, but... torn off... we came across another older one in the corner of the garden a grave in which there were approximately 80 corpses... corpses lay with their bellies torn open, others had no members, some were completely chopped up. Some had their eyes gouged out... their heads, faces, necks and torsos were covered with puncture wounds... Several had no tongues... There were old people, men, women and children.”

« Reportedly, in turn, the Kharkov Cheka under the leadership of Sayenko used scalping and “removing gloves from the hands,” while the Voronezh Cheka used naked skating in a barrel studded with nails. In Tsaritsyn and Kamyshin they “sawed the bones.” In Poltava and Kremenchug, clergy were impaled. In Ekaterinoslav, crucifixion and stoning were used; in Odessa, officers were tied with chains to boards, inserted into a firebox and fried, or torn in half by the wheels of winches, or lowered one by one into a cauldron of boiling water and into the sea. In Armavir, in turn, “mortal crowns” were used: a person’s head on the frontal bone is surrounded by a belt, the ends of which have iron screws and a nut, which, when screwed, compresses the head with the belt. In the Oryol province, freezing people by dousing them with cold water at a low temperature is widely used.”

Suppression of anti-Bolshevik uprisings.Anti-Bolshevik uprisings, primarily uprisings of peasants who resisted surplus appropriation were brutally suppressed by special forces of the Cheka and internal troops.
Executions in Crimea. Terror in Crimea affected the widest social and public groups of the population: officers and military officials, soldiers, doctors and employeesRed Cross , nurses, veterinarians, teachers, officials, zemstvo leaders, journalists, engineers, former nobles, priests, peasants, they even killed the sick and wounded in hospitals. The exact number of those killed and tortured is unknown; official figures range from 56,000 to 120,000 people.
Decoration. On January 24, 1919, at a meeting of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee, a directive was adopted that marked the beginning of mass terror and repression against the wealthy Cossacks, as well as “all Cossacks in general who took any direct or indirect part in the fight against Soviet power.” In the fall of 1920, about 9 thousand families (or approximately 45 thousand people) of Terek Cossacks were evicted from a number of villages and deported to the Arkhangelsk province. The unauthorized return of evicted Cossacks was suppressed.
Repressions against the Orthodox Church.According to some historians, from 1918 to the end of the 1930s, during the repressions against the clergy, about 42,000 clergy were shot or died in prison.

Some murders were carried out in public in combination with various demonstrative humiliations. In particular, the clergyman Elder Zolotovsky was first dressed in a woman’s dress and then hanged.

On November 8, 1917, Tsarskoe Selo Archpriest Ioann Kochurov was subjected to prolonged beatings, then he was killed by being dragged along the railroad ties.

In 1918, three Orthodox priests in the city of Kherson were crucified on the cross.

In December 1918, Bishop Feofan (Ilmensky) of Solikamsk was publicly executed by periodically dipping into an ice hole and freezing while hanging by his hair.

In Samara, the former Mikhailovsky Bishop Isidor (Kolokolov) was impaled and died as a result.

Bishop Andronik (Nikolsky) of Perm was buried alive.

Archbishop of Nizhny Novgorod Joachim (Levitsky) was executed by public hanging upside down in the Sevastopol Cathedral.

Bishop Ambrose (Gudko) of Serapul was executed by tying him to the tail of a horse.

In Voronezh in 1919, 160 priests were simultaneously killed, led by Archbishop Tikhon (Nikanorov), who was hanged on the Royal Doors in the church of the Mitrofanovsky Monastery.

According to information published personally by M. Latsis (Chekist), in 1918 - 1919, 8,389 people were shot, 9,496 people were imprisoned in concentration camps, 34,334 were imprisoned; 13,111 people were taken hostage and 86,893 people were arrested.

12 slide. Reasons for the Bolshevik victory in the Civil War

1. The main difference between the “reds” and the “whites” was that from the very beginning of the war the communists were able to create a centralized power, which controlled the entire territory they conquered.

2. The Bolsheviks skillfully used propaganda. It was this tool that made it possible to convince the people that the “reds” are defenders of the Motherland and Fatherland, and the “whites” are supporters of the imperialists and foreign occupiers.

3. Thanks to the policy of “war communism,” they were able to mobilize resources and create a strong army, attracting a huge number of military specialists who made the army professional.

4. The country's industrial base and a significant part of its reserves are in the hands of the Bolsheviks.

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“Red” movement 1917 – 1922 Completed by student 11 “B” of class MBOU “Secondary School No. 9” Ivanov Sergey.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Bolshevik leader and founder of the Soviet state (1870–1924) “We fully recognize the legality, progressiveness and necessity of civil wars”

RSDP (b) - the party of the “Red” movement. Period Transformation of the party Number of people Social composition. 1917-1918 RSDLP(b) Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks) 240 thousand Bolsheviks. Revolutionary intelligentsia, workers, urban and rural poor, middle strata, peasants. 1918 –1925 RCP(b) Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks From 350 thousand to 1,236,000 communists 1925 -1952. All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) 1,453,828 communists Working class, peasantry, working intelligentsia. 1952 -1991 CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union as of January 1, 1991 16,516,066 communists 40.7% factory workers, 14.7% collective farmers.

The goals of the “Red” movement: the preservation and establishment of Soviet power throughout Russia; suppression of anti-Soviet forces; strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat; World revolution.

First events of the “Red” movement Democratic Dictatorial October 26, 1917 The “Decree on Peace” was adopted; the Constituent Assembly was dissolved. October 27, 1917 The "Decree on Land" was adopted. In November 1917, a Decree banning the Cadet Party was adopted. October 27, 1917 The “Decree on the establishment of the Council of People’s Commissars” was adopted. The introduction of a food dictatorship. November 2, 1917 The “Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia” was adopted on December 20, 1917. The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission of the Cheka is created. On July 10, 1918, the Constitution of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic is adopted. Nationalization of land and enterprises. "Red Terror".

Propaganda of the “Red” movement. "Power to the Soviets!" "Long live the world revolution." "Peace to the nations!" "Death to global capital." “Land to the peasants!” "Peace to the huts, war to the palaces." “Factory workers!” "The Socialist Fatherland is in Danger." Agitation train "Red Cossack". Agitation steamship "Red Star".

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Propaganda posters of the “Red” movement.

Creation of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA) On January 20, 1918, the official body of the Bolshevik government published a decree on the creation of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. On February 23, 1918, the appeal of the Council of People's Commissars of February 21, “The Socialist Fatherland is in Danger,” was published, as well as the “Appeal of the Military Commander-in-Chief” by N. Krylenko.

The biggest victories of the “Reds”: 1918 – 1919 – the establishment of Bolshevik power in the territory of Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia. Beginning of 1919 - The Red Army launches a counteroffensive, defeating Krasnov’s “white” army. Spring-summer 1919 - Kolchak’s troops fell under the attacks of the “Reds”. Beginning of 1920 - the “Reds” ousted the “Whites” from the northern cities of Russia. February-March 1920 - defeat of the remaining forces of Denikin’s Volunteer Army. November 1920 - the “Reds” ousted the “Whites” from Crimea. By the end of 1920, the “Reds” were opposed by disparate groups of the White Army. The civil war ended with the victory of the Bolsheviks.

Budyonny Frunze Tukhachevsky Chapaev Voroshilov Trotsky Commanders of the “Red” movement

Red Terror 1918-1923 Execution of representatives of the elite in Petrograd. September 1918. Execution of the royal family. On the night of July 16-17, 1918. Pyatigorsk massacre. 47 counter-revolutionaries were hacked to death with sabers. “Human slaughterhouses” in Kyiv. Suppression of anti-Bolshevik uprisings. Executions in Crimea. 1920 Decossackization. Repressions against the Orthodox Church. September 5, 1918 The Council of People's Commissars adopted a resolution on the Red Terror.

Reasons for the Bolshevik victory in the Civil War. The creation of a powerful state apparatus by the Bolsheviks. Agitation and propaganda work among the masses. Powerful ideology. Creation of a powerful, regular army. The country's industrial base and a significant part of its reserves are in the hands of the Bolsheviks.

At the first stage of the Civil War of 1917 - 1922/23, two powerful opposing forces took shape - “red” and “white”. The first represented the Bolshevik camp, whose goal was a radical change in the existing system and the construction of a socialist regime, the second - the anti-Bolshevik camp, striving for a return to the order of the pre-revolutionary period.

The period between the February and October revolutions is the time of formation and development of the Bolshevik regime, the stage of accumulation of forces. The main tasks of the Bolsheviks before the outbreak of hostilities in the Civil War: the formation of a social support, transformations in the country that would allow them to gain a foothold at the top of power in the country, and the defense of the achievements of the February Revolution.

The Bolsheviks' methods in strengthening power were effective. First of all, this concerns propaganda among the population - the slogans of the Bolsheviks were relevant and helped to quickly form the social support of the “Reds”.

The first armed detachments of the “Reds” began to appear during the preparatory stage - from March to October 1917. The main driving force of such detachments were workers from industrial regions - this was the main force of the Bolsheviks, which helped them come to power during the October Revolution. At the time of the revolutionary events, the detachment numbered about 200,000 people.

The stage of the establishment of Bolshevik power required the protection of what was achieved during the revolution - for this, at the end of December 1917, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission was created, headed by F. Dzerzhinsky. On January 15, 1918, the Cheka adopted a Decree on the creation of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, and on January 29, the Red Fleet was created.

Analyzing the actions of the Bolsheviks, historians do not come to a consensus about their goals and motivation:

The most common opinion is that the “Reds” initially planned a large-scale Civil War, which would be a logical continuation of the revolution. The fighting, the purpose of which was to promote the ideas of the revolution, would consolidate the power of the Bolsheviks and spread socialism throughout the world. During the war, the Bolsheviks planned to destroy the bourgeoisie as a class. Thus, based on this, the ultimate goal of the “reds” is world revolution.

V. Galin is considered one of the fans of the second concept. This version is radically different from the first - according to historians, the Bolsheviks had no intention of turning the revolution into a Civil War. The goal of the Bolsheviks was to seize power, which they succeeded in during the revolution. But continuation of hostilities was not included in the plans. Arguments of fans of this concept: the transformations that the “Reds” planned demanded peace in the country; at the first stage of the struggle, the “Reds” were tolerant of other political forces. A turning point regarding political opponents occurred when in 1918 there was a threat of losing power in the state. By 1918, the “Reds” had a strong, professionally trained enemy - the White Army. Its backbone was the military of the Russian Empire. By 1918, the fight against this enemy became purposeful, the army of the “Reds” acquired a pronounced structure.

At the first stage of the war, the actions of the Red Army were not successful. Why?

Recruitment into the army was carried out on a voluntary basis, which led to decentralization and disunity. The army was created spontaneously, without a specific structure - this led to a low level of discipline and problems in managing a large number of volunteers. The chaotic army was not characterized by a high level of combat effectiveness. Only in 1918, when Bolshevik power was under threat, did the “Reds” decide to recruit troops according to the mobilization principle. From June 1918, they began to mobilize the military of the tsarist army.

The second reason is closely related to the first - the chaotic, unprofessional army of the “Reds” was opposed by organized, professional military men who, at the time of the Civil War, participated in more than one battle. The “Whites”, with a high level of patriotism, were united not only by professionalism, but also by an idea - the White movement stood for a united and indivisible Russia, for order in the state.

The most characteristic feature of the Red Army is homogeneity. First of all, this concerns class origin. Unlike the “whites,” whose army included professional soldiers, workers, and peasants, the “reds” accepted only proletarians and peasants into their ranks. The bourgeoisie was subject to destruction, so an important task was to prevent hostile elements from joining the Red Army.

In parallel with military operations, the Bolsheviks implemented a political and economic program. The Bolsheviks pursued a policy of “red terror” against hostile social classes. In the economic sphere, “war communism” was introduced - a set of measures in the internal policy of the Bolsheviks throughout the Civil War.

The Reds' biggest wins:

1918 – 1919 – establishment of Bolshevik power in the territory of Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia.
Beginning of 1919 - The Red Army launches a counteroffensive, defeating Krasnov’s “white” army.
Spring-summer 1919 - Kolchak’s troops fell under the attacks of the “Reds”.
Beginning of 1920 - the “Reds” ousted the “Whites” from the northern cities of Russia.
February-March 1920 - defeat of the remaining forces of Denikin’s Volunteer Army.
November 1920 - the “Reds” ousted the “Whites” from Crimea.
By the end of 1920, the “Reds” were opposed by disparate groups of the White Army. The civil war ended with the victory of the Bolsheviks.

20. Civil war in Russia. The history of homeland

20. Civil war in Russia

The first historiographers of the civil war were its participants. A civil war inevitably divides people into “us” and “strangers”. A kind of barricade lay in understanding and explaining the causes, nature and course of the civil war. Day by day we understand more and more that only an objective look at the civil war on both sides will make it possible to get closer to the historical truth. But at a time when the civil war was not history, but reality, it was looked at differently.

Recently (80-90s), the following problems of the history of the civil war have been at the center of scientific discussions: the causes of the civil war; classes and political parties in the civil war; white and red terror; ideology and social essence of “war communism”. We will try to highlight some of these issues.

The inevitable accompaniment of almost every revolution is armed clashes. Researchers have two approaches to this problem. Some view a civil war as a process of armed struggle between citizens of one country, between different parts of society, while others see a civil war as only a period in the history of a country when armed conflicts determine its entire life.

As for modern armed conflicts, social, political, economic, national and religious reasons are closely intertwined in their occurrence. Conflicts in their pure form, where only one of them would be present, are rare. Conflicts prevail where there are many such reasons, but one dominates.

20.1. Causes and beginning of the civil war in Russia

The dominant feature of the armed struggle in Russia in 1917-1922. there was a socio-political confrontation. But the civil war of 1917-1922. impossible to understand taking into account only the class aspect. It was a tightly woven tangle of social, political, national, religious, personal interests and contradictions.

How did the civil war begin in Russia? According to Pitirim Sorokin, usually the fall of a regime is the result not so much of the efforts of revolutionaries as of the decrepitude, impotence and inability of the regime itself to do creative work. To prevent a revolution, the government must undertake certain reforms that would relieve social tension. Neither the government of Imperial Russia nor the Provisional Government found the strength to carry out reforms. And since the escalation of events required action, they were expressed in attempts at armed violence against the people in February 1917. Civil wars do not begin in an atmosphere of social peace. The law of all revolutions is such that after the overthrow of the ruling classes, their desire and attempts to restore their position are inevitable, while the classes that have come to power try by all means to maintain it. There is a connection between revolution and civil war; in the conditions of our country, the latter after October 1917 was almost inevitable. The causes of the civil war are the extreme aggravation of class hatred and the debilitating First World War. The deep roots of the civil war must also be seen in the character of the October Revolution, which proclaimed the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly stimulated the outbreak of civil war. All-Russian power was usurped, and in a society already split, torn apart by the revolution, the ideas of the Constituent Assembly and parliament could no longer find understanding.

It should also be recognized that the Brest-Litovsk Treaty offended the patriotic feelings of broad sections of the population, primarily officers and intelligentsia. It was after the conclusion of peace in Brest that the White Guard volunteer armies began to actively form.

The political and economic crisis in Russia was accompanied by a crisis in national relations. White and red governments were forced to fight for the return of lost territories: Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia in 1918-1919; Poland, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Central Asia in 1920-1922. The Russian Civil War went through several phases. If we consider the civil war in Russia as a process, it will become

it is clear that its first act was the events in Petrograd at the end of February 1917. In the same series are armed clashes on the streets of the capital in April and July, the Kornilov uprising in August, the peasant uprising in September, the October events in Petrograd, Moscow and a number of others places

After the abdication of the emperor, the country was gripped by the euphoria of “red-bow” unity. Despite all this, February marked the beginning of immeasurably deeper upheavals, as well as an escalation of violence. In Petrograd and other areas, a persecution of officers began. Admirals Nepenin, Butakov, Viren, General Stronsky and other officers were killed in the Baltic Fleet. Already in the first days of the February revolution, the anger that arose in people's souls spilled out onto the streets. So, February marked the beginning of the civil war in Russia,

By the beginning of 1918, this stage had largely exhausted itself. It was this situation that the leader of the Socialist Revolutionaries V. Chernov stated when, speaking at the Constituent Assembly on January 5, 1918, he expressed hope for a speedy end to the civil war. It seemed to many that the turbulent period was being replaced by a more peaceful one. However, contrary to these expectations, new centers of struggle continued to emerge, and from mid-1918 the next period of the civil war began, ending only in November 1920 with the defeat of P.N.’s army. Wrangel. However, the civil war continued after this. Its episodes included the Kronstadt sailors' uprising and the Antonovschina of 1921, military operations in the Far East, which ended in 1922, and the Basmachi movement in Central Asia, which was largely liquidated by 1926.

20.2. White and red movement. Red and white terror

Currently, we have come to understand that a civil war is a fratricidal war. However, the question of what forces opposed each other in this struggle is still controversial.

The question of the class structure and the main class forces of Russia during the civil war is quite complex and requires serious research. The fact is that in Russia classes and social strata, their relationships were intertwined in the most complex way. Nevertheless, in our opinion, there were three major forces in the country that differed in relation to the new government.

Soviet power was actively supported by part of the industrial proletariat, the urban and rural poor, some of the officers and the intelligentsia. In 1917, the Bolshevik Party emerged as a loosely organized radical revolutionary party of intellectuals, oriented towards workers. By mid-1918 it had become a minority party, ready to ensure its survival through mass terror. By this time, the Bolshevik Party was no longer a political party in the sense in which it had been before, since it no longer expressed the interests of any social group; it recruited its members from many social groups. Former soldiers, peasants or officials, having become communists, represented a new social group with their own rights. The Communist Party turned into a military-industrial and administrative apparatus.

The impact of the Civil War on the Bolshevik Party was twofold. Firstly, there was a militarization of Bolshevism, which was reflected primarily in the way of thinking. Communists have learned to think in terms of military campaigns. The idea of building socialism turned into a struggle - on the industrial front, the collectivization front, etc. The second important consequence of the civil war was the Communist Party's fear of the peasants. The Communists have always been aware that they are a minority party in a hostile peasant environment.

Intellectual dogmatism, militarization, combined with hostility towards the peasants, created in the Leninist party all the necessary preconditions for Stalinist totalitarianism.

The forces opposing Soviet power included the large industrial and financial bourgeoisie, landowners, a significant part of the officers, members of the former police and gendarmerie, and part of the highly qualified intelligentsia. However, the white movement began only as an impulse of convinced and brave officers who fought against the communists, often without any hope of victory. White officers called themselves volunteers, motivated by ideas of patriotism. But at the height of the civil war, the white movement became much more intolerant and chauvinistic than at the beginning.

If the white movement was unable to rally the anti-Bolshevik forces, then the Kadet Party failed to lead the white movement. The Cadets were a party of professors, lawyers and entrepreneurs. In their ranks there were enough people capable of establishing a workable administration in the territory liberated from the Bolsheviks. And yet the role of the cadets in national politics during the Civil War was insignificant. There was a huge cultural gap between the workers and peasants, on the one hand, and the Cadets, on the other, and the Russian Revolution was presented to most Cadets as chaos and rebellion. Only the white movement, according to the cadets, could restore Russia.

But the division of forces proposed to readers should be considered conditional. In fact, they were closely intertwined, mixed together and scattered throughout the vast territory of the country. This situation was observed in any region, in any province, regardless of whose hands were in power. The decisive force that largely determined the outcome of revolutionary events was the peasantry.

Immediately after the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, the Socialist Revolutionary Party began preparing for the overthrow of Soviet power. However, soon the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionaries became convinced that there were very few people willing to fight with weapons under the banner of the Constituent Assembly.

Moderate socialists, who rejected the military dictatorship, nevertheless compromised with the supporters of the generals' dictatorship. In order not to alienate the Cadets, the general democratic bloc “Union for the Revival of Russia” adopted a plan for creating a collective dictatorship - the Directory. To govern the country, the Directory had to create a business ministry. The Directory was obliged to resign its powers of all-Russian power only before the Constituent Assembly after the end of the fight against the Bolsheviks. At the same time, the “Union for the Revival of Russia” set the following tasks: 1) continuation of the war with the Germans; 2) creation of a single firm government; 3) revival of the army; 4) restoration of scattered parts of Russia.

The summer defeat of the Bolsheviks as a result of the armed uprising of the Czechoslovak corps created favorable conditions. This is how the anti-Bolshevik front arose in the Volga region and Siberia, and two anti-Bolshevik governments were immediately formed - Samara and Omsk. Having received power from the hands of the Czechoslovaks, five members of the Constituent Assembly - V.K. Volsky, I.M. Brushvit, I.P. Nesterov, P.D. Klimushkin and B.K. Fortunatov - formed the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) - the highest state body. Komuch transferred executive power to the Board of Governors. The birth of Komuch, contrary to the plan for creating the Directory, led to a split in the Socialist Revolutionary elite. Its right-wing leaders, led by N.D. Avksentiev, ignoring Samara, headed to Omsk to prepare from there the formation of an all-Russian coalition government.

The Directory, having abolished the Siberian government, could now, it seemed, implement an alternative program to the Bolshevik. However, the balance between democracy and dictatorship was upset. The Samara Komuch, representing democracy, was dissolved. The Social Revolutionaries' attempt to restore the Constituent Assembly failed. On the night of November 17–18, 1918, the leaders of the Directory were arrested. The directory was replaced by the dictatorship of A.V. Kolchak. In 1918, the civil war was a war of ephemeral governments whose claims to power remained only on paper. In August 1918, when the Socialist Revolutionaries and Czechs took Kazan, the Bolsheviks were unable to recruit more than 20 thousand people into the Red Army. The people's army of the Social Revolutionaries numbered only 30 thousand. During this period, the peasants, having divided the land, ignored the political struggle that parties and governments waged among themselves. However, the establishment by the Bolsheviks of the Pobedy Committees caused the first outbreaks of resistance. From this moment on, there was a direct relationship between the Bolshevik attempts to dominate the countryside and the peasant resistance. The more diligently the Bolsheviks tried to impose “communist relations” in the countryside, the harsher the resistance of the peasants.

Whites, having in 1918 several regiments were not contenders for national power. Nevertheless, the white army of A.I. Denikin, initially numbering 10 thousand people, was able to occupy a territory with a population of 50 million people. This was facilitated by the development of peasant uprisings in areas held by the Bolsheviks. N. Makhno did not want to help the Whites, but his actions against the Bolsheviks contributed to the Whites’ breakthrough. The Don Cossacks rebelled against the communists and cleared the way for the advancing army of A. Denikin.

What positive things did the Kolchak government promise? Kolchak agreed to convene a new Constituent Assembly after order was restored. He assured Western governments that there could be “no return to the regime that existed in Russia before February 1917,” the broad masses of the population would be allocated land, and differences along religious and national lines would be eliminated. Having confirmed the complete independence of Poland and the limited independence of Finland, Kolchak agreed to “prepare decisions” on the fate of the Baltic states, Caucasian and Trans-Caspian peoples. Judging by the statements, the Kolchak government took the position of democratic construction. But in reality everything was different.

Kolchak actually rejected the demands of the delegations of Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, the North Caucasus, Belarus and Ukraine put forward at the Versailles Conference. By refusing to create an anti-Bolshevik conference in the regions liberated from the Bolsheviks, Kolchak pursued a policy doomed to failure.

Kolchak’s relations with his allies, who had their own interests in the Far East and Siberia and pursued their own policies, were complex and contradictory. This made the position of the Kolchak government very difficult. A particularly tight knot was tied in relations with Japan. Kolchak did not hide his antipathy towards Japan. The Japanese command responded with active support for the ataman system, which flourished in Siberia. Small ambitious people like Semenov and Kalmykov, with the support of the Japanese, managed to create a constant threat to the Omsk government deep in Kolchak’s rear, which weakened it. Semenov actually cut off Kolchak from the Far East and blocked the supply of weapons, ammunition, and provisions.

Kolchak resigned the title of Supreme Ruler and handed it over to General A.I. Denikin. Having not lived up to the hopes placed on him, A.V. Kolchak died courageously, like a Russian patriot. The most powerful wave of the anti-Bolshevik movement was raised in the south of the country by generals M.V. Alekseev, L.G. Kornilov, A.I. Denikin. Unlike the little-known Kolchak, they all had big names. The conditions in which they had to operate were desperately difficult. The volunteer army, which Alekseev began to form in November 1917 in Rostov, did not have its own territory. In terms of food supply and recruitment of troops, it was dependent on the Don and Kuban governments. The volunteer army had only the Stavropol province and the coast with Novorossiysk; only by the summer of 1919 did it conquer a vast area of the southern provinces for several months.

The weak point of the anti-Bolshevik movement in general and in the south especially was the personal ambitions and contradictions of the leaders M.V. Alekseev and L.G. Kornilov. After their death, all power passed to Denikin. The unity of all forces in the fight against the Bolsheviks, the unity of the country and power, the broadest autonomy of the outskirts, loyalty to agreements with allies in the war - these are the main principles of Denikin’s platform. Denikin’s entire ideological and political program was based on the idea of preserving a united and indivisible Russia. The leaders of the white movement rejected any significant concessions to supporters of national independence. All this stood in contrast to the Bolsheviks' promises of unlimited national self-determination. The reckless recognition of the right to secession gave Lenin the opportunity to curb destructive nationalism and raised his prestige much higher than that of the leaders of the white movement.

The government of General Denikin was divided into two groups - right and liberal. Right - a group of generals with A.M. Drago-mirov and A.S. Lukomsky at the head. The liberal group consisted of cadets. A.I. Denikin took the position of center. The most clearly reactionary line in the policy of the Denikin regime manifested itself on the agrarian issue. In the territory controlled by Denikin, it was planned to: create and strengthen small and medium-sized peasant farms, destroy latifundia, and leave landowners with small estates on which cultural farming could be conducted. But instead of immediately starting to transfer the landowners' land to the peasants, the commission on the agrarian question began an endless discussion of the draft law on land. As a result, a compromise law was adopted. The transfer of part of the land to the peasants was supposed to begin only after the civil war and end 7 years later. In the meantime, the order for the third sheaf was put into effect, according to which a third of the collected grain went to the landowner. Denikin's land policy was one of the main reasons for his defeat. Of the two evils - Lenin's surplus appropriation system or Denikin's requisition - the peasants preferred the lesser.

In the territories occupied by both the Bolsheviks and the Whites, the peasants fought a war with the authorities. The peasants did not want to fight either for the Bolsheviks, or for the whites, or for anyone else. Many of them fled into the forests. During this period the green movement was defensive. Since 1920, the threat from the whites has become less and less, and the Bolsheviks have been more determined to impose their power in the countryside. The peasant war against state power covered all of Ukraine, the Chernozem region, the Cossack regions of the Don and Kuban, the Volga and Ural basins and large regions of Siberia. In fact, all grain-producing regions of Russia and Ukraine were a huge Vendée (in a figurative sense - a counter-revolution. - Note edit.).

In terms of the number of people participating in the peasant war and its impact on the country, this war eclipsed the war between the Bolsheviks and the Whites and surpassed it in duration. The Green movement was the decisive third force in the civil war.

but it did not become an independent center claiming power on more than a regional scale.

Why didn’t the movement of the majority of the people prevail? The reason lies in the way of thinking of Russian peasants. The Greens protected their villages from outsiders. The peasants could not win because they never sought to take over the state. The European concepts of a democratic republic, law and order, equality and parliamentarism, which the Social Revolutionaries introduced into the peasant environment, were beyond the understanding of the peasants.

The mass of peasants participating in the war was heterogeneous. From the peasantry came both rebels, carried away by the idea of “plundering the loot,” and leaders, eager to become new “kings and masters.” Those who acted on behalf of the Bolsheviks, and those who fought under the command of A.S. Antonova, N.I. Makhno, adhered to similar standards of behavior. Those who robbed and raped as part of the Bolshevik expeditions were not much different from the rebels of Antonov and Makhno. The essence of the peasant war was liberation from all power.

The peasant movement put forward its own leaders, people from the people (suffice it to name Makhno, Antonov, Kolesnikov, Sapozhkov and Vakhulin). These leaders were guided by concepts of peasant justice and vague echoes of the platforms of political parties. However, any peasant party was associated with statehood, programs and governments, while these concepts were alien to local peasant leaders. The parties pursued a national policy, but the peasants did not rise to the level of awareness of national interests.

One of the reasons that the peasant movement did not win, despite its scope, was the political life inherent in each province, which ran counter to the rest of the country. While in one province the Greens were already defeated, in another the uprising was just beginning. None of the Green leaders took action beyond the immediate area. This spontaneity, scale and breadth contained not only the strength of the movement, but also helplessness in the face of systematic onslaught. The Bolsheviks, who had great power and a huge army, had an overwhelming military superiority over the peasant movement.

Russian peasants lacked political consciousness - they did not care what the form of government in Russia was. They did not understand the importance of parliament, freedom of the press and assembly. The fact that the Bolshevik dictatorship withstood the test of the civil war can be considered not as an expression of popular support, but as a manifestation of the still unformed national consciousness and the political backwardness of the majority. The tragedy of Russian society was the lack of interconnectedness between its various layers.

What are the causes of the Red and White Terrors? IN AND. Lenin stated that the Red Terror during the Civil War in Russia was forced and became a response to the actions of the White Guards and interventionists. According to the Russian emigration (S.P. Melgunov), for example, the Red Terror had an official theoretical justification, was systemic, governmental in nature, the White Terror was characterized “as excesses based on unbridled power and revenge.” For this reason, the Red Terror was superior to the White Terror in its scale and cruelty. At the same time, a third point of view arose, according to which any terror is inhuman and should be abandoned as a method of struggle for power. The very comparison “one terror is worse (better) than another” is incorrect. No terror has the right to exist. The call of General L.G. is very similar to each other. Kornilov to the officers (January 1918) “do not take prisoners in battles with the Reds” and the confession of the security officer M.I. Latsis that similar orders regarding whites were resorted to in the Red Army.

The quest to understand the origins of the tragedy has given rise to several research explanations. R. Conquest, for example, wrote that in 1918-1820. The terror was carried out by fanatics, idealists - “people in whom one can find some features of a kind of perverted nobility.” Among them, according to the researcher, is Lenin.

Terror during the war years was carried out not so much by fanatics as by people devoid of any nobility. Let's name just a few instructions written by V.I. Lenin. In a note to the Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic E.M. Sklyansky (August 1920) V.I. Lenin, assessing the plan born in the depths of this department, instructed: “A wonderful plan! Finish it together with Dzerzhinsky. Under the guise of “greens” (we will blame them later) we will march 10-20 miles and outweigh the kulaks, priests, and landowners. Prize: 100,000 rubles for a hanged man.”

In a secret letter to members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) dated March 19, 1922, V.I. Lenin proposed taking advantage of the famine in the Volga region and confiscating church valuables. This action, in his opinion, “must be carried out with merciless determination, certainly stopping at nothing and in the shortest possible time. The more representatives of the reactionary clergy and the reactionary bourgeoisie we manage to shoot on this occasion, the better. It is now necessary to teach this public a lesson so that for several decades they will not dare to think about any resistance.” Stalin perceived Lenin's recognition of state terror as a high-government matter, power based on force and not on law.

It is difficult to name the first acts of red and white terror. They are usually associated with the beginning of the civil war in the country. Terror was carried out by everyone: officers - participants in the ice campaign of General Kornilov; security officers who received the right of extrajudicial execution; revolutionary courts and tribunals.

It is characteristic that the Cheka’s right to extrajudicial killings, composed by L.D. Trotsky, signed by V.I. Lenin; the tribunals were given unlimited rights by the People's Commissar of Justice; The resolution on the Red Terror was endorsed by the People's Commissars of Justice, Internal Affairs and the head of the Council of People's Commissars (D. Kursky, G. Petrovsky, V. Bonch-Bruevich). The leadership of the Soviet Republic officially recognized the creation of a non-legal state, where arbitrariness became the norm and terror was the most important tool for maintaining power. Lawlessness was beneficial to the warring parties, as it allowed any actions by reference to the enemy.

The commanders of all the armies appear to have never been subject to any control. We are talking about the general savagery of society. The reality of the civil war shows that the differences between good and evil have faded. Human life has become devalued. The refusal to see the enemy as a human being encouraged violence on an unprecedented scale. Settling scores with real and imagined enemies has become the essence of politics. The civil war meant the extreme bitterness of society and especially its new ruling class.

Litvin A.L. Red and white terror in Russia 1917-1922//national history. 1993. No. 6. P. 47-48. Right there. pp. 47-48.

Murder of M.S. Uritsky and the assassination attempt on Lenin on August 30, 1918 provoked an unusually brutal response. In retaliation for the murder of Uritsky, up to 900 innocent hostages were shot in Petrograd.

A significantly larger number of victims is associated with the assassination attempt on Lenin. In the first days of September 1918, 6,185 people were shot, 14,829 were sent to prison, 6,407 were sent to concentration camps, and 4,068 people became hostages. Thus, attempts on the lives of Bolshevik leaders contributed to the rampant mass terror in the country.

At the same time as the Reds, white terror was rampant in the country. And if the Red Terror is considered to be the implementation of state policy, then it should probably be taken into account that whites in 1918-1919. also occupied vast territories and declared themselves as sovereign governments and state entities. The forms and methods of terror were different. But they were also used by adherents of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch in Samara, the Provisional Regional Government in the Urals), and especially by the white movement.

The coming to power of the founders in the Volga region in the summer of 1918 was characterized by reprisals against many Soviet workers. Some of the first departments created by Komuch were state security, military courts, trains and “death barges”. On September 3, 1918, they brutally suppressed the workers' uprising in Kazan.

The political regimes established in Russia in 1918 are quite comparable, first of all, in their predominantly violent methods of resolving issues of organizing power. In November 1918 A.V. Kolchak, who came to power in Siberia, began with the expulsion and murder of the Socialist Revolutionaries. It is hardly possible to talk about support for his policies in Siberia and the Urals, if out of approximately 400 thousand Red partisans of that time, 150 thousand acted against him. The government of A.I. was no exception. Denikin. In the territory captured by the general, the police were called state guards. By September 1919, its number reached almost 78 thousand people. Osvag's reports informed Denikin about robberies and looting; it was under his command that 226 Jewish pogroms took place, as a result of which several thousand people died. The White Terror turned out to be as senseless in achieving its goal as any other. Soviet historians have calculated that in 1917-1922. 15-16 million Russians died, of which 1.3 million became victims of terror, banditry, and pogroms. The civil, fratricidal war with millions of casualties turned into a national tragedy. Red and white terror became the most barbaric method of struggle for power. Its results for the progress of the country are truly disastrous.

20.3. Reasons for the defeat of the white movement. Results of the civil war

Let us highlight the most important reasons for the defeat of the white movement. Relying on Western military assistance was one of the whites' miscalculations. The Bolsheviks used foreign intervention to present the struggle of Soviet power as patriotic. The Allies' policy was self-serving: they needed an anti-German Russia.

The white national policy is marked by deep contradictions. Thus, Yudenich’s non-recognition of the already independent Finland and Estonia may have been the main reason for the Whites’ failure on the Western Front. Denikin’s non-recognition of Poland made it a permanent enemy of the whites. All this stood in contrast to the Bolsheviks' promises of unlimited national self-determination.

In terms of military training, combat experience and technical knowledge, the whites had every advantage. But time was working against them. The situation was changing: in order to replenish the dwindling ranks, the whites also had to resort to mobilization.

The white movement did not have widespread social support. The White army was not supplied with everything it needed, so it was forced to take carts, horses, and supplies from the population. Local residents were drafted into the army. All this turned the population against whites. During the war, mass repression and terror were closely intertwined with the dreams of millions of people who believed in new revolutionary ideals, while tens of millions lived nearby, preoccupied with purely everyday problems. The vacillations of the peasantry played a decisive role in the dynamics of the civil war, as did various national movements. During the civil war, some ethnic groups restored their previously lost statehood (Poland, Lithuania), and Finland, Estonia and Latvia acquired it for the first time.

For Russia, the consequences of the civil war were catastrophic: a huge social upheaval, the disappearance of entire classes; huge demographic losses; severance of economic ties and colossal economic devastation;

the conditions and experience of the civil war had a decisive influence on the political culture of Bolshevism: the curtailment of intra-party democracy, the perception by the broad party masses of an orientation towards methods of coercion and violence in achieving political goals - the Bolsheviks were looking for support in the lumpen sections of the population. All this paved the way for the strengthening of repressive elements in government policy. The Civil War is the greatest tragedy in Russian history.

Russian Civil War(1917-1922/1923) - a series of armed conflicts between various political, ethnic, social groups and state entities on the territory of the former Russian Empire, which followed the transfer of power to the Bolsheviks as a result of the October Revolution of 1917.

The Civil War was the result of the revolutionary crisis that struck Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, which began with the revolution of 1905-1907, aggravated during the World War and led to the fall of the monarchy, economic ruin, and a deep social, national, political and ideological split in Russian society. The apogee of this split was a fierce war throughout the country between the armed forces of the Soviet government and the anti-Bolshevik authorities.

White movement- a military-political movement of politically heterogeneous forces formed during the Civil War of 1917-1923 in Russia with the goal of overthrowing Soviet power. It included representatives of both moderate socialists and republicans, as well as monarchists, united against the Bolshevik ideology and acting on the basis of the principle of “Great, United and Indivisible Russia” (ideological movement of whites). The White movement was the largest anti-Bolshevik military-political force during the Russian Civil War and existed alongside other democratic anti-Bolshevik governments, nationalist separatist movements in Ukraine, the North Caucasus, Crimea, and the Basmachi movement in Central Asia.

A number of features distinguish the White movement from the rest of the anti-Bolshevik forces of the Civil War:

The White movement was an organized military-political movement against Soviet power and its allied political structures; its intransigence towards Soviet power excluded any peaceful, compromise outcome of the Civil War.

The White movement was distinguished by its priority in wartime of individual power over collegial power, and military power over civilian power. White governments were characterized by the absence of a clear separation of powers; representative bodies either did not play any role or had only advisory functions.

The White movement tried to legalize itself on a national scale, proclaiming its continuity from pre-February and pre-October Russia.

Recognition by all regional white governments of the all-Russian power of Admiral A.V. Kolchak led to the desire to achieve commonality of political programs and coordination of military actions. The solution to agrarian, labor, national and other basic issues was fundamentally similar.

The white movement had common symbols: a tricolor white-blue-red flag, the official anthem “How Glorious is Our Lord in Zion.”

Publicists and historians who sympathize with whites cite the following reasons for the defeat of the white cause:

The Reds controlled the densely populated central regions. There were more people in these territories than in the white-controlled territories.

Regions that began to support whites (for example, Don and Kuban), as a rule, suffered more than others from the Red Terror.

The inexperience of white leaders in politics and diplomacy.

Conflicts between whites and national separatist governments over the slogan “One and Indivisible.” Therefore, whites repeatedly had to fight on two fronts.

Workers' and Peasants' Red Army- the official name of the types of armed forces: ground forces and air fleet, which, together with the Red Army MS, the NKVD troops of the USSR (Border Troops, Internal Security Troops of the Republic and State Convoy Guards) constituted the Armed Forces of the RSFSR/USSR from February 15 (23), 1918 years to February 25, 1946.

The day of the creation of the Red Army is considered to be February 23, 1918 (see Defender of the Fatherland Day). It was on this day that mass enrollment of volunteers began in the Red Army detachments, created in accordance with the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR “On the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army,” signed on January 15 (28).

L. D. Trotsky actively participated in the creation of the Red Army.

The supreme governing body of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army was the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR (since the formation of the USSR - the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR). The leadership and management of the army was concentrated in the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs, in the special All-Russian Collegium created under it, since 1923, the Labor and Defense Council of the USSR, and since 1937, the Defense Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. In 1919-1934, direct leadership of the troops was carried out by the Revolutionary Military Council. In 1934, to replace it, the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR was formed.

Detachments and squads of the Red Guard - armed detachments and squads of sailors, soldiers and workers, in Russia in 1917 - supporters (not necessarily members) of left parties - Social Democrats (Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and “Mezhraiontsev”), Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists, as well as detachments Red partisans became the basis of the Red Army units.

Initially, the main unit of formation of the Red Army, on a voluntary basis, was a separate detachment, which was a military unit with an independent economy. The detachment was headed by a Council consisting of a military leader and two military commissars. He had a small headquarters and an inspectorate.

With the accumulation of experience and after attracting military experts to the ranks of the Red Army, the formation of full-fledged units, units, formations (brigade, division, corps), institutions and establishments began.

The organization of the Red Army was in accordance with its class character and military requirements of the early 20th century. The combined arms formations of the Red Army were structured as follows:

The rifle corps consisted of two to four divisions;

The division consists of three rifle regiments, an artillery regiment (artillery regiment) and technical units;

The regiment consists of three battalions, an artillery division and technical units;

Cavalry Corps - two cavalry divisions;

Cavalry division - four to six regiments, artillery, armored units (armored units), technical units.

The technical equipment of the military formations of the Red Army with fire weapons) and military equipment was mainly at the level of modern advanced armed forces of that time

The USSR Law “On Compulsory Military Service”, adopted on September 18, 1925 by the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, determined the organizational structure of the Armed Forces, which included rifle troops, cavalry, artillery, armored forces, engineering troops, signal troops, air and naval forces, troops United State Political Administration and Convoy Guard of the USSR. Their number in 1927 was 586,000 personnel.

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The Reds' biggest wins:

20. Civil war in Russia

20.1. Causes and beginning of the civil war in Russia

20.2. White and red movement. Red and white terror

20.3. Reasons for the defeat of the white movement. Results of the civil war

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