War and Revolution in Russia 1914 - 1921 - waughfamily.ca

More documents

Recommendations

Info

BBC - History - World Wars: War and Revolution in Russia 1914 - 1921http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/eastern_front_01.shtml4 of 6 2/7/2012 12:02 PMcontinued to obey their officers), the Bolsheviks were forced to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918.This punitive treaty effectively handed over Finland, Poland, the Baltic provinces, Ukraine and Transcaucasia to theCentral Powers, together with one-third of the old empire's population, one-third of its agricultural land and threequartersof its industries.Outraged by this, the anti-Bolshevik Russians who had remained loyal to the Allies now took up arms in earnest againstthe Bolsheviks. They were actively assisted by Allied forces in Russia, who hoped to rebuild the Eastern Front. Notablein this regard was the Czechoslovak Legion, a 40,000-strong army made up of former POWs, who in 1918 seized theentire Trans-Siberian Railway, from the Volga to Vladivostok.Civil War: Whites v RedsDuring the civil war thus unleashedby the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk theBolsheviks (Reds), who controlledPetrograd, Moscow and the centralRussian heartland, soon foundthemselves surrounded by hostileforces (Whites) - made up of themore conservative elements inRussia - who launched a series ofcampaigns in 1919 that threatenedto crush the revolution.Leon Trotsky saluting in the street, October, 1917 ©During these campaigns Admiral Kolchak, the 'Supreme Ruler' of the Whites, attacked across the Urals from Siberia;General Denikin advanced on a broad front up the Volga, into Ukraine and to the town of Orel (within 250 miles ofMoscow); and General Iudenich's North West Russian Army, based in Estonia, twice reached the outskirts of Petrograd.they managed to arm, man and manoeuvre an army that by 1921 had grown to almost five millionsoldiersThe Reds, however, rebuffed these attacks, and survived, and by late 1920 had driven the Whites back into the BlackSea, the Baltic and the Pacific - causing hundreds of thousands of White soldiers and civilians to emigrate.The Reds were able to take advantage of internal lines of communication and could utilise the railways, arsenals andthe economy of the most populous provinces of the former empire. In this way they managed to arm, man andmanoeuvre an army that by 1921 had grown to almost five million soldiers.The Whites, in contrast, never commanded forces totalling more than 250,000 men at one time, were separated fromeach other by huge distances, and were based around the less developed peripheries of Russia. Also, crucially, theWhites underestimated the Bolsheviks' capacity to resist.The White armies, in contrast, exhibited only brutality, venality, disorder...It still seems surprising that Trotsky was able to fashion a Red Army more effective than that of the experienced Whitegenerals ranged against him. He, however, enjoyed the material advantages mentioned, and he also introduced somerevolutionary innovations: notably the network of Political Commissars - devout Bolsheviks who offered politicalguidance to the Red Army and who watched over the loyalty of the 50,000 imperial army officers the Reds employed tohelp command their forces. He also used terror most ruthlessly.The White armies, in contrast, exhibited only brutality, venality, disorder and a lack of political and military direction.Even their most effective fighters, the Cossacks, were more interested in booty and in securing their own regionalautonomy than in driving Lenin from the Kremlin.Allied intervention
BBC - History - World Wars: War and Revolution in Russia 1914 - 1921http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/eastern_front_01.shtml5 of 6 2/7/2012 12:02 PMDespite their strength in Russia itself, the Reds were internationally isolated, but neither did the Whites enjoy unlimitedAllied support. The liberal British leader Lloyd George, the socialist French prime minister Clemenceau and theAmerican Democratic president Woodrow Wilson were no friends of Lenin - but neither were they particularlyenamoured of the White generals, whom they suspected of reactionary aims.Liberty, Equality and Fraternity: a banner of the Russian Revolution, 1917 ©In fact, although anti-Bolshevik sentiments were not altogether absent from Allied leaders' minds when they made thedecision to intervene in Russia in 1918, their main interest was in the Great War, not the Russian civil war, and theirdesire was to try and reconstitute the Eastern Front, to ease the pressure on the Western Front. That motivationdisappeared on 11 November 1918.after the armistice, most Allied efforts were directed towards finding an honourable way out of Russia.Moreover, none of the western powers had any great interest in helping to build a united Russia - they preferred tokeep that huge country weak - and in any case, they had enough on their plates in 1919. With domestic war weariness,the Paris Peace Conference, the division of the German and Ottoman Empires, and the economic crises of centralEurope to contend with, they had no wish to sink further into the Russian quagmire. The only power with the capacityto intervene effectively in Russia was Japan, but with memories of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 still fresh, herintervention was unlikely to be welcomed by the Russians.Consequently, although the matériel the Allies sent to Russia was crucial in allowing the Whites to mount thecampaigns they did in 1919 (the British alone sent one hundred million pounds-worth of equipment to Kolchak andDenikin), only a few thousand British, French and American troops ever set foot in Russia, and few of them saw action.And after the armistice, most Allied efforts were directed towards finding an honourable way out of Russia, rather thana means of more forcefully intervening.It was this victory that helped forge post-tsarist Russia's self-imageNevertheless, the Red Army's victory over what became characterised under Stalin as 'The Three Campaigns of theEntente' (a loaded reference to the efforts of Kolchak, Denikin and Iudenich, who were portrayed as being 'puppets' ofwestern capitalism), in a civil war that cost perhaps ten million lives, assumed a hallowed place in Soviet and Russianhistory.It was this victory that helped forge post-tsarist Russia's self-image as a strong country that had stood up to thebullying of the west, and that lay at the root of the Cold War. Even Gorbachev, often seen as a friend of the west, wasprone to mentioning it; and it cannot be far from President Putin's mind as events unfold in the Middle East.Find out moreBooksAllied Intervention in Russia, 1917 - 1920 by JFN Bradley (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968; University Press of America,1984)
Page 2 and 3: BBC - History - World Wars: War and
Page 6: BBC - History - World Wars: War and

War and Revolution in Russia 1914 - 1921 - waughfamily.ca

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?