Russian Civil War

Anyone who has endured the endless (zzz) epic, “Dr. Zhivago”, should have some idea of what this was.  Not to be confused with the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), US Civil War (1861-65), or English Civil War (1641-51).  This occurred immediately after World War I (1917), which the Soviets refer to as “The Imperialist War”, as opposed to WWII which they call “The Great Patriotic War”. 

 November 1917.  The Bolsheviks (aka “Bolo” or “Reds”) had just taken power in Petrograd (St. Petersburg).  Antonov-Ovseenko simply walked into the HQ room at the Winter Palace and took over: total casualties, 6.  World War I was still going on, and Germans were still in Poland and the Ukraine.  In January 1918, Trotsky negotiated the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which took the Russians out of WWI.  Not everyone – in Russia or abroad - was thrilled with the Bolsheviks, so simply having taken Petrograd and Moscow did not settle the matter.  A civil war broke out that lasted the next two years – with more fighting at the periphery continuing well into the 30s.

 Red Army.  The Red Army of Peasants and Workers was formed by Trotsky from the Red Guards, mostly workers from Petrograd and Moscow.  For most, if not all, of the war, the Reds had the advantage in numbers.  Their top, elite unit was the Latvian Rifle Division – crucial in the first year of the war.  Moreover, none of the White attacks on Petrograd (Udenich) or Moscow were successful, so the Reds managed to hold on to these centers of population and industry, fighting in the Ukraine, north up near Estonia, east over by the Urals, and south near Tsaritsyn (better known as Stalingrad, now known as Volgograd), eventually defeating each enemy in turn. 

            The defining characteristic of the Red uniform was the budenovka, the pointy hat with earflaps, usually with a cloth red star on the front (see Stalin, above left).  The gymnasterka, peasant blouse, was worn by both sides.  The top Red leaders were Trotsky – who was a genius at military organization despite no military experience, Frunze (who they named their military academy after), Budenny (cavalry commander, source of the name “budenovka”), Voroshilov, Tukachevsky, and Chapeav.

  Before the hammer & sickle, there was the hammer & plough - considerably more complicated and equally less aesthetically pleasing.  The sickle replaced the plough around 1922.

 Cheka. In addition to the Red Army itself, the Reds used Cheka, the first form of its secret police, although at this point it was very much in the open.  Its agents wore leather jackets, a mark of distinction and authority which continued with its successor, the NKVD.  Cheka hired criminals, murderers, all sorts of violent scum - with colorful names and personalities: “Johnson”, Maslova, “The Remover" - and set up prisons and camps.  It engaged in torture, murder, scalping, impaling, all sorts of nasty atrocities that horrified even the Reds themselves.  The terror had already begun. 

 War Communism.  In a related vein, the Reds took over any and all businesses within their sphere of influence, killing any managers or owners who were late in escaping abroad.  Industrial productivity, as can be imagined, fell to a fraction of pre-war capacity.  They also requisitioned all surplus grain of the peasants AND forcibly conscripted them into the Red Army.  Needless to say, these policies were not popular.  Peasant revolts (e.g. the Antonov uprising) were a constant issue for the Reds well into the 20s.  Actual famines certainly didn’t help any. 

            Soon after the war, when the situation cooled down somewhat, Lenin instituted a crash course in capitalism, the New Economic Policy (NEP), recognizing that the proletarian revolution had occurred in a country – Russia – which had barely emerged from feudalism (serfs only emancipated in 1863) and had not developed full and true capitalism.  The prevailing wisdom among the socialists at the turn of the century was that the US and Western Europe were the countries ripe for socialist revolution, not backwards countries like Russia.  In Spain during the Spanish Civil War, it was the “communist” party line that Spain had to go through capitalism before arriving at socialism, so the idea was to back up and support a bourgeois capitalist regime and oppose not only the reactionary Fascists but also the anarchists who wanted “true communism” too soon.  In Russia, “war communism” became the name for the horrendously unpopular and draconian policies undertaken during the civil war, justified as being wartime expedients – even though many of these policies would be reinstated after the NEP was over, with no civil war to justify them at that time. 

 White Army.   These were mainly anti-Bolshevik, but they could not agree on what they wanted to replace the Reds with – especially since the Romanovs were murdered in July 1918 in Sverdlovsk.  They typically wore Russian WWI uniforms and carried icons into battle.  Some units were composed entirely of officers.  Kappel’s unit (part of Kolchak’s forces) had the impressive skull and crossbones and black uniforms.

            The top White leaders: Kornilov – his Shock Division was one of the best units in the White Army, and came closest to taking Moscow, he looked like Tim Allen with a mustache; Alexeyev: charismatic and popular general; Denikin: a very charismatic and popular General who won medals in the Russo-Japanese War and WWI; Kolchak:  An admiral, he set up a republic in the east, supported by the British and based at Omsk, but never succeeded at hooking up with any forces to the west – Graves had lots of nasty things to say about Semonov and Kalmikov, Kolchak’s ruthless local commanders in Siberia; Wrangel: he took over from Denikin, and was the last white commander – his forces tried to evacuate at the Black Sea in late 1920; Yudenich: he fought up north, an unsuccessful attempt to capture Petrograd; as well as Kutepov and Markov.

 Black Army.  Entire anarchist (!) armies raised by Nestor Makhno (above right).  They wore long hair and carried lots of guns.  The anarchists had a bad habit of attacking everyone.  After being used by the Reds to beat the Whites, they were wiped out in turn by the Reds.

 Ukrainians.  They wanted their independence from Russia, but the various factions fought the Reds, Whites, and each other and were defeated in turn.  The Ukraine was one of the most contested areas of the war: Kiev changed hands 19 times.

 Cossacks.  These are the famous cavalry of Russia.  There were various different “tribes”, some of whom joined the Whites, others joined the Reds.  As cavalry played a major role in the war, the Cossacks were in big demand by both sides.  There were even horse-drawn machine gun carts.

 Germans.  After Brest-Litovsk in January 1918, the Germans were able to pull out substantial forces from the East and transfer them to the West, in an attempt to defeat the Allies before US troops could arrive.  Germans didn’t play an active role in the war as a military force, although they did supply some factions with weapons, uniforms and helmets.  Some individual Germans of pro-Marxist persuasion did join the Red Army.  On November 11, 1918, the Germans called it quits, so their forces withdrew, ending whatever role or involvement they had.

 Austrians & Hungarians.  In the course of WWI, the Russians captured Austrians and Hungarians (whose armies rivalled the Russians’ for incompetence).  Many of these POWs had Marxist persuasion and joined the Red Army.  There were some Hungarian units, and an Austrian cavalry squadron.

 Czechs.  They had a whole legion stranded in Russia.  They wound up in Siberia (see my blog “Doughboys in Russia”).  They were mildly anti-Bolshevik but, like many other factions in the war, looking out for their own best interests.  Their uniforms were pretty much Russian Tsarist WWI with some minor Czech insignia.

 Polish.  Taking advantage of the chaos in Russia, the Poles invaded, arriving at Kiev.  The Reds threw them back into Poland, besieging Warsaw.  The Poles broke the siege, threw the Reds back into the Ukraine, and both sides called it even.  This  allowed the Poles to finally keep their country (at least until 1939…).

 Green Armies.  Not environmental, but rather bandit armies with no loyalties or allegiances, either mobs of demobilized soldiers, nationalists, or Social Revolutionaries – pretty much a catch-all to cover any forces which can’t be labeled Red, White, Black, Ukrainian, etc.    

Peasant Armies.  Lenin had no use for workers or peasants in his government.  Moreover, not all the peasants were poor, or particularly disposed to favor the Bolsheviks (see “war communism” above).  In 1920-21, an entire army – with units, ranks, hierarchy – was raised by Antonov, and opposed by the Reds’ best generals…and defeated.

Allied Intervention.  I already mentioned the US forces sent to Siberia and North Russia.  The French sent troops to Odessa, and the British came in at Baku – their main angle was protecting their oil interests in that sector.  The Brits sent lots of supplies to the Whites and equipped a fair amount of white armies.  They also sent numbers of Mark IV and V tanks.  They set up a training area in Novorossisk – tanks, planes, etc.  The major problem the British and French had was that they had just finished WWI and no one really wanted to pour substantial forces into a brand new war. 

Tanks, Armored Cars, and Trains.  Tanks didn’t have much of a role.  The British provided some Mark IV and V tanks, some of which fought up on the Petrograd front.  Armored cars (equipped with machine guns) and armored trains, with machine guns and artillery, played a much more substantial role in the war.

The major years were 1918, 1919, and 1920.  By November 1920, Wrangel was evacuating the Crimea, ending the last major White operations.   The Antonov (peasant) rebellion was crushed in 1921.  Further east, various isolated groups held out, each to be dealt with in turn.  By 1922 the Reds had conquered the East, and the whole situation stabilized sufficiently that the country could be formed: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).