31. Civil war and military intervention in Russia (1918-1920)
A civil war is an armed struggle for power between citizens of one country, between different social groups, political currents. Civil war in Russia (1918-1920), and on the outskirts the war continued until 1922. Its consequences, material damage, human losses were terrible. Two points of view on the beginning and periodization civil war in Russia: 1) Western historians believe that the civil war in Russia began in October 1917, immediately after the October Revolution. 2) Soviet historians (most) believe that the civil war began in the spring and summer of 1918. And before that, military operations on the territory of Russia proper (without national regions) were mainly local in nature: in the Petrograd region - General Krasnov, in the Southern Urals - General Dutov, on the Don - General Kaledin, etc. Against Soviet power in the first months of its existence only 3% of the entire officer corps spoke, while the rest were waiting for the elections and their results to the Constituent Assembly. The war begins to unfold after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly. Causes of the civil war in Russia:
Internal policy of the Bolshevik leadership. Nationalization of all land; nationalization of industry. Dispersal of the Constituent Assembly. All this set the democratic intelligentsia, the Cossacks, the kulaks and the middle peasants against the Bolshevik government. The creation of a one-party political system and the "dictatorship of the proletariat" set the parties against the Bolsheviks: the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks, and others. The desire of the overthrown classes to return the lands, factories and plants. maintain their privileged position. Thus, the landlords and the bourgeoisie are against the Bolshevik government. Confrontation in the countryside between the wealthy and the poor.
Main opposing forces:
The supporters of the Soviet power are the workers, in many respects the poorest and partly the middle peasantry. Them main force- Red Army and Navy. Anti-Soviet White movement, overthrown landlords and bourgeoisie, part of the officers and soldiers tsarist army- Opponents of Soviet power. Their powers are white army, based on the material, military-technical support of the capitalist countries. The composition of the red and white armies was not so different from each other. The backbone of the command staff of the Red Army was the former officer corps, and the overwhelming majority of the White armies consisted of peasants, Cossacks, and workers. Personal position did not always coincide with social origin (it is no coincidence that members of many families turned out to be different sides wars). What mattered was the position of the authorities in relation to the person, his family; on whose side they fought or from whose hand they suffered, his relatives and friends died. Thus, for the majority of the population, the civil war was a bloody meat grinder, into which people were drawn, most often, without their desire, and even despite their resistance.
The civil war in Russia was accompanied by foreign military intervention. In international law under intervention refers to the forcible intervention of one or more states in the internal affairs of another state or in its relations with third states. Intervention can be military, economic, diplomatic, ideological. Military intervention in Russia began in March 1918 and ended in October 1922. Target interventions: "Destruction of Bolshevism", support for anti-Soviet forces. It was assumed that Russia would break up into three or four weak states: Siberia, the Caucasus, Ukraine, Far East. The beginning of the intervention was the occupation of Russia by German troops, who captured Ukraine, Crimea and part of the North Caucasus. Romania began to lay claim to Bessarabia. The Entente countries signed an agreement on the non-recognition of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the future division of Russia into spheres of influence. In March 1918 British, American, Canadian, Serbian and Italian troops landed in Murmansk and then in Arkhangelsk. In April, Vladivostok was occupied by Japanese troops. Then detachments of the British, French and Americans appeared in the Far East.
In May 1918, the soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps rebelled, sent by the Soviet government along the Trans-Siberian Railway to the Far East. The uprising led to the overthrow of Soviet power in the Volga region and Siberia. White Czechs occupied a vast territory from Samara to Chita. Here, in June 1918, the Committee of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) was created. He declared himself the only legitimate authority in the country. By August 1918, the entire territory of modern Tatarstan was also occupied by the troops of the White Czechs and the White Guards. The interventionists were concentrated mainly in ports, far from the centers where the fate of the country was decided, they did not take part in active hostilities on the territory of Russia. The Red Army did not conduct combat operations against the interventionists. The interventionists supported the anti-Soviet forces, rather, by the fact of their presence. However, in the areas of deployment, the interventionists brutally suppressed the partisan movement, exterminated the Bolsheviks. Foreign powers provided the main assistance to the anti-Soviet forces with weapons, finances, and material support. England, for example, fully provided with uniforms (from shoes to hats) and armed the army of A. Kolchak - 200 thousand people. By March 1919, Kolchak received 394 thousand rifles and 15.6 million rounds of ammunition from the USA. A. Denikin from Romania received 300 thousand rifles. Foreign states supplied the anti-Soviet forces with airplanes, armored cars, tanks, and cars. The ships carried rails, steel, tools, and sanitary equipment. Thus, the material basis of the anti-Soviet forces was largely created with the help of foreign states. The civil war was accompanied by active political and military intervention of foreign states. There are 4 stages of the civil war: Stage 1 (summer-autumn 1918). At this stage, the fight against the Bolsheviks was carried out primarily by the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, who did not formally declare war on the Bolsheviks, but supported the Socialist-Revolutionaries locally.
In July 1918, there were uprisings of the Social Revolutionaries: (left) - in Moscow, (right) - in Yaroslavl, Murom, Rybinsk. The main centers of this movement were: in the Volga region - Samara, in Western Siberia– Tomsk and Novonikolaevsk. The Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom, headed by Savinkov, actively participated in this movement. The decision of the Central Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party opened terror against the Bolshevik leaders. In August 1918, Uritsky, the chairman of the Cheka, was killed, and Lenin was seriously wounded. In response to this, the Council of People's Commissars, by a Decree of September 5, 1918, officially legalized the Red Terror. In the same period there was a rebellion of the Czechoslovak corps (since May 1918). By August 1918, the entire territory of modern Tatarstan was occupied by the troops of the White Czechs and the White Guards. The attack on Moscow through Kazan began. Through Kazan, it was possible to control the railway lines to Siberia and the center of Russia. The city was also a major river port. From here it was possible to get the way to the Izhevsk military factories. But the main reason for the attack on Kazan was that the bank of Kazan contained almost half of the gold reserves of the empire. In August 1918, Kazan became the most important frontier, where the fate of Soviet Russia was decided. The eastern front became the main one. The best regiments and commanders were sent here. September 10, 1918 Kazan was liberated. Stage 2 (late 1918 - early 1919). The end of World War I and the end of the German intervention, the landing of the Entente troops in the ports of Russia. Foreign powers wanted to protect their interests in Russia and prevent the revolutionary fire from spreading to their territories. They attacked from the north and east of the country, but main blow applied in the southern regions. Were captured: Novorossiysk, Sevastopol, Odessa, Kherson, Nikolaev. In the same period, Kolchak's dictatorship was established in Omsk. Kolchak represented the main danger. Stage 3 (spring 1919 - spring 1920). Departure of the interventionists, the victory of the Red Army over the armies of Kolchak in the East, Denikin in the South, Yudenich in the North-West. Stage 4 (spring-autumn 1920). Soviet-Polish war, the defeat of Wrangel's troops in the Crimea. AT 1921-1922 liquidation of local centers of civil war, Makhno's detachments, White Cossack uprisings in the Kuban, the liberation of the Far East from the Japanese, the fight against Basmachism in Central Asia.
The result of the war: the victory of the Soviet power.
The "White Movement" was defeated for the following reasons:
There was no unity in the white movement, personal ambitions were divided and there were disagreements with the interventionists who wanted to increase their territories at the expense of Russia, and the White Guards advocated a united and indivisible Russia. The White forces were significantly inferior to the Red Army. white movement social and economic policy was not defined. Unpopular was the program of the whites with their desire to restore the old order, landlordism. The "whites" were against the right of peoples to self-determination. The arbitrariness of the whites, the punitive policy and the return of the old order, the pogroms of the Jews deprived the "white movement" of social support. The victory in the war of the "Reds" was ensured by a number of factors: On the side of the Bolsheviks there was an important advantage - the central position of Russia. This allowed them not only to have a powerful economic potential (basic human resources and the vast majority of the metalworking industry), which the whites did not have, but also to quickly maneuver forces. Successes in the organization of the rear. A special role was played by the system of "war communism", which turned the country into a single military camp. A system of emergency organs of supply, control, struggle against counter-revolution, and so on, was created. In the republic and the party there were generally recognized leaders in the person of V.I. Lenin and L.D. Trotsky, a close-knit Bolshevik elite, which provided military-political leadership of the regions and armies. With the broad participation of old military specialists, a five millionth regular army(on the basis of universal military service). Consequences of the civil war. The civil war was a terrible disaster for Russia. It led to further deterioration economic situation in the country, to complete economic ruin. Material damage amounted to more than 50 billion rubles. gold. There was a reduction in industrial production and a stop to the transport system. 15 million people died, another 2 million emigrated from Russia. Among them were many representatives of the intellectual elite - the pride of the nation. The political opposition was destroyed. The dictatorship of Bolshevism was established.
I would like to talk, first of all, about the allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. Usually, in all textbooks, intervention appears after the Civil War, that is, in the terminology itself - the Civil War in Russia and further allied intervention, and in scientific works such formulations are found, as if the Civil War had begun and Allied interventionists intervened in this Civil War. Now I want to shift the emphasis a little and show that in fact both the intervention and the Civil War, they were to a large extent a continuation, the tail of the First World War.
The intervention was largely last step World War I, which spilled a little into the territory of Russia and lasted here longer than usual. In fact, if we look at how the allied intervention was planned in the first place, why am I paying attention to the allied intervention, because with the German intervention in the Civil War, the seizure of territories western outskirts For Russia, things were even easier here - german armies attacked the First world war and simply continued their offensive in the future. And many allied troops appeared in Russia after the conclusion of the Brest Peace, so it could look like a real invasion, intervention in the Russian Civil War.
If we look in more detail, we will see that some of the allied armies that participated in the Civil War ended up in Russia long before the revolution. In particular, this applies to the so-called Czechoslovak Corps, whose uprising marked the beginning of large-scale hostilities in the Volga region and Siberia. As we know, the Czechoslovak corps began to form as early as during the First World War from Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war, Slavs, Czechs and Slovaks, who, it was believed, would rather help their fellow Slavs and fight on the side of Russia than support their oppressors, the Austro-Hungarians. Hungarians.
After Soviet Russia concluded Brest Peace with Germany, there was an attempt to withdraw them in some way, because the Czechoslovaks were still determined to fight for the independence of Czechoslovakia on the side of the allies, if Russia was no longer part of the Entente, but was an ally of Germany, having concluded the Brest Peace, then the Czechoslovak Corps had to withdraw somehow either through the northern ports, this option was considered, or through the eastern ports, through Vladivostok, and conflicts and skirmishes during this evacuation served as an impetus for the performance of the Czechoslovaks.
Other units, such as, for example, the allied units that landed in the north of Russia in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, they appeared there from the outside, that is, they were brought on ships, but it was just like a continuation of the First World War in some respects. The landing plan was developed at Versailles by the Entente headquarters. The Entente strategists assumed that the Bolsheviks were largely proteges of the Germans, so if Germany was to be defeated, part of that victory would be to rebuild the Eastern Front against the Germans and the Bolsheviks. The restoration of the Eastern Front was possible with the support of patriotic Russian forces. And we see that after the revolution of 1717, after the Bolsheviks came to power, the allied diplomatic missions intensified their attempts to find these patriotic forces, wherever they were. These were various underground anti-Bolshevik organizations, but there were also negotiations with the Bolsheviks in an attempt to persuade them to break off relations with the Germans and restore the Eastern Front.
Unfortunately for the organizers of this event, they faced more stubborn resistance. The first flight of the Bolshevik detachments from the north turned into attempts to resist in separate areas, and then the civil war broke out in full. Many observers of this from the Allied detachments believed that German instructors were directing the fire, that is, if the Bolsheviks begin to shoot better, this means that experienced Germans have appeared. If we look at the recollections of British, American soldiers, we will see that this idea is very long, that although they are in Russia, they still fight against the Germans, and yet the First World War continues here in such exotic conditions, continued , on at least until the conclusion of the Compiègne truce, until the end of the First World War on the Western Front.
When the war on the Western Front ended, everyone assumed that they would now be taken back to their countries and the Civil War in Russia would somehow end. However, the problem was that it was no longer possible to carry out an active evacuation in November-December of the 18th year from the north, the White Sea froze. The second problem was that the allied powers did not yet know what to do with these units. If they sent them to help the patriotic white forces, then they could simply turn around and leave, saying that's it, we don't need you, we are withdrawing our troops. Therefore, in the following months we see such diplomatic hesitation, attempts to somehow get out of this uncomfortable situation without losing face. There were proposals, attempts, rather futile, to organize a conference on the Princes' Islands and put all the Bolsheviks and their opponents together at the same negotiating table.
All the anti-Bolshevik governments unanimously refused and said that there could be no negotiations with the Bolsheviks. The situation was complicated by the fact that the allied detachments that were on the territory of Russia, after November 18, after the evacuation that they expected did not come, began to demonstrate all more signs discontent, that is, they refused to go out to combat missions, wrote letters to the authorities, organized speeches, strikes, cases of disobedience. Therefore, by the spring of 1919, we see that gradually the allied detachments begin to withdraw from hostilities.
Despite the fact that officially the intervention continued until the autumn of 1919, combat value Allied troops were reduced to nothing in the spring of the 19th.
That is, if we are talking about a period of active intervention, this is from the summer of 1818 to the autumn of 1818, after that there was some calm, after that there were cases of disobedience.
That is, if we return as a whole to the question of the Civil War and allied intervention, we see that at the first stages they overlap very much. In the subsequent years, already in the 19th year, the allied intervention gradually begins to fade away until the evacuation of the allied forces in the summer and autumn of the 19th year. Part of the problem of intervention, of course, was connected with this self-perception of the anti-Bolshevik forces and white governments. If until the moment when the First World War continued, they felt themselves really fighting shoulder to shoulder with the allies, then after the end of the First World War we see that among the white command, among the population, the question arises - what are they still doing here? Because these fears that we, the patriotic Russian forces, are now fighting not allies, but it is not clear with whom, they were strong enough. If the Allies still continue, the Entente countries continue to keep their troops here, do they not have any selfish interests of their own?
Of course, we see in this period, both in the 18th and in the 19th year, that in particular from the north there is an export of those natural resources, primarily forest, of course, which could be taken out of there. This gave reason to reproach them for colonial plunder, an attempt to plunder Russia, to take out valuable goods under the guise. On the other hand, we should not forget that at the same time, and the north is not a grain-producing territory, the allied powers were supplying food, that is, in many respects, the Arkhangelsk province was fed with imported allied bread. There were attempts to bring bread along the northern sea route from Siberia, even successful attempts. The only thing was that it was in the 19th year at the time of the collapse of the Kolchak front, that is, these volumes of transported food were minimal in the end, because, along with the retreating armies, it was not possible to organize a supply of solid food supplies to the mouths of the Ob and Yenisei.
In any case, if we look in general at the role played by the allied intervention during the years of the Civil War, we see that it helped to exacerbate military confrontation. That is, the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps, the landing of allied units in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk marked the beginning of the emergence of such organized fronts. On the other hand, after this initial burst of activity, the importance of Allied intervention declined sharply, especially after the end of the First World War. We see fluctuations in the allied capitals, where the leadership of the Entente did not know what to do with these troops and tried to get out of an uncomfortable situation, we see demoralization in the allied forces, where they expected that now the Bolshevik government would collapse, but it did not collapse, it continued to keep power in their hands and even successfully led the offensive. All this led to the fact that in 1919 intervention was already a secondary factor in the civil war, which really acquired the character of an internal fratricidal civil war.
In the cemetery of the American city of Troy (Michigan), there is a figure of a polar bear. The grinning beast threateningly put forward right paw, and with his left he rested on a small cross, on which a soldier's helmet was hoisted. This is a memorial to 56 American soldiers who died in northern Russia in 1918-1919. What wind brought them to our country and what does the polar bear have to do with it?This story began 95 years ago. Taking advantage of the fact that Trotsky disrupted the peace talks in Brest, on February 18, 1918, the German troops launched an offensive along the entire front. At the same time, Great Britain, France and a number of other powers under the pretext of providing assistance Soviet Russia in repelling the German offensive prepared plans for intervention. One of the offers of assistance was sent to Murmansk, near which there were British and French warships. Deputy Chairman of the Murmansk Council A.M. On March 1, Yuryev reported this to the Council of People's Commissars and at the same time notified the government that there were about two thousand Czechs, Poles and Serbs on the line of the Murmansk railway. They were transported from Russia to the Western Front north way. Yuryev asked: “In what forms can the help of man and material force from the powers that are friendly to us be acceptable?”
On the same day, Yuryev received a reply from Trotsky, who at that time held the post of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. The telegram said: "You are obliged to accept any assistance from the allied missions." Referring to Trotsky, the Murmansk authorities entered into negotiations on March 2 with representatives of the Western powers. Among them were the commander of the English squadron, Admiral Kemp, the English consul Hall, the French captain Cherpentier. The result of the negotiations was an agreement that read: High Command all the armed forces of the region belong under the leadership of the Sov-depa to the Murmansk military council of 3 persons - one appointed by the Soviet government and one each from the British and French.
Yuryev sent a telegram about the conclusion of this agreement to all Soviets along the Murmansk road. When the Petrozavodsk Soviet asked the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs about this Yuryev's telegram, Trotsky replied: "The Murmansk Soviet correctly refers to my permission."
However, V.I. Lenin, I.V. Stalin and other leaders of the Land of Soviets assessed Yuryev's actions differently. Having contacted him by telegraph, Stalin warned him: “You seem to be a little caught, now you need to get out. The presence of their troops in the Murmansk region and the actual support provided to Murman by the British can be used as a basis for occupation in the event of a further complication of the international situation. If you get a written confirmation of the declaration of the British and French against a possible occupation, this will be the first step towards the elimination of the confusing situation that has been created, in our opinion, against your will. However, Yuriev was no longer in control of the situation. Although the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on March 3 and the Germans stopped their offensive towards Petrograd, on March 9 the first landing was made on the Murmansk coast, which supposedly was supposed to repulse the Germans. Murmansk military council, in which the majority belonged Western countries declared a state of siege. The invaders who landed on the shore formed an armored train and contacted the detachments of Czechoslovaks, Serbs and Poles stationed in the city of Kola. Telegrams were sent to London asking for reinforcements.
On March 15, a conference of prime ministers and foreign ministers of the Entente countries was held in London. It considered the report of General Knox, who recommended sending 5,000 soldiers to Arkhangelsk. The report was accompanied by a statement by the British military representative in Arkhangelsk, Captain Proctor, who proposed to increase the number of interventionists in the North to 15,000. However, the offensive that began on the Western Front German troops forced the Allies to temporarily postpone these plans.
The sixth of Wilson's 14 points in his message to Congress on January 8, 1918, dealt with Russia. The desire to seize Russian possessions appeared among the US ruling circles during the conflicts around Oregon and the preparation of a deal on Alaska. It was proposed to "buy the Russians" along with a number of other peoples of the world. The hero of Mark Twain's novel The American Pretender, the extravagant Colonel Sellers, also outlined his plan for the acquisition of Siberia and the creation of a republic there. Obviously, already in the 19th century, such ideas were popular in the United States.
On the eve of the First World War, the activities of American entrepreneurs in Russia sharply intensified. Future US President Herbert Hoover became the owner of oil companies in Maykop. Together with the English financier Leslie Urquhart, Herbert Hoover acquired concessions in the Urals and Siberia. The cost of only three of them exceeded 1 billion dollars (then dollars!).
The First World War opened up new opportunities for American capital. Having been drawn into a difficult and devastating war, Russia was looking for funds and goods abroad. America, which did not participate in the war, could provide them. If before the First World War the US investments in Russia amounted to 68 million dollars, by 1917 they had increased many times over. Russia's sharply increased needs for different types products led to a rapid increase in imports from the US. While exports from Russia to the USA fell 3 times between 1913 and 1916, imports of American goods increased 18 times. If in 1913 American imports from Russia were somewhat higher than its exports from the United States, then in 1916 American exports exceeded Russian imports to the United States by 55 times. Country all in more depended on American production.
In March 1916, the banker and grain merchant David Francis was appointed US Ambassador to Russia. On the one hand, the new ambassador sought to increase Russia's dependence on America. On the other hand, being a grain merchant, he was interested in eliminating Russia as a competitor from the world grain market. A revolution in Russia that could undermine its agriculture was most likely part of Francis' plans.
Ambassador Francis, on behalf of the US government, offered Russia a $100 million loan. At the same time, by agreement with the Provisional Government, a mission was sent from the United States to Russia "to study issues related to the work of the Ussuri, East China and Siberian railways." And in mid-October 1917, the so-called "Russian Railway Corps" was formed, consisting of 300 American railway officers and mechanics. The "corps" consisted of 12 detachments of engineers, foremen, dispatchers, who were to be placed between Omsk and Vladivostok. As the Soviet historian A.V. Berezkin in his study, "the US government insisted that the specialists sent by them be vested with broad administrative power, and not be limited to the functions of technical supervision." In fact, it was about the transfer of a significant part of the Trans-Siberian Railway under American control.
It is known that during the preparation of the anti-Bolshevik conspiracy in the summer of 1917, the famous English writer and intelligence officer W.S. Maugham (transgender) and the leaders of the Czechoslovak corps left for Petrograd via the USA and Siberia. It is obvious that your conspiracy, which weaved British intelligence in order to prevent the victory of the Bolsheviks and Russia's withdrawal from the war, was linked to the US plans to establish their control over the Trans-Siberian Railway.
December 14, 1917 "Russian Railway Corps" consisting of 350 people arrived in Vladivostok. However, the October Revolution thwarted not only Maugham's plot, but also the US plan to take over the Trans-Siberian Railway. Already on December 17, the "railway corps" departed for Nagasaki.
Then the Americans decided to use the Japanese military force to take over the Trans-Siberian Railway. On February 18, 1918, the American representative in the Supreme Council of the Entente, General Bliss, supported the opinion that Japan should take part in the occupation of the Trans-Siberian Railway.
After the Czechoslovaks moved along the Trans-Siberian Railway in the spring of 1918, the movement of their echelons began to be closely monitored in the United States. In May 1918, Francis wrote to his son in the United States: "At the present time I am plotting ... to disrupt the disarmament of 40,000 or more Czechoslovak soldiers whom the Soviet government has offered to surrender their weapons."
On May 25, immediately after the start of the rebellion, the Czechoslovaks captured Novonikolaevsk (Novosibirsk). On May 26 they took Chelyabinsk. Then - Tomsk. Penza, Syzran. In June, the Czechoslovaks captured Kurgan, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, and on June 29 - Vladivostok. As soon as the Trans-Siberian Railway was in the hands of the "Czechoslovak Corps", the "Russian Railway Corps" again headed to Siberia.
On July 6, 1918, in Washington, at a meeting of the country's military leaders with the participation of Secretary of State Lansing, the issue of sending 7,000 American troops to Vladivostok to help the Czechoslovak corps, which was allegedly attacked by units from former Austro-Hungarian prisoners, was discussed. It was decided: "To land the available troops from the American and allied warships in order to gain a foothold in Vladivostok and assist the Czechoslovaks." Three months earlier, Japanese troops landed in Vladivostok.
Back in the spring of 1918, the Americans appeared in the north of the European territory of Russia, on the Murmansk coast. March 2, 1918 Chairman of the Murmansk Council A.M. Yuriev agreed to the landing of British, American and French troops on the coast under the pretext of protecting the North from the Germans.
On June 14, 1918, the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of Soviet Russia protested against the presence of interventionists in Russian harbors, but this protest was left unanswered. And on July 6, representatives of the interventionists concluded an agreement with the Murmansk Regional Soviet, according to which the orders of the military command of Great Britain, the United States of America and France "must be unquestioningly carried out by everyone." The agreement established that Russians "should not be formed into separate Russian units, but, as circumstances permit, units can be formed from an equal number of foreigners and Russians." On behalf of the United States, the agreement was signed by Captain 1st Rank Berger, commander of the cruiser Olympia, which arrived in Murmansk on May 24.
After the first landing, about 10 thousand foreign soldiers were landed in Murmansk by the summer. Total in 1918-1919. about 29,000 British and 6,000 Americans landed in the north of the country. Having occupied Murmansk, the invaders moved south. On July 2, the invaders took Kem. July 31 - Onega. The participation of the Americans in this intervention was called the "Polar Bear" expedition.
On August 2, they captured Arkhangelsk. The “Supreme Administration of the Northern Region” was created in the city, headed by Trudovik N.V. Tchaikovsky, which turned into a puppet government of interventionists. After the capture of Arkhangelsk, the invaders attempted to launch an offensive against Moscow through Kotlas. However, the stubborn resistance of the Red Army units frustrated these plans. The invaders suffered losses.
In the American press in 1918, voices were openly heard suggesting that the US government lead the process of dismembering Russia. Senator Poindexter wrote in The New York Times, June 8, 1918: "Russia is simply geographical concept and there will never be anything else. Her power of cohesion, organization and restoration is gone forever. The nation does not exist." On June 20, 1918, Senator Sherman, speaking in the US Congress, proposed to use the opportunity to conquer Siberia. The senator declared: "Siberia is a wheat field and cattle pastures, having the same value as its mineral wealth."
These calls were heard. On August 3, the US Secretary of War ordered the dispatch to Vladivostok of units of the 27th and 31st US Infantry Divisions, which until then had been serving in the Philippines. These divisions became famous for their atrocities, which continued during the suppression of the remnants of the partisan movement. On August 16, about 9,000 American troops landed in Vladivostok.
On the same day, a declaration was published by the United States and Japan, which stated that "they are taking under the protection of the soldiers of the Czechoslovak corps." The same obligations were assumed in the corresponding declarations by the governments of France and England. And soon, 120,000 foreign interventionists, including Americans, British, Japanese, French, Canadians, Italians, and even Serbs and Poles, came out "to protect the Czechs and Slovaks."
At this time, the US government was making efforts to get its allies to agree to establish their control over the Trans-Siberian Railway. US Ambassador to Japan Morris assured that the effective and reliable operation of the CER and the Trans-Siberian Railway would allow the implementation of "our economic and social program ... In addition, to allow the free development of local self-government." In fact, the United States revived the plans for the creation of the Siberian Republic, which the hero of Mark Twain's story, Sellers, dreamed of.
At the end of October 1918, Wilson approved a secret “Commentary” to the “14 Points”, which proceeded from the dismemberment of Russia. The Commentary pointed out that, since the independence of Poland had already been recognized, there was nothing to talk about a united Russia. It was supposed to create several states on its territory - Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine and others. The Caucasus was seen as "part of the problem Turkish Empire". It was supposed to give one of the victorious countries a mandate to govern Central Asia. The future peace conference was to appeal to "Great Russia and Siberia" with a proposal "to create a government representative enough to speak on behalf of these territories", and to such a government "the United States and its allies will render every assistance."
In December 1918, at a meeting at the State Department, a program was outlined " economic development» Russia, which provided for the export of 200 thousand tons of goods from our country during the first three to four months. In the future, the rate of export of goods from Russia to the United States should have increased. As evidenced by a note by Woodrow Wilson to Secretary of State Robert Lansing dated November 20, 1918, at that time the US President considered it necessary to achieve “the partition of Russia into at least five parts - Finland, the Baltic provinces, European Russia, Siberia and Ukraine".
The United States proceeded from the fact that the regions that were part of the sphere of Russian interests during the First World War, after the collapse of Russia, turned into a zone of American expansion. On May 14, 1919, at a meeting of the Council of Four in Paris, a resolution was adopted, according to which the United States received a mandate for Armenia, Constantinople, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles.
The Americans launched activities in other parts of Russia, into which they decided to divide it. In 1919, the director of the American Aid Distribution Administration, future US President Herbert Hoover visited Latvia. During his stay in Latvia, he established friendly relations with a graduate of Lincoln State University (Nebraska), a former American professor, and at that time the newly minted prime minister of the Latvian government Karlis Ulmanis. The American mission headed by Colonel Green, which arrived in Latvia in March 1919, provided active assistance in financing the German units led by General von der Goltz and the troops of the government of Ul-Manis. In accordance with the agreement of June 17, 1919, weapons and other military materials began to arrive in Latvia from American warehouses in France. In general, in 1918-1920. The United States has allocated more than $5 million to arm the Ulmanis regime.
The Americans were active in Lithuania as well. In his work "American intervention in Lithuania in 1918-1920" D.F. Finehouse wrote: “In 1919, the Lithuanian government received from the State Department military equipment and uniforms for arming 35 thousand soldiers for a total of 17 million dollars ... General leadership the Lithuanian army was carried out by American Colonel Dauli, assistant to the head of the US military mission in the Baltics. At the same time, a specially formed American brigade arrived in Lithuania, whose officers became part of Lithuanian army. It was supposed to increase the number of American troops in Lithuania to several tens of thousands of people. The United States provided the Lithuanian army with food. The same assistance was provided in May 1919 and Estonian army. Only the growing opposition in the United States to plans to expand the American presence in Europe stopped further US activity in the Baltics.
At the same time, the Americans began to divide the lands inhabited by the indigenous Russian population. In the north of the European territory of Russia, occupied by interventionists from England, Canada and the USA, concentration camps were created. 52 thousand people, that is, every 6th inhabitant of the occupied lands, ended up in prisons or camps.
A prisoner of one of these camps, doctor Marshavin, recalled: “Exhausted, half-starved, we were led under the escort of the British and Americans. They put in a cell no more than 30 square meters. And there were more than 50 people in it. The food was exceptionally bad, many were dying of hunger... They were forced to work from 5 am to 11 am. Grouped by 4 people, we were forced to harness ourselves to a sledge and carry firewood ... Health care did not appear at all. From beatings, cold, hunger and back-breaking 18–20-hour work, 15–20 people died every day.” The invaders shot 4,000 people by decision of the courts-martial. Many people were killed without trial.
Mudyugsky concentration camp- the most famous concentration camp, created by representatives of foreign military intervention in northern Russia on August 23, 1918 as a camp for prisoners of war. From June 2, 1919, it was used by the government of the Northern Region as a prison for exile. After the uprising on September 15, 1919 and the mass escape of prisoners, he was transferred to Yokangu. The only concentration camp from the First World War, the buildings of which have survived to this day.
By June 1919, there were already about 100 grave crosses on Mudyug Island, under many of which there were collective graves.
"The Northern Cemetery will connect everyone
The Northern Cemetery will shelter us all
Northern Cemetery - everyone is equal on it
Northern Cemetery - Northern Dreams" (Vl-r Selivanov. "Red Stars")
The Mudyug concentration camp became a real cemetery for the victims of the intervention in the Russian North, Russian Hyperborea.
The Americans acted just as cruelly in the Far East. In the course of punitive expeditions against the inhabitants of Primorye and the Amur Region, who supported the partisans, 25 villages and villages were destroyed by the Americans in the Amur Region alone. At the same time, American punishers, like other interventionists, committed cruel torture against the partisans and their sympathizers.
Soviet historian F.F. Nesterov in his book "The Link of Times" wrote that after the fall of Soviet power in the Far East, "supporters of the Soviets everywhere where the bayonet of the overseas" liberators of Russia" got, stabbed, chopped, shot in batches, hung, drowned in the Amur, taken away in torture "trains death, starved to death in concentration camps. Having told about the peasants of the prosperous seaside village of Kazanka, who at first were by no means ready to support the Soviet government, the writer explained why, after long doubts, they nevertheless joined the partisan detachments. Played a role "the stories of the neighbors on the counter that last week an American sailor in the port shot a Russian boy ... that locals now, when a foreign military man enters the tram, get up and give way to him ... that the radio station on the Russian island was handed over to the Americans ... that dozens of captured Red Guards are shot daily in Khabarovsk. Ultimately, the inhabitants of Kazanka, like the majority of Russian people in those years, could not stand the humiliation of the national and human dignity, perpetrated by American and other interventionists and their accomplices, and rebelled, supporting the partisans of Primorye.
The Americans were also remembered for their participation in the looting of the occupied lands. In the north of the country, according to A.B. Berezkin, “only flax, tows and tows, the Americans exported 353,409 pounds (including one flax, 304,575 pounds. They exported furs, skins, ornamental bone and other goods.” The head of the office of the Department of Foreign Affairs of the white government of Tchaikovsky, formed in Arkhangelsk, On January 11, 1919, he complained to the quartermaster general of the headquarters of the commander in chief that “after the robbery of the region by the interventionists, there were no sources left for obtaining currency, with the exception of timber, as for export goods, everything that was in Arkhangelsk in warehouses, and everything that could be of interest to foreigners, was exported by them last year almost without currency, approximately in the amount of 4,000,000 pounds sterling.
In the Far East, American invaders exported timber, furs, and gold. In addition to outright robbery, American firms received permission from the Kolchak government to trade in exchange for loans from Citi Bank and Guarantee Trust. Only one of them - Eyrington's company, which received permission to export furs, sent 15,730 pounds of wool from Vladivostok to the USA, 20,407 sheep skins, 10,200 large dry skins. From the Far East and Siberia, they exported everything that represented at least some material value.
During the intervention, the Americans tried to expand the lands under their control. In the autumn of 1918, the interventionists operating in the north of the country (mainly Americans) tried to advance south of Shenkursk. However, on January 24, Soviet troops launched a counterattack on Shenkursk and, having captured it, cut off the Americans' path to retreat. The next day, leaving military equipment, American units fled north along forest paths.
In April 1919, a new attempt was made to advance deep into Russia during the offensive of the Finnish "Olonets Volunteer Army" in the Mezhduozerny region and Anglo-American troops along the Murmansk road. However, at the end of June, the invaders suffered a new defeat. The invaders also suffered losses in the Far East, where partisans constantly attacked American military units.
The losses suffered by the American invaders received considerable publicity in the United States and caused demands to stop hostilities in Russia. On May 22, 1919, Rep. Mason, in his speech to Congress, stated: “In Chicago, which is part of my district, there are 600 mothers whose sons are in Russia. I received about 12 letters this morning, and I receive them almost every day, in which they ask me when our troops should return from Siberia. On May 20, 1919, Wisconsin Senator and future US presidential candidate La Follette introduced a resolution in the Senate that was approved by the Wisconsin legislature. It called for the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Russia. Somewhat later, on September 5, 1919, the influential Senator Borah declared in the Senate: “Mr. President, we are not at war with Russia. Congress did not declare war against the Russian people. The people of the United States do not want to go to war with Russia."
Didn't announce? Where? Intervention is not a declaration of war? If Hitler invaded to destroy the USSR, then he is the aggressor, and the Anglo-Saxons are Elton Johns? NO AND AGAIN NO - THIS IS THE SAME!
American Arthur Ballard was on a business trip in Russia for 2 years - from 1917 to 1919. Since 1918, he had been in Siberia when the main events unfolded there. In 1919, since everything was already clear there who would win, Ballard returned to the United States and, in hot pursuit, wrote a book about what was happening in Russia.
Ask any Russian, even now, what do you know about what happened in Siberia after the Bolshevik coup in Russia? He will answer, they say, there was Kolchak, and then he was defeated by the Red Army, which "... from the taiga to the British Seas, the Red Army is the strongest." This is the cut out - "holiday" - official Bolshevik version, which was reported under the communists and now under the capitalists, because history is written by the winners.
Now Arthur Ballard will tell us what happened in order. Of course, he also does not tell everything, no one has seen EVERYTHING! But nevertheless, what Ballard says is enough for the eyes to widen the eyes, because this is not in the official version. And we collect individual evidence to complete the picture. This review will be based on the material of one half of the book, where only Siberia. Arthur Ballard was one of many thousands and thousands of American and English spies and saboteurs sent to Russia at the beginning of the century in order to prepare the result that the United States and british empire and received at the Versailles Conference of 1919 at the end of the World War and two catastrophic coups d'état in Russia and Germany. The only difference between them was that the Bolshevik-type coup d'etat in Germany stopped, so to speak, at the stage of the "German Kerensky" and did not reach the Bolshevik ultra-radical-genocidal stage.
Here you need to understand the psychology of Americans. They will protest if you call them spies and saboteurs, even if he has the "crust" of a CIA agent. Americans are brought up in firm conviction that the US is the beacon of the world; and it is the sacred duty and obligation of Americans to drag all of humanity to happiness in the American sense with an iron hand and to punish those who do not want their happiness, in the American sense.
Therefore, any American is de facto an agent and a saboteur. Even if he is just a merchant or an engineer in another country.
For example, when real secret agents of the United States return from a foreign country and write reports to the CIA, then many of them then draw up part of their reports in the form of a separate book. Because everyone understands that a person wants to earn extra money. Why not? Only it is necessary to remove from the report the technical details related specifically to secret activities, and, please, publish it!
The classic spy and saboteur writer was the British agent in Russia Bruce Lockhart with his book The British Agent. It turns out she came out in Russian? We have in the library the main thing related to Russia from another book by Lockhart
In the United States over the past 100 years, hundreds of thousands of such literary reports of secret agents have been circulating, designed as literary and scientific work. The USA is the only remaining Empire, and therefore the country of global espionage. And the United States supplies spies and saboteurs to the world market - 100 thousand - this is the most in-line American production - spies and saboteurs. And all Americans - freelance spies - are "patriots" of their "homeland". Stalin warned!
Ballard begins the section on Siberia precisely with chapter 18 on the Siberian railway!
"The whole life of Siberia winds around TRANSIBA. The liquid population of Siberia lives only around railway stations TRANSIBA and river stations. It's also in 19th century Canada that all life was just along the US border. Before the recent construction of TRANSIB, only tribes of local nomads lived in Siberia, and it was 5 months on post horses from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok. And that was literally a few years ago, since the Transib was only completed in 1916. (And it was too tidbit for the US to miss the opportunity to get hold of it)
I personally spoke with one old tsarist serviceman, whose first job was to drive stages with hard labor. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of TRANSIB for Siberia. The Trans-Siberian as an artery brought blood and life to the frozen body of Siberia and revived Siberia. Perhaps in the future some local Siberian Homer will write epic poem about TRANSIBE and call it "ARTERIA"!
Tsar Nicholas II made Siberia a part of Russia. Prior to this, Siberia belonged to Russia only formally. Like, for example, after Alaska was annexed to the United States, the Americans did not touch it at all for 100 years. Alaska stood, and the hands did not reach. The development of Alaska became possible only after the Second World War with the beginning of the era of airplanes and helicopters.
The English-speaking countries, and at their suggestion the whole world, have always considered Russia only up to the Urals, and then there was "TARTARIA" - UNDEVELOPED VILLAGE LANDS.
The beginning of the construction of TRANSIBA in the 1890s and the threat of the development of Siberia by the Russians themselves became real reason Japanese-Russian war; with Japan supported by the US and Britain. Now, if TRANSSIB stops now, it will cause the death of many thousands of people from hunger and cold, because food is transported by rail. TRANSSIB is the goal of any military operations in Siberia. Who owns TRANSSIBOM owns Siberia.
The blockade of TRANSSIBA by the Czechs in August-September 1918 immediately paralyzed the whole of Siberia. Cities along the TRANSSIB were crammed with refugees. In the city of Omsk before the revolution there were 200 thousand inhabitants, and in 1918 this number tripled to 600 thousand, with the same housing stock! One of my Russian acquaintances from work in the office in Vladivostok came from Petrograd. In Vladivostok, he became one of the active workers of the Zemstvo. Before the revolution, he worked in the Petrograd branch of the Cooperative Bank. Right before the Bolshevik putsch, he was sent on a business trip to Moscow and there he was caught by the Bolshevik coup. The bank immediately gave him another business trip from Moscow, this time to Siberia. From Omsk, he managed to call his wife with children in St. Petersburg, so that she urgently went with the children to him in Omsk. And that was his last conversation with his family. We talked in Vladivostok a year after he left his family. And there is no way for him to find out what happened to his family.
The famine in Siberia and the blockade of TRANSSIBA was achieved by the American interventionists with the help of the mercenary Czechoslovak army in order to suppress any resistance in Siberia and the separation of Siberia from Russia, which happened in 1920 - the formation under the auspices of the United States of the Far Eastern Republic - the Far Eastern Republic with its capital on Lake Baikal in Verkhneudinsk and with the President of the Far Eastern Republic - an American citizen - a Russian Jew, a former emigrant to the United States, Abram Moiseevich Krasnoshchek, who had a passport of an American citizen Stroller Tobinson. The Americans liquidated the FER only after they were convinced that power in Siberia and the Far East, after the completion of joint punitive operations with Trotsky in Siberia, was also transferred American citizen, like Krasnoshchek, who came from New York, to Leiba Bronstein-Trotsky, who at that time was the unlimited dictator of the Soviet of Deputies in the position of the Pre-Revolutionary Council. The last invaders - the Japanese left Vladivostok only in November 1923).
In the summer of 1919, under the influence of defeats and pressure inside the United States, the withdrawal of American interventionist troops from the North of Russia began. By April 1920, American troops were also withdrawn from the Far East. The veterans of the intervention in the north erected a monument in honor of the 110 who died in battle and 70 who died of disease in Russia. The monument is made of white marble and depicts a huge polar bear.
By the time the Americans left Russia, our country had suffered enormous human losses and enormous material damage as a result of the intervention and the Civil War. There is no doubt that the responsibility for the atrocities and robberies of the interventionists, the ruin of the country ( total amount damage national economy countries from foreign intervention amounted to over 50 billion gold rubles) and the death of 10 million people in 1918-1920. carried by the American interventionists.
Considerable damage was done to the country as a result of the fact that Russia lost the grain market, which was captured by the States after the First World War. Francis and his friends in the grain business could rejoice.
Today, neither the British nor the Americans like to remember these events. No one has apologized for that intervention to this day (what were you waiting for?). When US President Dwight Eisanhower, at a meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, stated that Russia and America had never fought each other, he was somewhat prevaricated. The last veteran interventionist of those events died on March 11, 2003.
The most notable clash between Russians and Americans in the Far East was the battle near the village of Romanovka, June 25, 1919, near Vladivostok, where the Bolshevik units under the command of Yakov Tryapitsyn attacked the Americans and inflicted 24 dead on them. Despite the fact that the red units eventually retreated, American historians call this battle " pyrrhic victory". But let's not refer to their "historians" - do not forget that our people have always had, have and should have the psychology of a victorious people.
The last American soldier left Siberia on April 1, 1920. During the 19-month stay in Russia, the Americans lost 200 soldiers in the Far East.
Our days
Interview with Rick Rozoff, owner of the Stop NATO website:
– The events we are talking about are best known as the expedition " polar bear". But there are two different official names: "Northern Russian Campaign" and "American Expeditionary Force in Northern Russia." What was it? It was the entry of about five thousand American soldiers, from September 1918 and at least until July 1919, to the territory of Russia.The troops were to fight against the army Russian government who came to power after October revolution, that is, against the government of Lenin.
American soldiers were sent to fight in the Russian Arctic from France and Michigan. Often after the signing of a peace treaty.
In 1972, I spoke with my maternal grandfather, shortly before his death. I knew he was in the army allied forces under the command of General Pershing, they joined French army during the First World War. Once I asked him, then I was still a boy, and so, I asked him what happened after the signing of the peace treaty, when the military were demobilized in France. And he answered me: "We were sent to fight the Bolsheviks." It is his exact quote, I remember her, although 41 years have passed since then.
I knew that his unit was trained at Camp Custer, named after General George Custer. Then the camp turned into a military town Custer near the city of Battle Creek (Battle Creek) in Michigan.
Grandpa was born in Michigan though most He lived his life in Ontario, Canada. But when the US entered World War I in 1917, he was enrolled in military service and trained at the Custer training camp. It was in the 85th division, which trained in the camp, that he was sent to Russia and participated in the Polar Bear expedition.
More than 100 American soldiers died in action during the campaign, many more died during epidemics of influenza and other diseases, and probably about a hundred people were wounded. I don't think it's worth saying how many Russians were killed by American soldiers at that time.
And 4 years ago, a film was made that was shown in cinemas in Michigan, just where the camp was located. Among the people who came to see the film and pay tribute to the so-called Polar Bear Expedition was Michigan Senior State Senator Carl Levin, who said at the film's premiere screening, to quote from the Michigan State Newspaper in 2009: "Now is the right place and time for our meeting. There are lessons to be learned from history, and here are those lessons."
I'm not sure exactly what lessons Senator Levin had in mind, but it can be assumed that over the past four years the United States has renewed its claim to the North Arctic Ocean, mainly at the expense of other states such as Canada and, no doubt, Russia. The very fact that the United States celebrates its first attempt to gain a foothold in the Arctic region during the operation in Russia in 1918-1919, it seems to me, says a lot.
I remember how my grandfather told me about his stay in Murmansk. As far as I understood, he was not too far from Arkhangelsk, where the American soldiers were landed. Winston Churchill, then British Secretary of War, was able to convince US President Woodrow Wilson of the need to send soldiers to perform various tasks, the main of which was to protect the warehouses of military equipment supplied by the Allies during the First World War, even before the October Revolution.
The second task was to overthrow the Bolshevik government. The third task was to support the Czechoslovak corps, which fought on the side of the Russian army in the First World War, and then opposed the government formed in November 1917.
It seems to me that the third reason, namely the support of the Czechoslovak Corps, is the most plausible explanation for the participation of American soldiers in those events, they were interested in overthrowing the Russian government. This is the main reason for the US involvement.
– Could you talk about any operation that the audience may not know about?
- From the sources that I got acquainted with, I learned that, of course, not the entire division was sent to Russia. About two or three regiments of the 85th division were sent. They arrived in Arkhangelsk at the very beginning of September 1918, at least according to one of the sources, and they found themselves under the command of the British army, which was already there.
The British army had probably landed at Arkhangelsk a month earlier, in early August 1918, and the Russian army had probably already removed all the ammunition that the British planned to capture. Thus began an expedition up the Dvina River, which was accompanied by fierce fighting between the Russian and American armies.
By my calculations, it was October, which means that winter had already come. And the American campaign has reached a dead end, it has failed. Their attempts to connect with Czech army to oppose the government in Moscow, were unsuccessful. Then the campaign was decided to be postponed until the summer of 1919, but then it was completely abandoned.
Losses, according to some sources, amounted to 110 American soldiers killed in battles with the Russian army.
– But did the US military also kill Russians in Russia?
– Yes, although these people defended their territory, their land.
Why did American soldiers end up under British command?
– It seems to me, because the British soldiers were sent to the same region: to the Arkhangelsk and Murmansk region, a month earlier, to prepare and make it easier to carry out the operation, I think. In addition, we know what role Great Britain played in Russia during the transitional period between the February and October revolutions of 1917, under the Provisional Government of Kerensky. And how she wanted to drag the Russian government into the war, whatever it was.
The civil war and military intervention of 1917-1922 in Russia is an armed struggle for power between representatives of various classes, social strata and groups of the former Russian Empire with the participation of the troops of the Quadruple Alliance and the Entente.
The main reasons for the Civil War and military intervention were: the intransigence of the positions of various political parties, groups and classes in matters of power, the economic and political course of the country; the rate of opponents of the Soviet government on overthrowing it by force of arms with the support of foreign states; the desire of the latter to protect their interests in Russia and prevent the spread of the revolutionary movement in the world; the development of national separatist movements on the outskirts of the former Russian Empire; the radicalism of the Bolshevik leadership, which considered one of the essential funds achieve their political goals revolutionary violence, and his desire to put into practice the ideas of the "world revolution".
As a result of the October Revolution of 1917, the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks) and the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party that supported it (until July 1918) came to power in Russia, expressing mainly the interests of the Russian proletariat and the poorest peasantry. They were opposed by the motley in their social composition and often scattered forces of the other (non-proletarian) part Russian society, represented by numerous parties, movements, associations, etc., often at enmity with each other, but which, as a rule, adhered to an anti-Bolshevik orientation. An open clash in the struggle for power between these two main political forces in the country led to the Civil War. The main instruments for achieving the set goals in it were: on the one hand, the Red Guard (then the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army), on the other, the White Army.
In November-December 1917, Soviet power was established in most of the territory of Russia, but in a number of regions of the country, mainly in the Cossack regions, local authorities refused to recognize the Soviet government. They broke out in riots.
Foreign powers also intervened in the internal political struggle that unfolded in Russia. After Russia's withdrawal from the First World War, German and Austro-Hungarian troops in February 1918 occupied part of Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States and southern Russia. In order to maintain Soviet power, Soviet Russia agreed to the conclusion of the Brest Peace (March 1918).
In March 1918 Anglo-French-American troops landed at Murmansk; in April - Japanese troops in Vladivostok. In May, the rebellion of the Czechoslovak Corps began, which consisted mainly of former prisoners of war who were in Russia and were returning home through Siberia.
Japanese battleship in the port of Vladivostok, 1918 The mutiny revived the internal counter-revolution. With its help, in May-July 1918, the Czechoslovaks captured the Middle Volga, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East. The Eastern Front was formed to fight them.
The direct participation of the Entente troops in the war was limited. They mainly carried out guard duty, participated in the battles against the rebels, provided material and moral assistance to the White movement, and performed punitive functions. The Entente also established an economic blockade of Soviet Russia, capturing the most important economic regions, exerting political pressure on neutral states interested in trade with Russia, and imposing a naval blockade. Large-scale military operations against the Red Army were carried out only by units of the Separate Czechoslovak Corps.
In the south of Russia, with the help of the interventionists, pockets of counter-revolution arose: white Cossacks on the Don, led by Ataman Krasnov, Volunteer army Lieutenant General Anton Denikin in the Kuban, bourgeois-nationalist regimes in the Transcaucasus, Ukraine, etc.
By the summer of 1918, numerous groups and governments were formed on 3/4 of the country's territory, which opposed the Soviet regime. By the end of the summer, Soviet power was preserved mainly in the central regions of Russia and in part of the territory of Turkestan.
To combat external and internal counter-revolution, the Soviet government was forced to increase the size of the Red Army, improve its organizational and staffing structure, operational and strategic management. Instead of curtains, front-line and army associations began to be created with the corresponding government bodies (Southern, Northern, Western and Ukrainian fronts). Under these conditions, the Soviet government nationalized large and medium-sized industries, took control of small industries, introduced labor service for the population, food requisitioning (the policy of "war communism"), and on September 2, 1918, declared the country a single military camp. All these measures made it possible to turn the tide of the armed struggle. In the second half of 1918, the Red Army won its first victories on the Eastern Front, liberated the territories of the Volga region, part of the Urals.
How the Red Army was created. Video chronicle
After the revolution in Germany that took place in November 1918, the Soviet government annulled the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Ukraine and Belarus were liberated. However, the policy of "war communism", as well as "decossackization", caused peasant and Cossack uprisings in various regions and made it possible for the leaders of the anti-Bolshevik camp to form numerous armies and launch a broad offensive against the Soviet Republic.
At the same time, the end of the First World War unleashed the hands of the Entente. The released troops were thrown against Soviet Russia. In Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Vladivostok and other cities, new parts of the invaders landed. Assistance to the White Guard troops increased sharply. As a result of a military coup, the military dictatorship of Admiral Alexander Kolchak, a protege of the Entente, was established in Omsk. In November-December 1918, his government created an army on the basis of the various White Guard formations that had previously existed in the Urals and Siberia.
Admiral Alexander Kolchak
The Entente decided to deliver the main blow to Moscow from the south. To this end, large formations of invaders landed in the Black Sea ports. In December, Kolchak's army intensified its operations, seizing Perm, but units of the Red Army, having captured Ufa, suspended its offensive.
At the end of 1918, the offensive of the Red Army began on all fronts. Were released Left-bank Ukraine, Don region, Southern Urals, a number of regions in the north and north-west of the country. The Soviet Republic organized active work on the decomposition of the interventionist troops. Revolutionary actions of soldiers began in them, and the military leadership of the Entente hastily withdrew troops from Russia.
In the territories occupied by the White Guards and the interventionists, a partisan movement was active. Partisan formations were created spontaneously by the population or on the initiative of local party bodies. The partisan movement gained its greatest scope in Siberia, the Far East, Ukraine and the North Caucasus. It has been one of the most important strategic factors, which ensured the victory of the Soviet Republic over numerous enemies.
In early 1919, the Entente developed new plan attack on Moscow, in which a bet was made on the forces of internal counter-revolution and small states adjacent to Russia.
The main role was assigned to Kolchak's army. Auxiliary blows were delivered: from the south - Denikin's army, from the west - the Poles and troops of the Baltic states, from the north-west - the White Guard Northern Corps and Finnish troops, from the north - the White Guard troops of the Northern Region.
In March 1919, Kolchak's army went on the offensive, delivering the main blows in the Ufa-Samara and Izhevsk-Kazan directions. She took possession of Ufa and began a rapid advance towards the Volga. The troops of the Eastern Front of the Red Army, having withstood the blow of the enemy, launched a counteroffensive, during which the Urals were occupied in May-July and in the next six months, with active participation partisans - Siberia.
The leaders of the counter-revolutionary troops of Siberia. In the front row, Admiral Alexander Kolchak (second from left)
In the summer of 1919, the Red Army, without stopping the victorious offensive in the Urals and Siberia, repelled the offensive created on the basis of the White Guard Northern Corps Northwestern Army(General Nikolai Yudenich).
In the autumn of 1919, the main efforts of the Red Army were focused on fighting Denikin's troops, who launched an offensive against Moscow. Troops Southern Front defeated Denikin's armies near Orel and Voronezh, and by March 1920 pushed their remnants back to the Crimea and North Caucasus. At the same time, Yudenich's new offensive against Petrograd failed, and his army was routed. The destruction of the remnants of Denikin's troops in the North Caucasus was completed by the Red Army in the spring of 1920. In early 1920 they were released northern regions countries. The Entente states completely withdrew their troops and lifted the blockade.
In the spring of 1920, the Entente organized a new campaign against Soviet Russia, in which the main striking force was the Polish militarists, who planned to restore the Commonwealth within the borders of 1772, and the Russian army under the command of Lieutenant General Pyotr Wrangel. Polish troops dealt the main blow in Ukraine. By mid-May 1920, they had advanced as far as the Dnieper, where they were stopped. During the offensive, the Red Army defeated the Poles and in August reached Warsaw and Lvov. In October, Poland withdrew from the war.
Wrangel's troops, who tried to break into the Donbass and Right-Bank Ukraine, were defeated in October-November during the counteroffensive of the Red Army. The rest of them went abroad. The main centers of the Civil War in Russia were eliminated. But on the outskirts it still continued.
In 1921-1922, anti-Bolshevik uprisings were suppressed in Kronstadt, in the Tambov region, in a number of regions of Ukraine, etc., and the remaining centers of interventionists and White Guards in Central Asia and the Far East were liquidated (October 1922).
The civil war in Russia ended with the victory of the Red Army. The territorial integrity of the state, which collapsed after the collapse of the Russian Empire, was restored. Outside the union of Soviet republics, which was based on Russia, only Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia remained, as well as Bessarabia, annexed to Romania, Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, which went to Poland.
Lavr Kornilov, Evgeny Miller, Grigory Semenov, Nikolai Yudenich, Alexander Kolchak and others.
One controversial figure in the Civil War was the anarchist Nestor Makhno. He was the organizer of the "Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine", which in different periods fought against Ukrainian nationalists, Austro-German troops, White Guards and units of the Red Army. Makhno three times entered into agreements with the Soviet authorities on the joint struggle against "domestic and world counter-revolution" and each time violated them. The core of his army (several thousand people) continued to fight until July 1921, when it was completely destroyed by the troops of the Red Army.
The “export of democracy” is not a new phenomenon. Western countries have already tried to do this in Russia 100 years ago. And they were convinced that complex geopolitical calculations against the conviction of the masses are inexpensive.
Alliance of Opponents
It is observed in the issue of anti-Russian intervention of 1819-1921, since both camps of opponents in the world war - the states of the Entente and the Quadruple Alliance with their allies - brought their troops into Russia.
At the same time, the declarations of both sides were equally lofty. On paper, the interventionists achieved:
- restoration of the "constitutional system" (it is not known what kind of device is meant by this concept);
- curbing the spread of the "Bolshevik contagion";
- protection of property of foreigners;
- stopping the "red terror", saving the lives of the innocent ( white terror no one cared about it).
- ensuring the fulfillment of contractual obligations (allied within the framework of the Entente or the conditions of the Brest peace).
In this case, only the second statement was true. Western governments were really afraid of revolutions in their own states - Bolshevism and the Soviets were popular. The fear of "exporting the revolution" then became one of the reasons for the withdrawal of troops from Russia - they successfully re-agitated there. Georges Clemenceau, announcing the withdrawal of French troops, explained this by the fact that France did not need to import 50 thousand Bolsheviks (50 thousand - the number of the French intervention corps).
For the rest, foreigners needed
- weaken Russia militarily;
- secure access to its strategic resources;
- to get a government convenient for themselves in the country.
Some British leaders even insisted on the need to dismember Russia, but not everyone agreed with them on this issue.
Section of spheres of influence
14 states took part in foreign intervention during the Civil War. They acted in different regions according to their own geographical location, capabilities and interests. Representatives of the white movement all had contacts with the interventionists and received help from them (which they could not do without). But at the same time, various white leaders had their “sympathizers” among the intervention states. Thus, the Ukrainian hetman Skoropadsky and General Krasnov bet on Germany, preferred England and France, sympathized with the United States.
The spheres of influence section looked something like this.
- Germany - the territory of Ukraine, part of Western Russia, Transcaucasia.
- Turkey - Transcaucasia.
- Austria-Hungary - Ukraine.
- England - the Black Sea, the Far East, the Caspian Sea, the Baltic, northern ports (Murmansk, Arkhangelsk).
- France - Black Sea region (Crimea, Odessa), northern ports.
- USA - northern ports, Far East.
- Japan - Far East, Sakhalin.
Both the newly created states (Poland, Finland) and the “second league players” (Romania, Serbia) managed to participate in the intervention. At the same time, everyone tried to “grab their own” from the occupied territories to the maximum.
inglorious end
After the victory of the Soviets, the interventionists even managed to "shift everything from a sick head to a healthy one", accusing the intervention ... of the Soviet leadership, no matter how hard it is to suspect the Bolsheviks of such stupidity. All this was necessary to cover up the inglorious collapse of all the political ambitions of the West.
You can say anything about the Bolsheviks, but the fact is: no terror, no mobilization could provide the Red Army with victory over the white movement, the counter-revolutionary underground, the chieftain and 14 interventionist countries combined. This could only be ensured by mass popular support. It even existed in the homeland of the interventionists themselves: volunteers signed up to fight FOR the Soviets, the West was shaken by pro-Soviet strikes and demonstrations, and the interventionist soldiers scolded the commanders and could not understand what they had forgotten in Russia.
