In mid-January 1920, a meeting of the Supreme Council of the Entente was held under the chairmanship of Clemenceau. It decided, in addition to establishing a blockade of Soviet Russia and providing assistance to the Russian counter-revolution, also to use Poland, Romania, and Finland to carry out aggression. By the spring of 1920, the army of Poland came to the fore. At the same time, Wrangel's White Guard army was preparing an offensive in the south. There were no more hopes for the overthrow of Soviet power. The goal was the maximum reduction of the territory of Soviet Russia, the deterioration of its economic situation and the creation of a "cordon sanitaire" on the western borders. Calculations were made for the division of Ukraine, the separation of the south of Russia and Belarus from the center of the republic.
Soviet-Polish war Defeat of Wrangel
The Soviet government saw the threat brewing from Poland and took measures for a diplomatic settlement of relations. In August 1919, it declared null and void all Russia's treaties on the division of Poland and recognized the independent Polish state created by the decisions of the Treaty of Versailles. But the Head of State of Poland, Marshal J. Pilsudski, had far-reaching goals - to expand the territory of Poland, to form a federation with Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. For this it was necessary to inflict a military defeat on Russia. On April 25, Polish troops launched an offensive on the front from Pripyat to the Dniester. On May 6, Kyiv fell, it included Polish and Petliura units (under a yellow-blue flag and with a coat of arms in the form of a trident). The special character of this war is that it became the first large-scale military clash between the Soviet Republic and a neighboring bourgeois state formed on the territory of the former Russian Empire, that is, it was no longer a civil, but an interstate war of two different social systems. Some Polish historians present it as a liberationist, and Pilsudski as a national hero in the fight against "Soviet aggression". History shows that the beginning of this war was the aggression of Poland, and not Soviet Russia.
At this time, Wrangel's troops, who settled in the Crimea, also went on the offensive. In June, they reached the Dnieper and created a threat to the Donbass. However, there were no coordinated actions between the Polish and Wrangel offensives against the Soviet Republic, since their goals were different.
The Red Army concentrated its main efforts against Poland. Soon the Polish troops were stopped, and then a powerful counteroffensive began. According to the strategic plan approved at the plenum of the Central Committee, the forces of two fronts - the Western (commander - Tukhachevsky, members of the Armed Forces - Unshlikht, Dzerzhinsky) and the South-Western (commander - Yegorov, members of the Armed Forces - Berzin, Stalin) - with concentric attacks on Warsaw were to defeat the main forces of the Polish army and achieve victory. By mid-June, the Red Army had liberated Kyiv, Vilna, and Minsk. By the end of June, Soviet power was restored throughout Ukraine and Belarus. The offensive of the Red Army soon turned into a pursuit of the rapidly retreating Polish troops on the territory of Poland. On July 30, in Bialystok, headed by Yu. Yu. Markhlevsky, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Poland was created, which declared itself the new power in the country (Dzerzhinsky was a member of the committee). Under these conditions, the Second Congress of the Comintern is taking place, its delegates are seized with enthusiasm and expectation of a new upsurge of the revolutionary movement in Western Europe in connection with the approach of the Red Army.
Panic broke out in the West. The British Minister J. Curzon sent a note in which, on behalf of the Allies, he demanded to stop the offensive of the Red Army on the borders of Poland. On August 5, The Times announced the intention of British government circles to put 200,000 "volunteers" under arms for a new intervention against Russia. Entente countries provide Poland with urgent assistance. There arrives a military mission led by the French General M. Weygand. Additional mobilization is being carried out, nationalist propaganda and intimidation of the population with the loss of national independence is being deployed; the Catholic Church, which has great influence in Poland, actively supported Pilsudski.
Having quickly created a large grouping, the Polish command stopped the offensive of the Western Front near Warsaw and struck at the flank of its troops, weakened by a long offensive. Interaction with the Southwestern Front at that time was disrupted, its command did not comply with the order of the Revolutionary Military Council, and then the instruction of the Central Committee to urgently send the 1st Cavalry Army and the 12th Army to help the Western Front. The Western Front was defeated, a significant part of the troops surrounded. The rest of the troops of the front began to quickly roll back, organizing defense only near Minsk. 120 thousand Red Army soldiers were captured by the Poles, of which 60 thousand were killed in captivity, the fate of the rest is still unknown.
Under the circumstances, the Soviet government entered into peace negotiations. The country was exhausted, social tension intensified, and further warfare could lead to social upheavals. On October 12, the preliminary terms of the peace, later called the Riga Peace, were signed, with the establishment of borders that lasted until September 17, 1939 (Western Ukraine and Western Belarus retreated to Poland). In the autumn of 1920, peace treaties were also signed with the bourgeois governments of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
The reasons for the failure of the offensive in Poland were discussed at the IX Party Conference (September 1920). Lenin pointed out that they were present both in the policy of the Central Committee and in strategy. In politics, they overestimated the revolutionary readiness of the Polish workers to support Soviet power, their class solidarity (the workers actively participated in the defense of Warsaw), and in strategy - the forces of the Red Army in the main direction. Trotsky sharply raised the issue of non-compliance with the order by Yegorov and Stalin, considering them to be the culprits of the defeat. Opinions were also divided at the conference on the question of the possibility of developing a revolution in Western Europe in connection with the advance of the Red Army. Radek and Bukharin, according to their impressions, noted its low probability in Germany, and even more so in England and France.
The conclusion of the armistice determined the fate of Wrangel. In September, Frunze was appointed commander of the Southern Front. By decision of the Central Committee, the Crimea was to be liberated before the winter of 1921. At the end of October, the Wrangel troops were defeated in Northern Tavria. On the night of November 7-8, passing along the Sivash, the troops of the Southern Front, with the participation of the rebel units of Makhno, broke through the Turkish Wall and rapidly advanced into the Crimea. On November 13-15, Simferopol and Sevastopol were liberated. The remnants of the Wrangel troops were evacuated by the Entente fleet to Turkey and Europe.
This ended the Civil War as a special period in history. The country is moving to a peaceful life, to the restoration of the economy and the construction of a new society. The first working people's state in history, which took shape in the fire of the Civil War and in the struggle against intervention, won the right to an independent path of development.
Reasons for the victory of Soviet power in the Civil War
Considering the reasons for the victory, Western historiography focuses on the mistakes of the White Guard generals, the "cruel" dictatorship of the Bolsheviks, who forced the people to fight with repressions, and on external secondary factors. Without denying some degree of their influence, let us consider the main causes that determined the course of the war and its results.
First of all, one should point out the revolutionary, national liberation nature of the war for the power of the working people, for building a socially just society, against attempts to restore the rule of the overthrown classes of exploiters. The main factor in the victory was the alliance of the working class and the peasantry, who supported the Soviet government. The analysis of the social support of the Soviet power, carried out on the basis of biographies of persons awarded orders during the Civil War, is indicative. 33% of the awarded - from the peasants, 28 - from the middle strata, 24 - from the lower classes of the city, 6 - from the Cossacks, 7% - from the "tops" of the city. By national composition: 67.5% - Russians, 11 - Ukrainians, 5.4 - Latvians, 2.4 - Jews, the remaining 14% - almost three dozen other peoples. Overcoming the hostile opposition of the socialist parties during the Civil War contributed to the unification of the working people on the side of the Soviet government.
The second reason is the national liberation goals of the war. The fusion of counter-revolution with foreign intervention gave the struggle of Soviet power the character of a struggle for the independence of Russia from foreign domination. The national policy of the Bolsheviks ensured the support of the Soviet power by the forces of the national liberation movements, which opposed both the occupiers and the monarchical imperial goals of the White Guard movement. The creation of a military-political union of the Soviet republics during the Civil War was the second important factor in the victory of Soviet power.
The third reason is the cohesion and organization of the leading political force of Soviet power - the Bolshevik Party. Through its efforts, a multi-million combat-ready Red Army was created on the basis of a class principle, with the involvement of military specialists from the old army. The Soviet state managed to turn the country into a single military camp with the mobilization of all the forces of society for armed struggle. The military organization of the entire society became the most important factor in achieving victory.
The fourth reason is the high efficiency of the state and military leadership of the Bolshevik Party, the outstanding abilities and titanic activity of the leader of the Bolsheviks and the head of the first Soviet government, V. I. Lenin, the authoritative leader of the working people and the world communist movement.
The fifth reason is the support of the international working class. An important factor in the victory was the labor movement "Hands off Soviet Russia!" and the rise of the revolutionary movement in the troops of the interventionists, forcing the Entente to withdraw its armed forces from Russia. The revolutions in Europe gave great moral support to the struggling Soviet Russia, made it possible to annul the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and diverted significant forces of international imperialism from intervention.
Soviet Russia won both a military and a moral-political victory over world imperialism. As Lenin noted: “Firstly, we won back its workers and peasants from the Entente; secondly, we have acquired the neutrality of those small peoples who are its slaves; and thirdly, we began to win back from the Entente in its own countries the petty bourgeoisie and educated philistinism ... This is the third major victory. It turned out to be a victory not only on a Russian scale, but also on a world-historical scale.
The victory over counter-revolution and intervention came at a high price. Three years of war claimed the lives of 4.4 million people during the fighting, from hunger and epidemics (according to recent studies). In Soviet historiography, the losses were exaggerated, showing the damage caused by the intervention and the White Guards, up to 8, 10, 13 million people. Anti-Soviet historians exaggerate the loss figures even more - up to 20.30 million people from opposite positions. The total number of emigrants (wealthy classes, intelligentsia, active participants in the struggle against Soviet power) amounted to 2 million people, some of whom soon returned to Russia. In general, direct losses of the population amounted to 3.1% of the population. Historical studies show that these figures are comparable in percentage terms with the losses of the French Revolution of 1789-1794, the American Revolution and the Civil War of 1861-1865, although there was no intervention of such magnitude.
Territorial losses occurred as a result of the World War, the Civil War and the intervention. Russia has lost economically developed regions: Finland, Poland, the Baltic States, Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, Moldova. The devastation threw the country's economy back decades, led to the deep impoverishment of the entire people. Russia got the most difficult and cruel historical path of a breakthrough to a new socio-economic formation, to new social relations.
25. Reasons for the victory of the Red Army in the Civil War
Reasons for winning:
1) the population of Russia mainly consisted of peasants, the position of this class determined the winner in the civil war. The Bolsheviks managed to win over most of the country's population to their side, since during the offensive of the White troops, the rural population got the opportunity to compare. And this was not in favor of the whites, who wanted to return pre-revolutionary Russia. The advantage of the Reds was also that they took away only food, while the Whites took away both bread and land from the peasants in the territory subject to them;
2) the Bolsheviks carried out mass propaganda work. The peasants were told about the temporary nature of the emergency measures and promised to repay their debts after the war. The peasants chose the least evil and preferred to serve the Reds;
3) shortly after the start of the war, the Reds create a strong and regular army, which they recruit with the help of universal conscription. Because of this, there is an advantage in favor of the Reds;
4) attracting a huge number of military specialists who made the army professional;
5) the Reds did not have problems with ammunition, since they used the stocks of tsarist times concentrated in central Russia. And the dense network of railroads helped the army to be very mobile and always ready;
6) the policy of war communism also contributed to the victory of the Bolsheviks. The way to neutralize opponents was the red terror;
7) the national policy of the Bolsheviks attracted to their side the population of the national outskirts of the empire. White's slogan "one and indivisible Russia" deprived him of this support.
26. Carrying out the policy of "war communism" in Soviet Russia
The socio-economic policy of the Bolshevik government during the war years, which had as its goal the concentration of all labor and material resources in the hands of the state, led to the formation of a kind of war communism system. It was characterized by the following main features:
1. the nationalization of industrial enterprises included the transfer to martial law of defense factories and useful transport
2. over-centralization of the management of industry, which did not allow any economic independence in the localities.
3. further development of the principles of food dictatorship and the complete official prohibition of free trade. In January 1919, a surplus appraisal was introduced, according to which the state actually took away all the surplus grain from the peasants for free. In 1920, the allocation was extended to potatoes and vegetables.
4. naturalization of economic relations in the context of the almost complete depreciation of money, the issuance of food and manufactured goods rations to workers and employees, along with the lost value of cash wages, free use of housing, transport
5. the introduction of universal labor conscription, the creation of "labor armies" (the direction of military units to the "economic front": for logging, restoration of factories, roads)
In some ways, war communism, which was formed mainly under the pressure of the emergency situation of the Civil War, resembled that classless society of the future, free from commodity-money relations, which the Bolsheviks considered their ideal, hence its name.
The 8th Congress of the RCP(b) approved the new program of the parties, which proclaimed the main goal of building a socialist society in Russia on the basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
27. Implementation of the New Economic Policy in Soviet Russia and the USSR
Lenin's crisis had a comprehensive character: economic ruin, inactive transport.
All this was supplemented by a social catastrophe: a drop in living standards, hunger. A terrible warning was the uprising of the peasants of the Tambov province, Antonovshchina and the uprising of sailors, soldiers, workers in Krondshtat under the slogans of political freedom, the transformation of the soviets, the removal of the Bolsheviks from power. The crisis was not only a consequence of the war, it testified to the collapse of "war communism" as an attempt at a rapid transition from communism based on violence. In the spring of 1921, at the 10th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the new economic policy of the NEP was announced. New because it recognized the need for maneuver, allowing some freedom of economic activity, trade, commodity-money relations, concessions to the peasantry and private capital. Fundamentally, the goals have not changed - the transition to communism remained the program task of the parties and the state, but the methods of this transition were happily revised.
The NEP included a number of measures:
1. replacement of the surplus with a tax in kind
2. allowing free trade in agricultural products
3. the amalgamation of large enterprises into trusts that worked on the basis of self-financing and were subordinated to higher officials by the council of the national economy.
4. permission for the freedom of private capital of industry in agriculture, trade, in the service sector
5. admission of foreign capital, re-establishment of banks and the tax system
6. Carrying out a monetary reform based on emission restrictions
The achievements of the NEP are significant. By 1925, the pre-war level of industry and agriculture was basically reached, inflation was stopped, and the financial system was stabilized. At the same time, the successes of the NEP should not be exaggerated. He was characterized by serious contradictions, which led to a whole series of crises: the sale of industrial goods (autumn 1923), the shortage of industrial goods (autumn 1924-1925), grain procurements (winter 1927-1928), gave rise to a sharp struggle in the leadership of the party and the state .
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1. Analysis and comparison of domestic and foreign policy:
a) Red Movement;
b) White movement;
2. Factors:
a) socio-political;
b) territorial-economic;
3. Results
Why did the Bolsheviks win? In order to answer this question, it is necessary to analyze and compare the domestic and foreign policies pursued by the red and white movements, to consider the main factors that influenced the outcome of the Civil War:
The main source of the victory of the Red Army in the Civil War was the choice of the masses. The people assessed the Soviet government as their own, protecting the interests of the ordinary worker. The new regime expressed the interests of the working class. The Constitution of July 10, 1918 proclaimed the abolition of the exploitation of man by man and the establishment of socialism, in which there would be no division into classes. The constitution affirmed the equality of nations, compulsory labor and military service for all, and universal suffrage. It was also a big plus that Russia came out of the First World War, as people were very tired of constant wars (on February 23, 1917, there was a speech by women in Petrograd under the slogan: "Bread! Return our husbands of war!"). March 3, 1918 Russia signed the Treaty of Brest, according to which she lost the Baltic states, part of Belarus, indemnity to Turkey. Ukraine and Finland were recognized as independent. This step played an important role in the victory of the Reds in the Civil War.
On the side of the Soviet government there was an important advantage, territorial, - the central position in Russia, in the most economically developed regions, that is, in its only part, where there is a rather dense network of railways and other roads, with which it was possible to move troops to any sector of the front, to achieve a temporary but decisive advantage. In addition, the main part of the Russian metalworking industry was located here. The White movement had to function on the outskirts of the former Russian Empire, where a protest against the national and bureaucratic oppression of the center had long been ripening, which was expressed in the desire for "independence" and autonomy.
The Bolsheviks managed to create a reliable and constantly growing army, despite the large number of deserters. The Red Army, consisting of several hundred thousand combat-ready people, has become a real force. In addition, the success of the Bolsheviks was facilitated by the attraction to their side of 75 thousand former officers of the Russian army, who had knowledge and experience. In the units of the Red Army, it was possible to achieve a strengthening of discipline, including through the execution of deserters, and other punishments for failure to comply with the order. The army was commanded by well-known military leaders (Tukhachevsky, Budyonny, Kamenev).
The transition of Soviet power from September 1918 to a state of siege was also important, which made it possible to mobilize all the resources of the country. Party, state and military leadership is concentrated in one center, in the hands of fanatical like-minded people. In the camp of the Bolsheviks, operating under the recognized and authoritarian leader Lenin, there were disputes, but there were almost no disagreements dangerous in a military situation. There were extremely rare cases of betrayal in the leadership.
The white movement was not homogeneous. Among its slogans and participants there were supporters of both the monarchy and the republic; some wanted reforms, others suggested that nothing be changed. Therefore, the leaders of the white movement - M.V. Alekseev, L.G. Kornilov, A.I. Denikin - often had to "go against the tide", overcome the conservative and monarchist views of a significant part of the officers of the Volunteer Army. The only thing that united the various forces of the white movement was the desire to return the property lost by the upper classes.
The white movement also lost the propaganda war to the reds. For the reasons that the white movement was not led by politicians,
and the professional military, it also failed to offer such a program that could lead to the consent of all the forces dissatisfied with the regime of the Bolshevik government. Whites could not offer a clear and understandable ideology. They were afraid of alienating the monarchist and right-wing anti-Bolshevik forces. Therefore, by rejecting socialist terminology that was politically advantageous to them, white leaders lost a powerful ideological weapon. Divided by personal ambitions, they limited themselves to a single unpopular goal - the restoration of the old order. The white generals talked only about the revival of the army, the restoration of order, and vaguely promised that after the victory they would allow the people of Russia to choose their own political system. Such a policy, called "non-prejudice", was unconvincing for the masses. The white movement in the eyes of different sections of the people was associated with the restoration of autocracy, hated then by almost all groups of the population without exception. The silence of the whites about the agrarian policy unequivocally told the peasantry that with the arrival of the whites, the returning landowners would take away their land, which happened in the provinces occupied by the white armies. In the spring of 1919, the Kolchak government issued a declaration on the land issue, which announced the right of peasants cultivating someone else's land to harvest it. Giving in the future a number of promises to allocate land to landless and land-poor peasants, the government pointed to the need to return the captured small landowners who cultivate them with their own labor, and stated that "in its final form, the age-old land issue will be resolved by the national assembly."
This declaration was the same marking time as at one time the policy of the provisional government in the land question, and was, in essence, indifferent to the Siberian peasant, who did not know the oppression of the landowner. It did not give anything definite to the peasantry of the Volga provinces either.
The government of southern Russia, headed by General Denikin, was even less able to satisfy the peasant with its land policy, demanding that the owners of the occupied small lands be given a third of their harvest. Some representatives of the Denikin government went even further, starting to expel the expelled landlords in the old ashes.
The peasants were not satisfied with either the policy of the Whites or the policy of the Reds, but of two evils - one that seemed to them temporary and the other, which seemed to be a final return to the past - they chose the lesser, namely the side of the Bolsheviks. The White Guard governments returned factories and plants to their former owners. Kolchak recognized the pre-war and war debts of tsarist Russia (18.5 billion rubles). Pre-revolutionary labor legislation was restored, trade unions were dispersed (in Siberia) or loyal to the government (in the south) were created.
Thus, the White Guards deprived themselves of the support of wide sections of the urban population. Denikin's slogan of "one and indivisible Russia" left no hope for foreigners striving for independence. Very soon the intelligentsia and the middle strata, who initially followed them, were disappointed.
The allies suggested that the White Guards grant independence to the Finns and Poles, and autonomy to the Baltics and the Caucasus. The Whites refused such "deals" that threatened the unity of "Great Russia". Therefore, in the autumn of 1919, at the decisive moment of the joint offensive of Denikin and Yudenich, they lost the support of Estonia, Finland and Poland. Piłsudski, who knew perfectly well that Polish national claims would certainly not be satisfied by the White generals, to whom he could give great help, preferred to wait for their defeat before launching an offensive against the Soviet state. The Whites also lost the position of the Caucasian peoples, who were ready to be content with the status of a federation. The stubbornness of Denikin, and then Wrangel, in relation to the demands of the Cossacks deprived the Whites of confidence and their most loyal allies. The ideology and practice of militant anti-Semitism did great harm to the white movement: bloody Jewish pogroms often took place in the territories controlled by the whites, while the reds spoke about the equality of all peoples of different nationalities. The Whites established a regime of terror: they dealt with their opponents according to the laws of war, widely using the death penalty. The torture of those arrested was a common occurrence. Members of underground Bolshevik organizations were subjected to particularly harsh treatment. The "Extraordinary Court" in Samara sentenced to death for rebellion against the authorities, resistance to their orders, attacks on the military, damage to communications and roads, treason, spreading false rumors, speculation. There were also mass executions not only of responsible Soviet workers, but also of everyone who was suspected of recognizing Soviet power, were carried out without trial.
The Bolsheviks mastered the art of propaganda in the most varied forms with extraordinary dexterity. The white movement could not oppose anything to the primitive, but intelligible for millions of illiterate inhabitants of the country, the socialist propaganda of the Bolsheviks, carried out by the talented left-wing intelligentsia. Despite the paper hunger, the Reds flooded the country with propaganda material - texts of speeches and portraits of "leaders", decrees and posters. Political literacy courses were opened, where it was possible, cinema was used, agitation trains ran around the country, revolutionary posters, leaflets, brochures, and newspapers disseminating Lenin's ideas were issued in millions of copies. Foreign intervention in support of the Whites allowed the Bolsheviks to present themselves as the defenders of the motherland: they guarded the lands of Russia from foreign invaders, whose accomplices inside the country could only be considered "enemies of the people." The Bolsheviks won not only with a bayonet and terror, but also with romantic songs, extraordinary uniforms, beautiful rhyming words about the future "kingdom of equality and fraternity", funny, memorable satire. The skillful use of social and partly patriotic motives, plots and images was the strength of Bolshevik propaganda.
In addition, the Bolsheviks were strong in that those who joined them were given the opportunity to enter the new, newly created state apparatus and a tempting career in the future society opened up.
The offensives of the White Army were not synchronized, which turned out to be in the hands of the Reds, who could transfer their forces along rather dense networks of railways. During 1919, the Whites launched three grand but poorly coordinated offensives against the Bolsheviks who controlled central Russia. In March, Admiral Kolchak began to advance on a broad front from the Urals to the Volga. After the first successful operations, instead of advancing to connect with Denikin's armies approaching Saratov and coordinate his actions with the southern armies, he decided to advance to the east and enter Moscow first. This gave the Bolsheviks the opportunity to direct their shock forces against his troops, in order to then turn them against the white army moving from the south. Kolchak, defeated by the troops of S. Kamenev, was forced to retreat in the most difficult conditions, since the Siberian peasants rebelled against their government, which signed an order to return the land to the former owners. Pursued by partisans, Kolchak was captured and shot in Irkutsk in February 1920.
Starting his advance from the Kuban, General Denikin, as a result of stubborn battles (late 1918-1919), eventually established control over most of Ukraine. He broke the resistance of Petlyura, the leader of the Ukrainian Duma, which seized power after the Germans left, and crushed the Bolsheviks, supported at that time by supporters of the anarchist Makhno. In June 1919, having gathered an army of 150 thousand people, Denikin launched an offensive against Moscow along the entire 700-kilometer front from Kyiv to Tsaritsyn. In September, his troops reached Voronezh, Kursk, Orel. The capital was less than 400 km away. At this time, the troops of General Yudenich came out from the Baltic. This offensive, supported by Latvian and Estonian units, as well as British tanks, was stopped at the end of October, less than 100 kilometers from Petrograd, when Lenin had already lost hope of saving the capital. The Whites retreated to the Crimea, where Denikin handed over command of the remaining army (less than 4 thousand people) to Baron Wrangel, who resisted until November 1920.
However, the green movement headed by N.I. Makhno. It was a peasant movement in the border areas between the red and white fronts, where power was constantly changing, but each of them demanded submission to their own orders and laws, sought to replenish their ranks by mobilizing the local population. Deserting from both the White and the Red Army, the peasants, fleeing from the new mobilization, hiding in the forests and creating partisan detachments. They chose green as their symbol - the color of will and freedom, at the same time they opposed themselves to both red and white movements. The performances of the greens covered the entire south of Russia: the Black Sea region, the North Caucasus, and the Crimea. But the peasant movement reached its greatest scope and organization in the south of Ukraine. This was largely due to the personality of the leader of the rebel peasant army N.I. Makhno.
Fighting the Germans and Ukrainian nationalists - Petliurists, N.I. Makhno did not allow the Reds with their food detachments to enter the territory liberated by his detachments.
In December 1918, Makhno's army captured the largest city in the south - Yekaterinoslav. By February 1919, the Makhnovist army had increased to 30,000 regular fighters and 20,000 unarmed reserves, which, if necessary, could be assembled under arms overnight. Under his control were the grain-growing districts of Ukraine, a number of the most important railway junctions.
N.I. Makhno agreed to join the Red Army with his detachments for a joint fight against Denikin. For the victories won over Denikin, according to some reports, he was among the first to be awarded the Order of the Red Banner. And General A.I. Denikin promised N.I. Makhno half a million rubles. However, while providing military support to the Red Army, Makhno took an independent position, establishing his own rules, ignoring the instructions and orders of the central authorities.
The Bolsheviks, on the other hand, took the ideas of the “greens” in agriculture as the basis of the new economic policy.
At the end of 1919, the victory of the Bolsheviks was no longer in doubt. Foreign troops were returning home: after the uprising raised on April 6 in their units, the French began to evacuate from Odessa. On September 27, the British left Arkhangelsk. In the autumn of 1919, the interventionists were forced to leave the territory of the Caucasus (they remained in Batumi until March 1921) and Siberia. The defeat of Wrangel in November 1920 marked the end of foreign intervention and then the civil war.
Results of the Civil War:
1. The defeat of the anti-Bolshevik forces
2. The victory of the Red Army
3. The defeat of the intervention
4. Preservation of the unity of the territory
5. The victory created political, social and ideological conditions for strengthening the power of the Bolsheviks
The civil war was a terrible disaster for Russia. It led to a further deterioration of the economic situation in the country, to complete economic ruin. Material damage amounted to more than 50 billion rubles. gold. Industrial production decreased by 7 times. The transport system was completely paralyzed. Many segments of the population, forcibly drawn into the war by the opposing sides, became its innocent victims. In battles, from hunger, disease and terror, 8 million people died, 2 million people were forced to emigrate. Among them were many members of the intellectual elite. Irreplaceable moral and ethical losses had profound socio-cultural consequences, which for a long time affected the history of the Soviet country.
But could there be another outcome in the civil war? Could White have won? May 25, 1920 P.N. Wrangel published the "Land on Land", according to which part of the landowners for a small ransom was transferred to the ownership of the peasants. In addition to the Law on Zele, the Law on Volost Zemstvos and Rural Communities was issued, which were to become bodies of peasant self-government instead of Village Councils. In an effort to win over the Cossacks, Wrangel approved a new regulation on the order of regional autonomy for the Cossack lands. The workers were promised new factory legislation that really protected their rights. In fact, P.N. Wrangel and his government, composed of prominent representatives of the Kadet Party, proposed the very "third way" that had been substantiated by the parties of revolutionary democracy. However, time has been lost. Not a single opposition force now posed a danger to the Bolsheviks. The white movement, in fact, was crushed, the socialist parties were split. The people of Russia have reached such a state that they have ceased to trust anyone at all. A huge number of soldiers were on both sides. They fought in the troops of Kolchak, then, taken prisoner, served in the ranks of the Red Army, transferred to the Volunteer Army and again fought against the Bolsheviks, and again ran over to the Bolsheviks and fought against the volunteers. In the south of Russia, the population survived up to 14 regimes, and each government demanded obedience to its own rules and laws. Now the Ukrainian Rada with the German occupation, then the Hetmanship under the protectorate of the Germans, then Petliura, then the Bolsheviks, then the Whites, then again the Bolsheviks. And so several times. People were waiting to see who would take it. Under these conditions, the Bolsheviks tactically outplayed their opponents. The victory of the Red Army in the civil war had a great influence on the course of the historical development of our country.
List of used literature:
1. History of the Fatherland: a textbook for universities / Ed. acad. Polyaka G.B. - 2nd ed., revised. and additional - M.: UNITY - DANA, Unity, 2002
2. History of the Fatherland: a textbook for universities / Skvortsova E.M., Markova A.N. - M.: UNITY-DANA, 2004
3. History of the Soviet state 1900-1991 / N. Werth; M.: Progress: Progress - Academy, 1992, pp. 115-140
4. History of Russia IX - XX centuries. A course of lectures, ed. doc. history Sciences prof. Levanova B. V. - M .: ZelO, 1996
5. History of Russia from Rurik to Putin. People. Events. Dates. / Anisimov E. V. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2006, pp. 320 - 323
6. History of Russia IX - XX centuries: Textbook / Ed. Ammona G.A., Ionicheva N.P. -M.: INFRA - M, 2006, pp. 537-539
7. History of Russia: textbook / Arslanov R.A., Kerrov V.V. Moseykina M.N., Smirnova T.M. school, 2001.
Civil war and intervention in Russia in 1918-1920
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4. Reasons for the victory of Soviet power and the defeat of the white movement in the Civil War
The reasons for the victory of the Bolsheviks were such favorable factors as a good location (central, not peripheral, like the White movement), the presence of a developed central transport system, which increased the maneuverability of troops and supplies. The Soviet government managed to arrange deliveries to the front at the expense of the rear and achieve the support of the majority of the country's population. The ideological unity of the military campaigns was also envisaged. In the summer of 1919, a military-political union of the Soviet republics was formed, which greatly increased the defense capability of Soviet Russia, helped to mobilize the country's material and human resources to repel the offensives of anti-Soviet forces. On June 1, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted the Decree "On the unification of the Soviet republics - Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus for the struggle against world imperialism." A unified military command was approved. Industry, transport, finance were united.
The reason for the defeat of the white movement was that numerous national and regional governments were not able to fight the Bolsheviks alone and could create a strong united anti-Bolshevik front due to mutual territorial and political claims and contradictions.
The allies of the whites from among the Entente countries also did not have a common goal and, despite the intervention in some port cities, did not provide the whites with enough military equipment to conduct successful military operations, not to mention any serious support by their troops.
The reasons for the victory of the Reds and the defeat of the Whites should also include the human factor. Do not forget that any army is supplied with what can be taken from the peasants. The main thing that an army needs is people, horses and bread. Of course, the peasants did not give all this voluntarily to either the whites or the reds. The outcome of the war was determined by how much effort had to be expended to get it all. The red peasants resisted much weaker than the whites. The hatred of the peasantry and the elite of the whites was mutual and was almost racial in nature. This hatred for the common people was not in sight of the Reds, whom the peasants saw - Chapaev or Shchors, they were "the same race." This factor seems to me not unimportant, and may even be one of the main ones.
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The reasons for the victory of the Red Army over the interventionists and the White Guards basically boil down to the following.
1. The civil war waged by the working people of Soviet Russia was a just war.
The workers and peasants of Russia, having overthrown the landlords and capitalists, continued their struggle in the civil war to strengthen their power, to create a socialist society. The policy of the Soviet government expressed the interests of the people, and the people supported it as their policy. The Red Army - the brainchild of the people - fought for the interests of the people, while the White Guards and interventionists went against the people. Consciousness of this enabled the masses of the people, exhausted by the long-term world imperialist war, to find the strength within themselves to bring to victory a civil war of unparalleled difficulty.
2. The main reason for the victory of the Soviet country over the interventionists and the White Guards is its social and state system, based on a strong alliance of workers and peasants and the friendship of peoples. In the struggle against the landlords, capitalists and the world bourgeoisie, a military-political alliance of the working class and the peasantry was formed and strengthened. The experience of the masses themselves, who knew all the horrors of the intervention and the White Guards, strengthened this alliance. The War of Liberation against the interventionists and the White Guards "caused a patriotic upsurge in the people, led to the internal strengthening of the country. Repelling the onslaught of foreign conquerors and the White Guards, who sought to extinguish the "-ag revolution, break. The Soviet" republic was tempered. Workers and the Koestians of the Ukpegshlei ^ union They rallied more closely AROUND Gavtia This was an important feature of the Soviet V ^ TIOR ^
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"3. The correct national policy of the party and the Soviet government united the working people of the oppressed nations of all Russia in the past in the struggle against the interventionists and the counter-revolution. The counter-revolution, gaining temporary victories, everywhere restored the old regime of national oppression. The working people of the formerly oppressed nations were convinced by their own experience that Soviet power - this is the only and lasting guarantee of real freedom and national independence of peoples.In the civil war, the alliance of working people of various nationalities, who fought shoulder to shoulder in the ranks of the Red Army, was strengthened.
GREAT support for the Red Army was provided by partisans operating behind enemy lines. Organized and led by the party, they diverted the forces of the enemy, created an unbearable situation for him: they disrupted communications, destroyed manpower and military equipment, and destroyed the apparatus of power of the invaders. 5.
Soviet foreign policy contributed to the victory of the Red Army. Led directly by the Central Committee, the Soviet government consistently pursued a policy of equal rights for all nations large and small, skillfully taking advantage of the deep contradictions between the imperialist countries, the miscalculations of opponents, and thereby strengthening the position of the proletarian state. 6.
The victory of the Red Army was facilitated by the revolutionary struggle of the international proletariat against intervention. The workers of the capitalist countries disrupted the delivery of weapons, created committees "Hands off Russia", which made it difficult for the interventionists and helped the Soviet state.
“... It is this support,” Lenin wrote, “it is precisely the sympathy for us of the working masses - and the workers and peasant, agricultural masses - all over the world, even in the powers that are most hostile to us, it is this support and this sympathy that was the last, most a decisive source, a decisive reason that all the invasions directed against us ended in failure ... ”(vol. 44, p. 293). 7 The decisive condition for the victory of the Soviet people of the Red Army was the leadership of the Communist Party, which managed to raise and organize the proletariat and huge mln. there is a tested Bolshevik township "" You-? Ayush-.yusya ool in the construction of Soviet military-ch-- .; Questjapsko ^ "ob-" Cent-o-GlnGy Paotai Committee, headed by B 14
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At the call of the Central Committee, the COMMUNISTS joined the army. The party lost at least 50 thousand of its members who gave their lives for the cause of the revolution. Despite this, the party's ranks doubled during the war. Hundreds of thousands of advanced slaves? neither the peasants JOIN the party, they went through the SCHOOL of a courageous bsoba. In the civil war, the old cadres of party leaders, comrades-in-arms and students of V. I. Lenin, the organizers of the victory of the great revolution, were tempered, and new cadres of leaders grew up, on whose shoulders the work of eliminating the consequences of the war and building a socialist society fell.
Among them were: A. A. Andreev, A. S. Bubnov, K. E. Voroshilov, S. II. Sev, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, A. A. Zhdanov, R. S. Zemlyachka, M. I. Kalinin, S. M. Kirov, S. V. Kosior, L. B. Krasin, G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, V. V. Kuibyshev, D. 3. Manuilsky, A II Mikoyan A. F. Myasnikov, G. K. Ordzhonikidze, "G. I. Petrovsky. P. P. Postyshev, Ya E Rudzutak, Ya-M. Sverdlov N. A. Skrypnik, I. V. Stalin, M. V. Frunze, A. D. Tsyurupa, N. M. Shvernik, E. M. Yaroslavsky.
EVERYWHERE: in the rear, at the front and in the underground, the Party was together with the masses and at their head. She led the people to victory.
“... Only due to the fact that the party was on guard,” Lenin said, “that the party was most strictly disciplined, and because the authority of the party united all departments and institutions, and according to the slogan that was given by the Central Committee, like one person, dozens , hundreds, thousands and ultimately millions, and only because unheard-of sacrifices were made - only THEREFORE the miracle that happened could happen "(vol. 40, p. 240)"
The defeat of the interventionists and the White Guards was of great importance not only for the Soviet country. The lessons of the civil war in Russia are also of great international importance. one.
The collapse of the intervention and the results of the civil war in Russia proved to the working people of the whole world that the internal counter-revolution is not capable of breaking the people's power, which is based on the alliance of the proletariat and the peasantry, led by the working class. Of course, not a single overthrown class surrenders without having tried all the possibilities of resistance. In Russia, the landowners and the bourgeoisie have used every means to regain their lost power over the people: brutal terror, sabotage, murders from around the corner, bloody riots. But they turned out to be powerless over the people headed by the Communist Party. The intervention, the armed intervention of foreign imperialists inspired the defeated exploiting classes, and they attacked the people with weapons, plunging the country into a long, tense war. Through the fault of the imperialists of England, France, the USA, Japan and Germany, the working people of the Soviet country had to endure untold suffering and incalculable victims. 2.
The defeat of the intervention in Russia showed everyone, and especially the oppressed peoples, that world imperialism can be beaten and smashed. The victories of the Red Army showed the peoples of the East that, no matter how strong imperialism with all its equipment and well-trained army, the struggle against it is not hopeless and the liberation of the peoples is feasible. The experience of the Soviet Republic, which withstood the invasion of the most powerful countries, inspired the enslaved peoples and strengthened the national liberation movement throughout the world. The oppressed peoples became more and more convinced that, together with the working people of the Soviet country and the international proletariat, they could achieve victory over imperialism. 3.
The struggle against foreign interventionists and their White Guard proteges revealed the international character of Soviet power. Fighting for their interests, the workers and peasants of Russia defended the interests of the working people of all countries. The working people of the Soviet country diverted the forces of the imperialists, weakened them and thereby helped the workers of the capitalist countries to achieve success in the struggle against their bourgeoisie. The international proletariat was aware that the Soviet government was also fighting for its interests, and therefore the struggle of the world proletariat against intervention was not only help to the Soviet people, but also a revolutionary war against its exploiters.
4. During the period of intervention and civil war, disputes about the advantages of Soviet democracy over bourgeois democracy were practically resolved. In all capitalist countries, even the most democratic, the war was accompanied by the curtailment of democratic freedoms, the violation or oblivion of the constitution, the intensification of violence against the masses by terror, the creation of military penal servitude for the "workers" of the "Civil Warrior" in Russia, was accompanied by a gigantic growth of the civil war masses, the involvement of new layers of workers in sub-DITICHR^K "Yu activity Za ^ Ggvazhd
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“The people will never be defeated,” Lenin said, “in which the workers and peasants for the most part recognized, felt and saw that they were defending their own. Soviet power is the power of the working people who defend the cause, the victory of which will provide them and their children with the opportunity to enjoy all the benefits of culture, all the creations of human labor ”(vol. 38, p. 315).
- Chapter 2 Security in Europe after the Kosovo War Lessons from the Kosovo War
