The question of when the civil war began in Russia is debatable. Episodes of armed clashes took place from the very beginning of the revolution, i.e. from February 1917. However, large-scale operations of large armed armies on the battlefields unfolded from the end of May 1918.

Background of the Russian Civil War :

Changing the nature of political power - the overthrow of the Provisional Government by the Bolsheviks, which caused resistance not only from the right and monarchists, but also from liberals;

The Bolsheviks' rejection of the idea of ​​a homogeneous socialist government and the principles of parliamentarism (the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly) led to the participation of moderate socialists in the struggle against the Bolsheviks;

Other undemocratic measures of the Bolsheviks (dictatorship, repressions, activities of emergency bodies, persecution of the opposition), which caused discontent not only among the intelligentsia and peasants, but also among the workers

The conclusion of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk aroused the dissatisfaction of the general population and served as the reason for the actions against the Bolsheviks of their former allies - the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries;

The economic policy of the Soviet government in the countryside, which led to the actual abolition of the Decree on Land, the establishment of a food dictatorship, moved the many millions of peasants to fight against the Bolsheviks and became the main factor that gave the war a national scale.

Operating forces.

Red Army of the Bolsheviks. On September 2, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee declared the Soviet Republic a "single military camp." The Revolutionary Military Council headed by L.D. Trotsky was created, which carried out direct leadership of the army. The post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the RSFSR was established (since September 1918 it was occupied by former Colonel I.I. Vatsetis, from July 1919 - by former Colonel S.S. Kamenev). L.D. Trotsky took vigorous measures to strengthen the Red Army: strict discipline was introduced, forced mobilization of former officers of the tsarist army was carried out, and an institution of military commissars was created to control the political line of commanders. By the end of 1918, the strength of the Red Army exceeded 1.5 million people.

The White movement was represented by several large military formations. An army was deployed in the South of Russia and the North Caucasus under the leadership of Generals M.V. Alekseev and L.G. Kornilov. In Estonia, the White Guard army was led by General N.N. Yudenich. In the North of the country, parts of the White Army were commanded by General E.K. Miller, in the Volga region - by General V.O. Kappel. In Siberia, the three hundred thousandth white army was formed by Admiral A.V. Kolchak, who proclaimed himself "the supreme ruler of the Russian state."

A feature of the Civil War in Russia was the presence on its territory of a large interventionist group of troops, which led to the prolongation of the war and multiplied human casualties.

There are several periods in the history of the Civil War.

Stage I - mid-1918-1919. was decisive for the Bolsheviks. The White Guards launched three grand offensives, but poorly coordinated, against the Bolsheviks. Admiral Kolchak advanced on a broad front into the Urals to the Volga, not coordinating his actions with the White Guard General Denikin, who was operating in the south of the country. This allowed the Bolsheviks to direct strike forces against the White Army. By February 1920 - the defeat of the troops of Yudenich, advancing on Petrograd from the Baltic states.

Stage II - June 1919 - March 1920 - Denikin's offensive on Moscow (700 km from the front) from Kyiv to Tsaritsyn, failures near Orel and Voronezh of Denikin's troops. a huge role was played by the First Cavalry Army under the command of Budyonny. The Whites retreated to the Crimea. Denikin handed over command of the remaining army to Baron Wrangel

Stage III - September–November 1920 - to fight Wrangel, a southern front was formed under the command of Frunze. Defeat of Wrangel. The assault on Perekop. The southern front has been liquidated. It is generally accepted that the Civil War ended with the defeat of Wrangel.

Stage IV - spring 1920 - Poland (Pilsudski) began hostilities against the Soviet government. The Western Front (Tukhachevsky) and the Southwestern Front (Egorov) were formed. The Red Army approached Warsaw, where it suffered a crushing defeat. In March 1921, peace was signed with Poland in Riga.

The Bolsheviks skillfully used the powerful economic potential of the country, which they controlled, quickly maneuvered their forces, a huge administrative apparatus, a clear program made it possible to mobilize into the army. At the head of the white army were professional soldiers, but useless politicians. The lack of concerted action, the unpopular program - the restoration of the monarchy - all this became the reasons for their defeat.

Summing up, it should be noted:

The civil war and foreign intervention caused enormous damage to the Russian economy. Demographic losses from the autumn of 1917 to 1922 amounted to almost 13 million people; emigration - about 2 million people.

The experience of the Civil War had a decisive influence on the formation of the political culture of the Bolshevik leaders. Military considerations played a decisive role in the movement of the party towards centralism, bureaucratic hierarchy and command-administrative methods of government. There was a process of militarization of the party. The emergency wartime conditions facilitated the collapse of democracy and the establishment of a rigid one-party dictatorship in the country.

An important consequence of the Civil War was the formation of a new consciousness, characterized by a combination of revolutionary romanticism and an extremely low assessment of individual human life and personality.

Political Causes of the Civil War

The liquidation of the Provisional Government and the Constituent Assembly, the socio-economic and political actions of the Bolsheviks set the nobility, the wealthy sections of the urban population, the intelligentsia, the clergy, and a significant part of the regular military against the new government. The discrepancy between the goals of transforming society and the methods for achieving them alienated a significant part of the Russian peasantry, the Cossacks, from Lenin and his party.

Persons who resisted the economic actions of the authorities were immediately persecuted.

So, already on November 22, 1917, the "Decree on the Court" was adopted, which proclaimed "revolutionary legality." Another decree adopted by Lenin on November 28 "On the arrest of the leaders of the Civil War against the Revolution" legally justified the conduct of the "Red Terror".

Remark 1

The persecution of dissidents began.

More than 150 newspaper editorial offices were closed, while others were taken under the control of the authorities. The new government - the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) - declared illegal the activities of most political parties. Their leaders were arrested and executed. An important element in the formation of the power of the Bolsheviks was the creation on December 7, 1917 of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK), which combined all the repressive functions. The Cheka was headed by F. Dzerzhinsky.

Resistance to the Bolsheviks grew rapidly and gained rampant proportions, therefore, already in January 1918, the creation of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA) and the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Fleet (RKKF) began. The formation of military units took place in the conditions of war.

Social Causes of the Civil War

Remark 2

The actions of the Bolsheviks carried out within the framework of the policy of "war communism" caused particular criticism of the opposition. They envisaged overcoming the economic crisis through the use of dictatorial forceful methods.

The policy of "war communism" was based on theoretical doctrines on the possibility of a rapid transition to the communist way of life - a society where there is no exploitation of man by man, where all sections of society are equal in their rights and duties.

All this assumed the denial of the market, money, the nationalization of all industry, the introduction of surplus distribution for the peasants (a system of forced procurement of food by state structures together with committees of the poor and workers' food groups), direct product exchange between town and country, replacement of trade by state distribution of products on a class basis by cards , the introduction of universal labor service, equalization of wages, a rigid dictatorial system for managing the entire life of society.

The Bolsheviks were opposed by supporters of the Provisional Government, the monarchy, mostly from the privileged, wealthy sections of the population. However, peasants and workers also fought in the White Guard armies. Some of them were forced into the army, while others - because of their personal beliefs: faith in God, the desire to own property, land, which was contrary to the ideology of the Bolsheviks and their policy of "war communism".

Remark 3

The situation gradually escalated and escalated from local clashes and conflicts into a full-scale civil war.

Among the supporters of Bolshevism there were many representatives of the nobility, former tsarist generals, and the intelligentsia. The former tsarist officers V. Antonov-Ovseenko, A. Brusilov, N. Muravyov and others ended up in the leadership of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army. Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Jews and representatives of other nationalities of the former Russian Empire fought on both sides.

Often the interests and aspirations of the soldiers in the Bolshevik and White Guard armies differed significantly from the goals of their leadership. Quite common were cases when soldiers and officers moved several times from one belligerent army to another. There were also family tragedies when people from the same family fought against each other.

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The policy of war communism and NEP.

War communism - the name of the internal policy of the Soviet state, carried out in 1918-1921

Civil war, background, operating forces, periods, results.

The civil war in Russia is an armed struggle between different groups of the population, which was based on deep social, national and political contradictions (Yu.A. Polyakov), which initially had a regional (local), and then acquired a national scale.
A feature of the Civil War in Russia was the presence on its territory of a large interventionist group of troops, which led to the prolongation of the war and multiplied human casualties.
Among the causes of the Russian Civil War were the following:
- a change in the nature of political power - the overthrow of the Provisional Government by the Bolsheviks, which caused resistance not only from the right and monarchists, but also from liberals;
- the Bolsheviks' rejection of the idea of ​​a homogeneous socialist government and the principles of parliamentarism (the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly) led to the participation of moderate socialists in the fight against the Bolsheviks;
- other non-democratic measures of the Bolsheviks (dictatorship, repressions, activities of emergency bodies, persecution of the opposition), which caused discontent not only among the intelligentsia and peasants, but also among the workers. Thus, the prohibition of strikes in January 1918, the beginning of the nationalization of trade unions, and the subordination of factory committees to them led to the revival of Menshevik influence among the workers.
- the conclusion of the Brest Peace caused discontent among the general population and caused protests against the Bolsheviks by their former allies - the Left Social Revolutionaries;
- the economic policy of the Soviet government in the countryside, which led to the actual abolition of the Decree on Land, the establishment of a food dictatorship, the organization of food detachments (the number of fighters of which increased from 12 to 80 thousand in three months), the processes of decossackization, pushed the many millions of peasants to fight against the Bolsheviks and became the main factor that gave the war a national dimension.
White movement. During the years of the Civil War, the leading force in the fight against the Bolsheviks and the Soviet government was a powerful military-political force in the face of the white movement. The white idea itself was born among the generals of the Russian army and part of the Octobrist-Cadet leaders as early as August 1917, during the Kornilov rebellion.
The main slogan of the white movement was the struggle against the Bolsheviks for the salvation of Russia, as well as
- the demand for the convocation of the Constituent Assembly,
- protection of property rights of citizens,
- restoration of the Russian army on the basis of genuine military discipline,
- the national idea and slogan of a united and indivisible Russia.
The number of white armies was relatively small. So, Admiral A.V. Kolchak at the moment of the highest activity mobilized about 500 thousand people, generals A.I. Denikin - 100 thousand, N.N. Yudenich - 20 thousand. The decisive factor in the foreign policy of the white governments was the factor of dependence on military assistance and supplies from the allies. This help was directly connected with the military successes of the white movement.
First stage (October 1917 - May 1918). During this period, armed clashes were local in nature. After the October uprising, General A.M. rose to fight the revolution. Kaledin, followed by the deposed Prime Minister A.F. Kerensky, Cossack General P.N. Krasnov, in the south of the Urals - Ataman A.I. Dutov. By the end of 1917, a powerful center of counter-revolution arose in the south of Russia. Here the Central Rada of Ukraine opposed the new government. A Volunteer Army was formed on the Don (supreme leader - A.V. Alekseev, commander-in-chief - L.G. Kornilov, after his death - A.I. Denikin).
In March-April 1918, units of the British (in Murmansk), American and Japanese (in the Far East) troops landed.
Second stage (May - November 1918). Expansion of intervention. In May-June 1918, the armed struggle took on a nationwide scale. At the end of May, an armed uprising of the 45,000th Czechoslovak Corps began in Siberia. In Kazan, the Czechoslovaks seized the gold reserves of Russia (over 30 thousand pounds of gold and silver with a total value of 650 million rubles).
In August, the British landed in Transcaucasia, driving out German troops from there, Anglo-French landing forces occupied Arkhangelsk and Odessa.
National Defense Organization. On September 2, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to turn the Soviet Republic into a military camp. In September, the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic was created under the chairmanship of L.D. Trotsky - the body that stood at the head of all fronts and military institutions. On November 30, a decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was adopted on the formation of the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense, headed by V.I. Lenin. The head of the military department, L.D. Trotsky, took vigorous measures to strengthen the Red Army: strict discipline was introduced, forced mobilization of former officers of the tsarist army was carried out, and an institution of military commissars was created to control the political line of commanders. By the end of 1918, the strength of the Red Army exceeded 1.5 million people.
Third stage (November 1918 - spring 1919). At this stage, the military-dictatorial regimes in the East (Admiral A.V. Kolchak), the South (General A.I. Denikin), the North-West (General N.N. Yudenich) and the North of the country became the leading force in the fight against the Bolsheviks ( General E.K. Miller).
Mass intervention against Russia. The third stage of the civil war was associated with changes in the international situation. The end of the First World War made it possible to release the fighting forces of the Entente powers and direct them against Russia. At the end of November 1918, French and British troops landed in the Black Sea ports of Russia. By the beginning of 1919, the number of foreign armed forces had reached 130,000 soldiers in the south and up to 20,000 in the north. The Allies concentrated up to 150,000 troops in the Far East and Siberia.
The military intervention caused a patriotic upsurge in the country, and in the world - a movement of solidarity under the slogan Hands away from Soviet Russia!.
In the autumn of 1918, the Eastern Front was the main one. A counteroffensive of the Red Army under the command of I.I. Vatsetis, during which the White Guard units were ousted from the Middle Volga and Kama regions.
Fourth stage (spring 1919 - April 1920) Combined offensive of anti-Bolshevik forces. By the beginning of 1919, the military-strategic situation had noticeably worsened on all fronts. In March 1919, the army of A.V. Kolchak (the offensive was repelled by the Eastern Front under the command of S.S. Kamenev and M.V. Frunze), in the north-west - the army of N.N. Yudenich carried out military operations against Petrograd. By the summer of 1919, the center of the armed struggle moved to the Southern Front, where the army of General A.I. Denikin began her movement towards Moscow, approaching Tula.
peasant movement. Simultaneously with the actions of the White armies, peasant uprisings began in Ukraine, the Urals, and the Volga region. In March 1919, an uprising of 30 thousand Cossacks broke out on the Don, which lasted until the summer, after which it merged with the white movement.
Gradually, however, the peasant war changed its direction. The decisive role was played by the fact that the White Guard forces did not recognize the results of the agrarian reform and tried, like the Denikin government, to ensure the return of the land to the old owners. A certain role was also played by the adjustment of the course of the Bolsheviks in relation to the middle peasantry, the rejection of disorderly confiscation and, from the beginning of 1919, the transition to surplus appropriation with a fixed amount of household duty
Fifth stage (May - November 1920). In May 1920, the Red Army entered the war with Poland, trying to capture the capital and create the necessary conditions for the declaration of Soviet power there. However, this attempt ended in military failure. Due to inconsistency in the actions of the troops, the army of M.N. Tukhachevsky was defeated near Warsaw. In March 1921, the Treaty of Riga was signed, under the terms of which a significant part of the territory of Ukraine and Belarus was ceded to Poland.
The main event of the final period of the Civil War was the defeat of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, led by General P.N. Wrangel. The troops of the Southern Front under the command of M.V. Frunze in November 1920 completely captured the Crimea.
During 1920-1921. With the help of the Red Army detachments, the process of Sovietization in the territory of Central Asia and Transcaucasia was completed. By the end of 1922, hostilities in the Far East had ceased. On November 14, the Far Eastern Republic (which had existed as a buffer state since April 6, 1920) was reunited with the RSFSR.
results of the civil war. The civil war on the territory of Russia finally ended by the end of 1920, with the exception of certain regions of the Transcaucasus, Central Asia and the Far East. The Bolsheviks, in the course of fierce resistance, managed to retain power, and in the fight against the forces of intervention to preserve Russian statehood. The victory of the Bolsheviks in this war was due to a number of reasons.
Reasons for the victory of the Bolsheviks. Decisive was the change in the mood and behavior of the peasantry towards the end of the war. The return of the landowners, the threat of losing land, the harsh dictatorship of the white generals turned out to be more alien to the Russian peasantry than the military communist methods of government of the Bolsheviks.
Successes in the formation of the Red Army played a huge role. The new regime, on the basis of universal conscription, managed to create a Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army of 5 million people. 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, it practiced executions of deserters, punishments for failure to comply with orders, etc.
An important factor was the unity and organization of the Soviet government, the mobilizing role of the RCP (b), the super-centralized economic policy of the state.
The reasons for the defeat of the white movement were due to its heterogeneity, the presence of internal antagonisms. The absence of popular political slogans significantly narrowed the social base of the movement. Whites were forced to operate on the periphery. As a result, the number of their troops was significantly inferior to the units of the Red Army.
Consequences of the war. The civil war and foreign intervention caused enormous damage to the Russian economy. The blockade enforced by the Entente after the armistice of November 1918 isolated the Soviet Republic both politically and economically at a time when internal conditions within Soviet-ruled territory were close to catastrophic. The amount of damage in 1922 amounted to 39 billion gold rubles, which exceeded a quarter of the country's pre-war wealth. Demographic losses from the autumn of 1917 to 1922 amounted to almost 13 million people; emigration - about 2 million people.
The experience of the Civil War had a decisive influence on the formation of the political culture of the Bolshevik leaders. Military considerations played a decisive role in the movement of the party towards centralism, bureaucratic hierarchy and command-administrative methods of government. There was a process of militarization of the party. The emergency wartime conditions facilitated the collapse of democracy and the establishment of a rigid one-party dictatorship in the country.
An important consequence of the Civil War was the formation of a new consciousness, characterized by a combination of revolutionary romanticism and an extremely low assessment of individual human life and personality.

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  War communism is the name of the internal policy of the Soviet state, carried out in 1918-1921. civil war, background, current strength, periods, results.


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  civil war, background, current strength, periods, results. civil war in Russia it is an armed struggle between different groups of the population, which had its own. Dual power and its evolution...


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  causes and background World War II wars.
  Causes Great Patriotic Wars, three period, causes the first failures of the red
  Military actions June-November 1941 Results summer counteroffensive of the German troops.


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  Causes Great Patriotic Wars, three period, causes the first failures of the Red Army in 1941 and 1942, results and lessons wars, the historical significance of the victory.
  International relations in 1933-1941, causes and background World War II wars.


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The causes of the war cannot be reduced to the guilt of any of the parties in its beginning. Its historical prerequisites should be sought in the state of Russian society before February 1917, when Russia gradually entered a state of civil war, and the causes - in the actions or inaction of the country's main political forces.

The most acute problems of Russian society have not been solved for decades. Violence against the people was the leading principle of the functioning of power. At the end of the XIX-beginning of the XX centuries. especially noticeable was the stubborn unwillingness of the autocracy to carry out significant reforms of the political and economic system. The conflict between power and society was so deep that the autocracy had no defenders in February-March 1917, they simply did not exist in a country of many millions.

The split in Russian society, clearly marked even at the time of the first revolution, after the October Revolution reached its extreme - civil war.

As a result of the victory of the October armed uprising in Petrograd, state power in the country passed into the hands of the Bolshevik Party, which, as the ruling party, set about establishing a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The worst thing is that the civil war was programmed, it was considered by the Bolsheviks as a "natural" continuation of the revolution. "Our war," Lenin emphasized, "is a continuation of the policy of revolution, the policy of overthrowing the exploiters, capitalists, and landowners." Cited from: Chernobaev A.A., Gorelov I.E., Zuev M.N. etc. Textbook for high schools. Russian history. M.: Higher school, 2001, p. 92. Moreover, according to the initial plans of the Bolsheviks, a civil war was planned on a worldwide scale. This was also called for by the slogan put forward by Lenin at the beginning of the World War: “Let us turn the imperialist war into a civil war.” Ibid., p. 94. However, this thesis was purely theoretical and had no effect on social practice. After February, it was removed and replaced by the slogan of a just democratic world.

In order to prevent a clash, many conciliatory gestures were made: the abolition of the death penalty, the release without punishment of participants in the first anti-Soviet rebellions, the rejection of repressions against members of the Provisional Government, etc.

The first months of Soviet power gave rise to hopes for a peaceful outcome of the revolution without a large-scale war. The first steps of the Soviet government were aimed at solving economic and cultural construction, at the implementation of major programs. For example, the opening of a large number of scientific institutes, the organization of a number of geological expeditions, the beginning of the construction of a network of power plants or the “Monuments of the Republic” program. No one starts such cases if he considers an imminent war imminent.

According to historians, the Soviet state created a mechanism that suppressed the tendency to civil war, and in its policy it did not make serious and even more obvious mistakes at that time. Even the announcement of the Red Terror, from their point of view, is not the root cause of Russia's national catastrophe.

In Russia, all revolutionary parties accepted the idea of ​​terror, the Social Democrats denied only individual terror. The Soviet state declared the Red Terror as a response to the White Terror, which escalated in the summer of 1918 after the assassination of the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, M.S. Uritsky and the assassination attempt on V.I. Lenin. The state document that introduced this measure was the appeal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of September 2, 1918, and the body implementing it was the Cheka. The largest action was the execution in Petrograd of 512 representatives of the highest bourgeois elite. Lists of those who were shot were posted (according to official figures, about 800 people were shot in Petrograd) History of Russia. 20th century. Rep. ed. V.P. Dmitrenko. M.: AST, 1998, p. 178.. The Red Terror was stopped by the decision of the VI All-Russian Congress on November 6, 1918.

Sometimes the nationalization of private property (land, enterprises, finances) is put forward as the cause of the civil war. In total, from November 1917 to March 1918, 836 enterprises were nationalized. Ibid., p. 186. In fact, no one ever goes to death for the sake of property. The causes of civil wars lie in the realm of ideals. The seizure of property is perceived as an unbearable encroachment on the order recognized as lawful and fair. That is, hatred, a spiritual category, induces war. The growth of such hatred among the propertied classes was noted from the summer of 1917. Dark hatred for the "rebellious boor" grew into hatred for the political power of the Bolsheviks as usurpers and destroyers of Russia. And yet the civil war was not only generated by class conflict. P.A. Sorokin in his work “The Causes of War and the Conditions of Peace”, published in 1944, writes: “Civil wars arose from a rapid and radical change in external values ​​in one part of a given society, while the other either did not accept the change or moved in the opposite direction” Chit . by: Dolutsky I.I. National history. 20th century. M., 1994, p. 65. . The people of Russia in the midst of the war was split roughly in half (meaning not on a class basis). The composition of the red and white armies was not so different from each other. Hereditary noblemen served in the Red Army, while the workers of Izhevsk and Votkinsk fought under the banner of Kolchak's army. The bloody meat grinder of the civil war drew people in most often without their desire, and even despite their resistance, circumstances often decided everything. Much depended on under whose mobilization the person fell; what was the attitude of certain authorities towards him personally, his family; from whose hands his relatives and friends died, etc. A significant role was played by the characteristics of the region, nationality, religion and other factors.

Often, war communism is cited as the cause of the civil war in Russia, the main feature of which is the transfer of the center of gravity of economic policy from production to distribution. This happens when the decline in production reaches such a critical level that the main thing for the survival of society is the distribution of what is available. Since the resources of life are replenished to a small extent, there is a sharp shortage of them, and prices jump so high that the most necessary products for life become inaccessible to a large part of the population. The state is forced to introduce an egalitarian non-market distribution (perhaps even with the use of violence) and reduce money circulation in the country. Food and industrial goods are distributed by cards - at fixed low prices or free of charge. The state introduces general labor service, and in some sectors (for example, transport) martial law. These general signs of war communism with one or another specificity were observed during the French Revolution, in Germany during the First World War, in Great Britain during the Second World War, and also in Russia in 1918-1921.

Decrees of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of May 9 and 27, 1918 introduced a food dictatorship in Russia: the stability of the grain monopoly and fixed prices for bread was confirmed; speculation in grain was forbidden and ruthlessly persecuted. The People's Commissariat of Food was given emergency powers to seize grain stocks from wealthy peasants. The grain monopoly and fixed prices were introduced by the Provisional Government, but were not implemented. The Soviet decree was more severe, it provided for the use of armed force in the event of opposition to "the taking away of bread or food products." Peasants were set norms for per capita consumption: 12 poods of grain, 1 pood of cereal per year, etc. Above this, all grain was considered surplus and was subject to alienation. On January 11, 1919, the Council of People's Commissars adopted the Decree on food distribution, according to which the peasants were left a certain amount of food for food, fodder for livestock and grain for sowing. All the rest of the grain was subject to seizure for money, which at that time lost its value (in fact, surplus grain was taken from the peasants for free). These emergency measures have produced some results. If in 1917-18. only 30 million poods were harvested, then in 1919-1920 - 260 million poods of grain Zharova P.N., Mishina I.A. The history of homeland. 1900-1940s M .: Education, 1992, p. 201., i.e. the threat of starvation in the cities and in the army was eliminated. However, such measures taken by the Soviet government alienated most of the peasantry from it and were one of the reasons for supporting the counter-revolutionary movement.

If we retrospectively evaluate the prerequisites and causes of the civil war in Russia, then they can be reduced to the following:

• 1. Exacerbation of social contradictions in Russian society, which accumulated over decades and even centuries and deepened to the utmost during the First World War.
• 2..The policy of the leading political parties (the Cadets, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks), which failed to stabilize the situation after the overthrow of the autocracy.
• 3. The seizure of power by the Bolsheviks and the desire of the overthrown classes to restore their rule.
• 4. Contradictions in the camp of the socialist parties, which received more than 80% of the votes in the elections to the Constituent Assembly, but failed to secure agreement at the cost of mutual concessions.
• 5. Intervention of foreign states in the internal affairs of Russia. A significant role in unleashing the civil war was made by foreign intervention, which not only became a catalyst for the civil war, but also largely determined its duration.
• 6. Socio-psychological aspect of the civil war. Violence was perceived as a universal method for solving many problems. Russia has traditionally been a country where the price of human life has always been negligible.

Russian Civil War

Introduction - 2

Background and causes of the civil war in Russia - 3

2. The main stages of the war - 4

3. The main areas of hostilities - 5-6

Intervention - 7

5. Historical consequences of the civil war - 8

List of used literature - 9

Introduction

The civil war (1918-1922), as the most acute form of social confrontation, the armed struggle for power between various social groups was a continuation of the revolutionary process. In Russia, it was aggravated by military intervention. The causes of the war cannot be reduced to the guilt of any of the parties in its beginning. Its historical prerequisites should be sought in the state of Russian society until February 1917, when Russia gradually entered a state of civil war, and the causes - in the actions or, more precisely, in the inaction of the main political forces of the country in the period from February 1917 to about the summer of 1918.

The military operations of the troops of foreign states on our soil in 1918-1922 have practically been erased from our national history. On the contrary, the myth of the fratricidal civil war allegedly unleashed by the Bolsheviks is being aroused in every possible way.

The events that unfolded on the territory of Russia in the first years after the October Revolution remain interesting, relevant and ... little known for us. On vast territories there was a war with front lines, tanks, guns and warships, and behind the front lines there were entire partisan armies, underground groups! Who was at that time in the heart of the state, who defended and gathered it - is known. And who was on the other side?

Was that great war civil or was it some other? The only way to understand (if we want to) is to study history calmly and consistently, rethinking the known and taking into account the newly discovered facts.

Background and causes of the civil war in Russia

If we retrospectively evaluate the prerequisites and causes of the civil war in Russia, then they can be reduced to the following:

1. Exacerbation of social contradictions in Russian society, which accumulated over decades and even centuries and deepened to the limit during the First World War.

The most acute problems of Russian society have not been solved for decades. In the West, the acuteness of social contradictions was more or less smoothed out. In Russia, violence against the people was the leading principle of the functioning of power. At the end of the XIX-beginning of the XX centuries. especially noticeable was the stubborn unwillingness of the autocracy to carry out significant reforms of the political and economic system. The conflict between power and society was so deep that the autocracy had no defenders in February-March 1917, they simply did not exist in a country of many millions.

2. The policy of the leading political parties (the Cadets, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks), which failed to stabilize the situation after the overthrow of the autocracy. The struggle for the army in the conditions of the ongoing war led to its collapse.

3. The seizure of power by the Bolsheviks and the desire of the overthrown classes to restore their rule.

4. Contradictions in the camp of the socialist parties, which received more than 80% of the votes in the elections to the Constituent Assembly, but failed to secure agreement, at the cost of mutual concessions.

5. Intervention of foreign states in the internal affairs of Russia. Germany played a significant role in unleashing the civil war. The intervention became a catalyst for the civil war, and the support of the White Guard troops and governments by the Entente countries largely determined the duration of this war.

6. The socio-psychological aspect of the civil war should also be highlighted. Violence was perceived as a universal method for solving many problems. Russia has traditionally been a country where the price of human life has always been negligible. In the era of the civil war, the mutual exasperation of people increased sharply.

Main stages of the war

* spring - autumn 1918 - the rebellion of the White Czechs; the first foreign landings in Murmansk and the Far East; the campaign of the army of P. N. Krasnov against Tsaritsyn; the creation by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks of the Committee of the Constituent Assembly in the Volga region; Social Revolutionary uprisings in Moscow, Yaroslavl, Rybinsk; intensification of “red” and “white” terror; the creation of the Workers' and Peasants' Defense Council in November 1918 (V. I. Lenin) and the Revolutionary Military Council (L. D. Trotsky); the proclamation of the republic as a single military camp;

* autumn 1918 - spring 1919 - the strengthening of foreign intervention in connection with the end of the world war; annulment of the terms of the Brest-Litovsk peace in connection with the revolution in Germany;

* spring 1919 - spring 1920 - performance of the armies of white generals: campaigns of A. V. Kolchak (spring-summer 1919), A. I. Denikin (summer 1919 - spring 1920), two campaigns of N. N. Yudenich to Petrograd;

* April - November 1920 - the Soviet-Polish war and the fight against P. N. Wrangel. With the liberation of the Crimea by the end of 1920, the main hostilities ended.

In the 1990s, the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Academician Yu.A. Polyakov) proposed a new periodization of the history of the civil war in Russia. It covers the period from October 1917 to 1922, there are 6 stages of the civil war in our country:

* October 25, 1917 to May 1918 began an armed civil confrontation called "Limited War"

* May 1918 to November 1918 the beginning of a full-scale civil war

* November 1918 - spring 1919 intensification of the confrontation between the "reds" and the "whites".

* spring 1919 - the end of 1919 - the defeat of the main forces of the "whites"; evacuation of the main forces of foreign troops.

* spring 1920 - late 1920. - The war with Poland, the defeat of Wrangel's army.

* the end of 1920 - 1922 the victory of the "Reds" in Central Asia, Transcaucasia, the Far East, the end of the civil war.

In 1922 the Far East was liberated. The country began to move to a peaceful life.

Both the “white” and “red” camps were heterogeneous. So, the Bolsheviks defended socialism, part of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries were for the Soviets without the Bolsheviks. Whites included monarchists and republicans (liberals); the anarchists (N. I. Makhno) spoke first on one side, then on the other. From the very beginning of the Civil War, military conflicts affected almost all national outskirts, centrifugal tendencies intensified in the country.

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