View source for Russian Civil War

{{Short description|Multi-party war in the former Russian Empire (1917–1922)}}
{{Other uses|Russian Civil War (disambiguation)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}}
{{Infobox military conflict
| conflict          = Russian Civil War
| partof            = the [[Russian Revolution]], [[revolutions of 1917–1923]], and the [[aftermath of World War I]]
| image             = CWRArticleImage.jpg
| image_size        = 300px
| caption           = Clockwise from top left:{{flatlist|
* Soldiers of the [[Don Army]] in 1919
* A [[White movement|White Russian]] infantry division in 1920
* Soldiers of the [[1st Cavalry Army]]
* [[Leon Trotsky]] in 1918
* Hanging of Yekaterinoslav workers by Austro-Hungarian troops in 1918
}}
| date              = 7 November 1917{{snd}}25 October 1922{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|pp=3, 230}}
| place             = Former [[Russian Empire]]
| result            = Bolshevik victory (see {{slink||Aftermath}})<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Russian Civil War |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Civil-War |date=10 May 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Murphy |first1=Brian |title=Rostov in the Russian Civil War, 1917-1920: The Key to Victory |date=2 August 2004 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-27129-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CMp-AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA2 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Bullock |first1=David |title=The Russian Civil War 1918–22 |date=6 June 2014 |publisher=Bloomsbury |isbn=978-1-472-81032-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I52HCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1882 |via=Google Books}}</ref>
| combatant1        = Bolsheviks:{{ubli
 | {{flag icon|RSFSR|1918}} [[Russian SFSR]]
 | {{nwr|{{flag icon|BSSR|1919}} [[Byelorussian SSR]]}}
 | {{flag icon|UkSSR|1919}} [[Ukrainian SSR]]
 | {{flag icon|Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic|1922}} [[Transcaucasian SFSR]]
|{{flagicon image|Red flag.svg}} Regional forces}}
| combatant2        = [[White movement]]:{{ubl|{{flagicon|Russia|1896}} [[Russian State]] |{{flagicon|Russia|1896}}  [[South Russia (1919–1920)|South Russia]]}}
| combatant3        = [[Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War|Separatists]]:{{ubli|
| {{flagdeco|Poland|1919}} [[Second Polish Republic|Poland]]
| {{flagicon image|Flag of Finland (1918–1920).svg}} [[Finland]]
| {{flagicon image|Flag of Ukrainian People's Republic 1917.svg}} [[Ukrainian People's Republic|Ukraine]]
| {{flagicon image|Flag of Belarus (1918, 1991–1995).svg}} [[Belarusian People's Republic|Belarus]]
| {{flagdeco|Estonia}} [[History of Estonia (1920–1939)|Estonia]]
| {{flag|Latvia}}
| {{flagicon image|Flag of Lithuania (1918–1940).svg}} [[Lithuania]]
| {{flagicon|Georgia|1918}} [[Georgian Democratic Republic|Georgia]]
| {{flagicon|Armenia|1918}} [[First Republic of Armenia|Armenia]]
| {{nwr|{{flagicon|Azerbaijan|1918}} [[Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan|Azerbaijan]]}}
| {{flagicon image|Flag of the Mountain Republic.svg}} [[Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus|Northern Caucasus]]
| {{flagicon image|Flag of Turkestan.svg}} [[Basmachi movement]]
}}
| combatant1a       = Anti-Bolshevik left:{{ubli
| {{flagicon image|Red flag.svg}} [[Left Socialist-Revolutionaries|Left SRs]]
| [[Green armies|Green Army]]
| {{nwr|{{flagicon image|Махновское знамя.svg}} [[Makhnovshchina]]}}
| {{flagicon image|Red flag.svg}} [[Right Socialist-Revolutionaries|Right SRs]] and [[Mensheviks]]
}}
| combatant2a       = [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|Allied intervention]]:{{ubli
| {{flag|Empire of Japan|name=Japan}}
| {{flagcountry|United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland}}
| {{flag|United States|1912}}
| {{flagcountry|French Third Republic}}
| {{nwr|{{flagcountry|First Czechoslovak Republic|1918}}}}
}}
| combatant3a       = [[Central Powers intervention in the Russian Civil War|Central&nbsp;Powers]]:{{ubli
| {{flagcountry|German Empire|name=Germany}}
| {{flagcountry|Austria-Hungary}}
| {{nwr|{{flagcountry|Ottoman Empire}}}}
}}
| commander1        = {{ubli
 | [[Vladimir Lenin]]
 | [[Leon Trotsky]]
 | [[Sergey Kamenev]]
 | [[Jukums Vācietis]]
 | [[Yakov Sverdlov]]{{Natural Causes}}
 | ''[[Leaders of the Russian Civil War#Bolsheviks|...further details]]''
}}
| commander2        = {{ubli
 | {{nwr|[[Alexander Kerensky]]{{Surrendered}}}}
 | [[Alexander Kolchak]]{{Executed}}
 | [[Lavr Kornilov]]{{KIA}}
 | [[Anton Denikin]]
 | [[Pyotr Wrangel]]
 | ''[[Leaders of the Russian Civil War#White Movement|...further details]]''
}}
| commander3        = {{ubli
 | {{flagicon|Poland|1919}} [[Józef Piłsudski]]
 | {{flagicon image|Flag of Finland (1918–1920).svg}} [[C. G. E. Mannerheim]]
 | ''[[Leaders of the Russian Civil War#Independence movements|...further details]]''
}}
| commander1a       = {{ubli
 | {{flagicon image|Red flag.svg}} [[Maria Spiridonova]]
 | {{flagicon image|Махновское знамя.svg}} [[Nestor Makhno]]
 | ''[[Leaders of the Russian Civil War#Third party factions|...further details]]''
}}
| commander2a       = {{ubli
| {{flagdeco|United Kingdom}} [[Edmund Ironside, 1st Baron Ironside|Edmund Ironside]]
| ''[[Leaders of the Russian Civil War#Allied Expeditionary Forces|...further details]]''
}}
| commander3a       = {{ubl
 | {{flagicon|German Empire}} [[Hermann von Eichhorn|H. von Eichhorn]]{{KIA}}
 | ''[[Leaders of the Russian Civil War#Central Powers intervention|...further details]]''
}}
| strength1         = {{ubli
 | {{flagicon image|Soviet Red Army Hammer and Plough.svg}} [[Red Army]]: {{nwr|5,498,000 (peak){{sfn|Erickson|1984|p=763}}}}
 | {{flagicon image|Death to oppressors of workers.svg}} [[Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine|Makhnovtsi]]: 103,000 (peak)<ref>Belash, Victor & Belash, Aleksandr, ''Dorogi Nestora Makhno'', p. 340</ref>
 | {{flagicon image|Petropavlovsk-Krondstadt flag.svg}} [[Kronstadt rebellion|Kronstadt mutineers]]: 17,961
}}
| strength2         = {{ubli
 | {{flagicon image|Volunteer Army Insignia.svg}} [[White Army]]: {{nwr|1,023,000 (peak)}}
 | {{flagicon image|Coat of arms of the Czechoslovak Legion.svg}} [[Czechoslovak Legion]]: {{nwr|50,000 (peak)}}
 | {{flagicon|United Kingdom|1801}} [[British Army]]: 57,636<ref>Damien Wright, ''Churchill's Secret War with Lenin: British and Commonwealth Military Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1918–20'', Solihull, UK, 2017, pp. 394, 526–528, 530–535; Clifford Kinvig, ''Churchill's Crusade: The British Invasion of Russia 1918–1920'', London 2006, {{ISBN|1-852-85477-4}}, p. 297; Timothy Winegard, ''The First World Oil War'', University of Toronto Press (2016), p. 229</ref>
 | {{flagicon|United States|1912}} [[U.S. Army]]: 12,950
}}
{{flagicon|Empire of Japan}} [[Imperial Japanese Army|Japanese Army]]: 70,000{{sfn|Humphreys|1996|p=26}}{{sfn|Tucker|Roberts|2005|p=547}}
| strength3         = &nbsp;
| casualties1       = {{flagicon image|Soviet Red Army Hammer and Plough.svg}} 1,212,824 (official estimate){{sfn|Krivosheev|Andronikov|Gurkin|Kruglov|1993|p=12-13}}
| casualties2       = {{ubli
 | {{flagicon image|Flag of Russia.svg}} 1,500,000{{sfn|Smele|2016|p=160}}{{failed verification|date=December 2024}}
 | {{flagicon|Czechoslovakia|1918}} 13,000 killed
}}
| casualties3       = {{ubli
 | {{flagicon|Poland|1919}} 250,000
 | {{flagicon image|Flag of Ukrainian People's Republic 1917.svg}} 125,000
}}
| casualties4       = {{ubl|7–12 million total casualties|1–2 million refugees outside Russia}}
| campaignbox       = {{Campaignbox Russian Civil War}}
| territory         = Establishment of the [[Soviet Union]]
}}

The '''Russian Civil War''' ({{langx|ru|Гражданская война в России|Grazhdanskaya voyna v Rossii}}) was a multi-party [[civil war]] in the former [[Russian Empire]] sparked by the overthrowing of the liberal-democratic [[Russian Provisional Government]] in the [[October Revolution]], as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. It resulted in the formation of the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic]] and later the [[Soviet Union]] in most of its territory. Its finale marked the end of the [[Russian Revolution]], which was one of the [[key events of the 20th century]].

The [[List of Russian monarchs|Russian monarchy]] ended with the abdication of [[Nicholas II|Tsar Nicholas II]] during the [[February Revolution]], and Russia was in a state of political flux. A tense summer culminated in the [[October Revolution]], where the [[Bolsheviks]] overthrew the [[Russian Provisional Government|provisional government]] of the new [[Russian Republic]]. Bolshevik seizure of power was not universally accepted, and the country descended into civil war. The two largest combatants were the [[Red Army]], fighting for the establishment of a [[Bolshevik]]-led [[socialist state]] headed by [[Vladimir Lenin]], and the forces known as the [[White movement]] (and its [[White Army]]), led mainly by the [[Right-wing politics|right-leaning]] officers of the Russian Empire, united around the figure of [[Alexander Kolchak]]. In addition, rival militant socialists, notably the [[Anarchism in Ukraine|Ukrainian anarchists]] of the [[Makhnovshchina]] and [[Left Socialist-Revolutionaries]], were involved in conflict against the Bolsheviks. They, as well as non-ideological [[green armies]], opposed the Bolsheviks, the Whites and the foreign interventionists.<ref name="britannica">[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/513737/Russian-Civil-War Russian Civil War] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090826234907/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/513737/Russian-Civil-War |date=26 August 2009 }} [[Encyclopædia Britannica]] Online 2012</ref> Thirteen foreign states intervened against the Red Army, notably the [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|Allied intervention]], whose primary goal was re-establishing the [[Eastern Front (World War I)|Eastern Front]] of [[World War I]]. Three foreign states of the [[Central Powers]] also intervened, rivaling the Allied intervention with the main goal of retaining the territory they had received in the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]] with Soviet Russia.

The Bolsheviks initially consolidated control over most of the former empire. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was an emergency peace with the [[German Empire]], who had captured vast swathes of the Russian territory during the chaos of the revolution. In May 1918, [[Revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion|the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia revolted]] in Siberia. In reaction, the Allies began their [[North Russia intervention|North Russian]] and [[Siberian intervention]]s. That, combined with the creation of the [[Provisional All-Russian Government]], saw the reduction of Bolshevik-controlled territory to most of [[European Russia]] and parts of [[Central Asia]]. In 1919, the White Army launched several [[Spring offensive of the White Army|offensives from the east]] in March, [[Advance on Moscow (1919)|the south]] in July, and [[Battle of Petrograd|west]] in October. The advances were later checked by the [[Eastern Front counteroffensive]], the [[Southern Front counteroffensive]], and the defeat of the [[Northwestern Army (Russia)|Northwestern Army]].

By 1919, the White armies were in retreat and by the start of 1920 were defeated on all three fronts.{{sfnm|1a1=Leggett|1y=1981|1p=184|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=402|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=206}} Although the Bolsheviks were victorious, the territorial extent of the Russian state had been reduced, for many non-Russian ethnic groups had used the disarray to push for national independence.{{sfn|Hall|2015|p=83}} In March 1921, during [[Polish–Soviet War|a related war against Poland]], the [[Peace of Riga]] was signed, splitting disputed territories in [[Belarusian Democratic Republic|Belarus]] and [[Ukrainian People's Republic|Ukraine]] between the [[Second Polish Republic|Republic of Poland]] on one side and Soviet Russia and [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|Soviet Ukraine]] on the other. Soviet Russia invaded all newly [[Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War|independent nations]] of the former empire or supported the Bolshevik and socialist forces there, although the success of such invasions was limited. [[Estonian War of Independence|Estonia]], [[Latvian War of Independence|Latvia]], and [[Lithuanian–Soviet War|Lithuania]] all repelled Soviet invasions, while [[Ukrainian–Soviet War|Ukraine]], Belarus (as a result of the [[Polish–Soviet War]]), [[Red Army invasion of Armenia|Armenia]], [[Red Army invasion of Azerbaijan|Azerbaijan]] and [[Red Army invasion of Georgia|Georgia]] were occupied by the Red Army.{{sfn|Lee|2003|pp=84, 88}}{{sfn|Goldstein|2013|p=50}} By 1921, the Bolsheviks had defeated the national movements in Ukraine and the [[Caucasus]], although [[Basmachi movement|anti-Bolshevik uprisings]] in Central Asia lasted until the late 1920s.{{sfn|Hall|2015|p=84}}

The armies under [[Alexander Kolchak|Kolchak]] were eventually forced on a [[Great Siberian Ice March|mass retreat eastward]]. Bolshevik forces advanced east, despite encountering resistance in [[Chita Operations|Chita]], [[Yakut revolt (1921)|Yakut]] and [[Soviet intervention in Mongolia|Mongolia]]. Soon the Red Army split the [[Don Army|Don]] and [[Volunteer Army|Volunteer armies]], forcing evacuations in [[Evacuation of Novorossiysk (1920)|Novorossiysk]] in March and [[Evacuation of the Crimea (1920)|Crimea]] in November 1920. After that, fighting was sporadic until the war ended with the capture of [[Vladivostok]] in October 1922, but anti-Bolshevik resistance continued with the Muslim [[Basmachi movement]] in Central Asia and [[Tungus Republic|Khabarovsk Krai]] until 1934. There were an estimated 7 to 12&nbsp;million casualties during the war, mostly civilians.{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|p=287}}

==Background==
=== From World War I to the Russian Revolution ===
{{main|Russia in the First World War|Russian Revolution}}
The Russian Empire fought in World War I from 1914 alongside France and the United Kingdom ([[Triple Entente]]) against Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire ([[Central Powers]]).

The [[February Revolution]] of 1917 resulted in the abdication of Emperor [[Nicholas II of Russia]]. As a result, the social-democratic [[Russian Provisional Government]] was established, and [[Soviet (council)|soviets]], elected councils of workers, soldiers, and peasants, were organized throughout the country, leading to a situation of [[dual power]]. The [[Russian Republic]] was proclaimed in September of the same year.

====October Revolution====
{{Main|October Revolution}}
The Provisional Government, led by [[Socialist Revolutionary Party]] politician [[Alexander Kerensky]], was unable to solve the most pressing issues of the country, most importantly to end the war with the Central Powers. A [[Kornilov affair|failed military coup]] by General [[Lavr Kornilov]] in September 1917 led to a surge in support for the [[Bolsheviks]], who [[Bolshevization of the Soviets|took control of the soviets]], which until then had been controlled by the Socialist Revolutionaries. Promising an end to the war and "all power to the Soviets", the Bolsheviks then ended dual power by overthrowing the Provisional Government in late October, on the eve of the [[Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies]], in what would be the second Revolution of 1917. The initial stage of the October Revolution which involved the assault on [[Petrograd]] occurred largely without any human [[Casualty (person)|casualties]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Shukman |first1=Harold |title=The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the Russian Revolution |date=5 December 1994 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-0-631-19525-2 |page=343 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ScabEAAAQBAJ&dq=october+revolution+bloodless&pg=PA343 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Bergman |first1=Jay |title=The French Revolutionary Tradition in Russian and Soviet Politics, Political Thought, and Culture |date=2019 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-884270-5 |page=224 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5UKjDwAAQBAJ&dq=october+revolution+bloodless&pg=PA224 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=McMeekin |first1=Sean |title=The Russian Revolution: A New History |date=30 May 2017 |publisher=Basic Books |isbn=978-0-465-09497-4 |pages=1–496 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aXmZDgAAQBAJ&dq=october+revolution+bloodless&pg=PT155 |language=en}}</ref> Despite the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, they lost to the Socialist Revolutionary Party in the [[1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election]], and the Constituent Assembly was dissolved by the Bolsheviks in retaliation. The Bolsheviks soon lost the support of other far-left allies, such as the [[Left Socialist-Revolutionaries]], after their acceptance of the terms of the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]] presented by the German Empire.<ref name="Stone-2011">{{Cite encyclopedia|author1-link=David R. Stone|last=Stone|first=David R.|title=Russian Civil War (1917–1920)|year=2011|encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of War|editor-last=Martel|editor-first=Gordon|publisher=Blackwell Publishing Ltd|language=en|doi=10.1002/9781444338232.wbeow533|isbn=978-1-4051-9037-4|s2cid=153317860 }}</ref> Conversely, a number of prominent members of the [[Left Socialist Revolutionaries]] had assumed positions in Lenin's government and led commissariats in several areas. This included agriculture ([[Andrei Kolegayev|Kolegaev]]), property ([[Vladimir Karelin|Karelin]]), justice ([[Isaac Steinberg|Steinberg]]), post offices and telegraphs ([[Prosh Proshian|Proshian]]) and local government (Trutovsky).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Abramovitch |first1=Raphael R. |title=The Soviet Revolution, 1917-1939 |date=1985 |publisher=International Universities Press |page=130 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L_q1WAmv7XkC&q=Steinberg+became+the+People%27s+Commissar+of+Justice,+Proshyan+became+the+People%27s+Commissar+for+Posts+and+Telegraphs |language=en}}</ref> The Bolsheviks also reserved a number of vacant seats in the Soviets and [[All-Russian Central Executive Committee|Central Executive]] for the [[Menshevik]] and [[Left Socialist Revolutionaries]] parties in proportion to their vote share at the Congress.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Deutscher |first1=Isaac |title=The Prophet Armed Trotsky 1879-1921 (1954) |date=1954 |publisher=Oxford University Press. |pages=330–336 |url=https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.507702/page/335/mode/1up?view=theater}}</ref> The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was also approved by the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and [[anarchists]], both groups were in favour of a more [[radical democracy]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Liebman |first1=Marcel |title=Leninism under Lenin |date=1975 |publisher=London : J. Cape |isbn=978-0-224-01072-6 |page=237 |url=https://archive.org/details/leninismunderlen0000lieb_f2h6/page/237/mode/1up}}</ref>

===Formation of the Red Army===
{{Main|Red Army}}
From mid-1917 onwards, the [[Russian Army (1917)|Russian Army]], the successor-organisation of the old [[Imperial Russian Army]], started to disintegrate;<ref>{{harvnb|Calder|1976|p=166}} "[...] the Russian Army disintegrated after the failure of the Galician offensive in July 1917."</ref> the Bolsheviks used the volunteer-based [[Red Guards (Russia)|Red Guards]] as their main military force, augmented by an armed military component of the [[Cheka]] (the Bolshevik state [[Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies|secret police]]). In January 1918, after significant Bolshevik reverses in combat, the future [[People's Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs of the Russian SFSR|Russian People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs]] [[Leon Trotsky]] headed the reorganization of the Red Guards into a ''Workers' and Peasants' Red Army'' in order to create a more effective fighting force. The Bolsheviks appointed [[political commissars]] to each unit of the Red Army to maintain morale and to ensure loyalty.

In June 1918, when it had become apparent that a revolutionary army composed solely of workers would not suffice, Trotsky instituted mandatory [[Conscription in the Soviet Union|conscription]] of the rural peasantry into the Red Army.<ref>{{harvnb|Read|1996|p=237}} By 1920, 77% of the Red Army's enlisted ranks were peasant conscripts.</ref> The Bolsheviks overcame opposition of rural Russians to Red Army conscription units by taking hostages and shooting them when necessary in order to force compliance.<ref>Williams, Beryl, ''[[iarchive:russianrevolutio0000will|The Russian Revolution 1917–1921]]'', Blackwell Publishing Ltd. (1987), {{ISBN|978-0-631-15083-1}}: Typically, men of military age (17 to 40 years old) in a village would vanish when Red Army draft-units approached. The taking of hostages and a few summary executions usually brought the men back.</ref> The forced conscription drive had mixed results, successfully creating a larger army than the Whites, but with members indifferent towards [[Communism|communist ideology]].<ref name="Stone-2011" />

The Red Army also utilized former Tsarist officers as "military specialists" (''voenspetsy'');<ref name="Overy 2004">{{harvnb|Overy|2004|p=446}} By the end of the civil war, one-third of all Red Army officers were ex-Tsarist ''voenspetsy''"</ref> sometimes their families were taken hostage in order to ensure their loyalty.<ref name="Williams, Beryl 1921">Williams, Beryl, ''The Russian Revolution 1917–1921'', Blackwell Publishing Ltd. (1987), {{ISBN|978-0-631-15083-1}}</ref> At the start of the civil war, former Tsarist officers formed three-quarters of the Red Army officer-corps.<ref name="Williams, Beryl 1921"/> By its end, 83% of all Red Army divisional and corps commanders were ex-Tsarist soldiers.<ref name="Overy 2004" />

=== Constituent Assembly opposition ===
====Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, early Constituent Assembly rebellions====
The [[Russian Constituent Assembly]] had been a demand of the Bolsheviks against the Provisional Government, which kept delaying it. After the October Revolution the elections were run by the body appointed by the previous Provisional Government. It was based on universal suffrage but used party lists from before the Left-Right SR split. The anti-Bolshevik Right SRs [[1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election|won the elections]] with the majority of the seats,{{sfn|Carr|1985|pages=111–112}} after which Lenin's ''Theses on the Constituent Assembly'' argued in ''[[Pravda]]'' that formal democracy was impossible because of class conflicts, conflicts with Ukraine and the Kadet-Kaledin uprising. He argued the Constituent Assembly must unconditionally accept sovereignty of the soviet government or it would be dealt with "by revolutionary means".{{sfn|Carr|1985|pages=113–115}}

On December 30, 1917, the SR [[Nikolai Avksentiev]] and some followers were arrested for organizing a conspiracy. This was the first time Bolsheviks used this kind of repression against a socialist party. ''[[Izvestia]]'' said the arrest was not related to his membership in the Constituent Assembly.{{sfn|Carr|1985|page=115}}

[[File:Viktor Chernov (1873-1952), Russian revolutionary (small).jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Viktor Chernov]]]]

On January 4, 1918, the [[All-Russian Central Executive Committee]] made a resolution saying the slogan "all power to the constituent assembly" was counterrevolutionary and equivalent to "down with the soviets".{{sfn|Carr|1985|pages=115–116}}

[[File:Maria Spiridonova.jpg|thumb|right|[[Maria Spiridonova]]]]
The Constituent Assembly met on January 18, 1918. The Right SR Chernov was elected president defeating the Bolshevik supported candidate, the Left SR [[Maria Spiridonova]] (she would later break with the Bolsheviks and after the decades of [[gulag]], she was shot on Stalin's orders in 1941). The Bolsheviks subsequently disbanded the Constituent Assembly and proceeded to rule the country as a [[one-party state]] with all opposition parties outlawed.<ref>[https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/kontseptsiya-sotsialisticheskoy-demokratii-opyt-realizatsii-v-sssr-i-sovremennye-perspektivy-v-sng Концепция социалистической демократии: опыт реализации в СССР и современные перспективы в СНГ]</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Bolsheviks: the intellectual and political history of the triumph of communism in Russia |author=Adam Bruno Ulam |publisher=Harvard University Press |page=397}}</ref> A simultaneous demonstration in favor of the Constituent Assembly was dispersed with force, but there was little protest afterwards.{{sfn|Carr|1985|pages=120–121}}

The first large [[Cheka]] repression involving the killing of [[libertarian socialist]]s in Petrograd began in April 1918. On May 1, 1918, a pitched battle took place in Moscow between the anarchists and the Bolshevik police.<ref name="Berkman">{{cite journal |last1=Berkman |first1=Alexander |author-link1=Alexander Berkman |last2=Goldman |first2=Emma |author-link2=Emma Goldman |date=January 1922 |title=Bolsheviks Shooting Anarchists |journal=Freedom |volume=36 |issue=391 |page=4 |url=https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-alexander-berkman-bolsheviks-shooting-anarchists |access-date=9 May 2023}}</ref>

====Constituent Assembly uprising====
The Union of Regeneration was founded in Moscow in April 1918 as an underground organization of "democratic resistance" to the Bolsheviks, composed of the [[Popular Socialists (Russia)|Popular Socialists]] and "personal representatives" of Right Socialist Revolutionaries, [[Constitutional Democratic Party|Kadets]] and Defensists, among others. They were tasked with propping up anti-Bolshevik forces and to create a Russian state system based on "state consciousness, patriotism and civil liberties" with the goal to liberate the country from the "Germano-Bolshevik" yoke.<ref name=WS>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=73lLeNeICXUC |title=White Siberia: the politics of civil war |author=Norman G. O. Pereira |publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |date=1996 |isbn=978-0-7735-1349-5 |page=65}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2gd7F6t2lCcC |title=The lost opportunity: attempts at unification of the anti-Bolsheviks, 1917–1919 – Moscow, Kiev, Jassy, Odessa |author=Christopher Lazarski |publisher=University Press of America |place=Lanham |date=2008 |isbn=978-0-7618-4120-3 |pages=42–43}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mt9qzSvBrI4C |title=Dear comrades: Menshevik reports on the Bolshevik revolution and the civil war |author=Vladimir N. Brovkin |publisher=Hoover Press |date=1991 |isbn=978-0-8179-8981-1 |page=135}}</ref>

On May 7, 1918, the Eighth Party Council of the [[Socialist Revolutionary Party]] commenced in [[Moscow]] and recognized the Union's leading role, putting aside political ideology and class for the purpose of Russia's salvation. They decided to start an uprising against the Bolsheviks with the goal of reconvening the Russian Constituent Assembly.<ref name=WS /> While preparations were under way, the [[Czechoslovak Legion]]s overthrew Bolshevik rule in [[Siberia]], the [[Ural Mountains|Urals]] and the [[Volga River|Volga]] region in late May-early June 1918 and the center of SR activity shifted there. On June 8, 1918, five Constituent Assembly members formed the All-Russian [[Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly]] (''Komuch'') in [[Samara]] and declared it the new supreme authority in the country.<ref name="komuch">See Jonathan D. Smele. Op. cit., p.32 ("Op. cit." means to refer to a work cited earlier in the citations. this means you copied it from a citation list, and are citing something that you have not read. instead you should cite what you read and say it refers to this, or if you can get the original work and look at it then you can cite it directly.)</ref> The Social Revolutionary [[Provisional Siberian Government (Vladivostok)|Provisional Government of Autonomous Siberia]] came to power on 29 June 1918, after the uprising in [[Vladivostok]].

=== White movement and foreign interventions ===
==== From "democratic counter-revolution" to the White movement ====
{{Main|White movement}}
[[File:Колчак, Нокс и английские офицеры восточного фронта.jpg|thumb|left|Admiral [[Alexander Kolchak]] (seated) and General [[Alfred Knox]] (behind Kolchak) observing military exercise, 1919]]

The main Russian military and political force opposing the Bolsheviks was known as the [[White movement]], or simply the Whites; its armed formations were known as the [[White Army]].

Some historians distinguish the White movement from the so-called "democratic counter-revolution"<ref>https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/nationalities-papers/article/abs/democratic-counterrevolution-of-1918-in-siberia/902F77B1E6F60CF8CC8EDFCB66A3894</ref><ref name="rev">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_4SuDQAAQBAJ | isbn=978-0-19-873482-6 | title=Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890 to 1928 | date=2017 | publisher=Oxford University Press }}</ref> led mainly by the [[Right Socialist-Revolutionaries|Right SRs]] and the [[Mensheviks]] that adhered to the values of [[parliamentary democracy]] and maintained anti-Bolshevik counter-governments ([[Komuch]], [[Ufa Directory]]) on the basis with alliance with the right-wing parties of Russia until November 1918. Until this period, [[parliamentary democracy]] was the main tendency of the anti-Bolshevik forces on the East (but not the South) of Russia, but since then, the White movement unified on an [[Right-wing dictatorship|authoritarian-right]] platform around the figure of [[Alexander Kolchak]] who [[Kolchak Coup|rose to power through a military coup]] as its principal leader and his [[Russian Government (1918—1919)|All-Russian government]].<ref name="rev"/><ref name="shubin1">{{cite web | title=Великая Российская революция. 10 вопросов|language=ru| url=https://historyrussia.org/images/documents/shubin-10-voprosov-revolution.pdf|author1=А. В. Шубин|author-link1=Alexander Vladlenovich Shubin}}</ref><ref name="shubin">{{cite book| title=1918 год. Революция, кровью омытая|language=ru|author1=А. В. Шубин|author-link1=Alexander Vladlenovich Shubin|isbn=978-5-8291-2317-8}}</ref> After the Kolchak coup, the Right SRs and the Mensheviks went to opposition to the Whites and co-operated with both factions of the Civil War on a tactical level, while also attempting to overthrow White administrations or establish themselves as "the third force" of the war: for example, they attempted to stage an anti-Kolchak mutiny in November 1919 with the help of the Czech general [[Radola Gajda]], and in 1920, they formed an organisation called 'Political Centre' and successfully overthrew the White administration in Irkutsk.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nzhq85nPrdsC | isbn=978-0-521-47771-0 | title=A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony 1581-1990 | date=8 September 1994 | publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref>

Although the White movement included a variety of political opinions, from the liberals through monarchists to the ultra-nationalist [[Black Hundreds]],<ref>Osborne, R. (2023, April 14). ''[https://study.com/academy/lesson/white-army-history-facts-russian.html White Army of Russia | History, Significance & Composition]''. Study.com. "Loosely commanded by former imperial admiral Alexander Kolchack, the White Army was composed of volunteers, conscripts, liberals, conservatives, monarchists, religious fundamentalists, and any group that opposed Bolshevik rule"</ref> and did not have universally-accepted leader or doctrine, the main force behind the movement were the conservative officers, and the resulting movement shared many traits with widespread right-wing counter-revolutionary movements of the time, namely [[nationalism]], [[racism]], distrust of liberal and democratic politics, [[clericalism]], contempt for the common man and dislike of industrial civilization;<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kenez |first=Peter |year=1980 |title=The Ideology of the White Movement |journal=Soviet Studies |volume=32 |issue=32 |pages=58–83 |doi=10.1080/09668138008411280}}</ref> although not all of the participants of the movement wanted a restoration of [[Tsarism]], it generally preferred it to the revolution, and its main goal became to establish an order which would share the main features of the imperial one;<ref name="shubin"/><ref>{{cite book|title=Red Advance, White Defeat: Civil War in South Russia 1919–1920|author1=Peter Kenez|author-link1=Peter Kenez|isbn=9781955835176|year=2008|publisher=New Acdemia+ORM |quote= Not all the participants in the White movement wanted to recreate tsarist Russia. [...] Nevertheless, the Civil War divided those who preferred tsarist Russia to the society which they feared their country was heading toward, and those who hated the old and had confidence that they could build a more just and rational society. After three years of struggle the Whites lost the war, proving that the traditional order had too few defenders... The defeat of the Whites was the final and conclusive defeat of Imperial Russia.}}</ref> its positive program was largely summarized in the slogan of "united and indivisible Russia" which meant the restoration of imperial state borders (excluding Poland and Finland)<ref name="un1">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YGib6O8vocoC | isbn=978-0-521-03025-0 | title=The People in Arms: Military Myth and National Mobilization Since the French Revolution | date=2 November 2006 | publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref><ref name="un2">{{Cite book| url=https://academic.oup.com/book/10472/chapter-abstract/158344535 | doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199250219.003.0001 | chapter=Civil War | title=The White Russian Army in Exile 1920-1941 | date=2002 | last1=Robinson | first1=Paul | pages=1–15 | publisher=Oxford University Press | isbn=978-0-19-925021-9 }}</ref><ref name="un">{{cite web | url=https://www.hoover.org/research/wake-empire | title=In the Wake of Empire }}</ref> and its denial of the [[right to self-determination]] and the resulting hostility towards the [[Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War|movements for national independence]];<ref name="shubin1"/> the movement is associated with [[Pogroms during the Russian Civil War|pogroms]] and [[antisemitism]], although its relations with the Jews were more complex, as at first, for example, Jewish properitors supported the anti-Bolsheviks, but later the movement became known for its antisemic pogroms and discrimanation against the Jews.<ref>{{cite book|title=Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920|author1=Oleg Budnitskii|isbn=9780812208146|year=2012|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press}}</ref>

When the White Army was created, the structure of the [[Russian Army (1917)|Russian Army of the Provisional Government period]] was used, while almost every individual formation had its own characteristics. The military art of the White Army was based on the experience of World War I, which, however, left a strong imprint on the specifics of the Civil War.<ref>Military Encyclopedic Dictionary / Editorial Board: Alexander Gorkin, Vladimir Zolotarev et al. – Moscow: Great Russian Encyclopedia, RIPOL Classic, 2002 – 1664 Pages</ref>

====Allied intervention====
{{Main|Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War}}
The Western Allies armed and supported the Whites. They were worried about a possible Russo-German alliance, the prospect of the Bolsheviks making good on their threats to default on Imperial Russia's massive [[External debt|foreign debts]] and the possibility that Communist revolutionary ideas would spread (a concern shared by many Central Powers). Hence, many of the countries expressed their support for the Whites, including the provision of troops and supplies. [[Winston Churchill]] declared that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle".<ref>[http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=282 Cover Story: Churchill's Greatness.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061004110408/http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=282 |date=2006-10-04}} Interview with Jeffrey Wallin. (The Churchill Centre)</ref> The British and French had supported [[Russia during World War I]] on a massive scale with war materials.

After the treaty, it looked like much of that material would fall into the hands of the Germans. To meet that danger, the [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|Allies intervened]] with Great Britain and France sending troops into Russian ports. There were violent clashes with the Bolsheviks. Britain intervened in support of the White forces to defeat the Bolsheviks and prevent the spread of communism across Europe.<ref>Howard Fuller, "Great Britain and Russia's Civil War: The Necessity for a Definite and Coherent Policy". ''Journal of Slavic Military Studies'' 32.4 (2019): 553–559.</ref>

==== Central Powers anti-Bolshevik intervention ====
{{main|Central Powers intervention in the Russian Civil War}}
The Central Powers also supported the anti-Bolshevik forces and the whites; after the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]], the main goals of the intervention were to maintain the newly conquered territories and prevent a re-establishment of the Eastern Front. After the defeat of the Central Powers, many armies that stayed mostly helped the [[Russian White Guard]] eradicate communists in the Baltics until their eventual withdrawal and defeat. Pro-German factions fought against the newly independent Baltic states until their defeat by the Baltic States, backed by the victorious [[Allies of World War I|Allies]].

====Pro-independence movements and German protectorates====
{{main|Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War}}
[[File:Map Treaty Brest-Litovsk.jpg|thumb|Borders of the buffer states drawn by the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]]]]
The German Empire created several short-lived [[buffer state]]s within its sphere of influence after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: the [[United Baltic Duchy]], [[Duchy of Courland and Semigallia (1918)|Duchy of Courland and Semigallia]], [[Kingdom of Lithuania (1918)|Kingdom of Lithuania]], [[Kingdom of Poland (1916–1918)|Kingdom of Poland]],<ref>{{Cite book|title=Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identity and Cultural Differences|last=Keith Bullivant, Geoffrey J. Giles and Walter Pape|publisher=Rodopi|year=1999|isbn=90-420-0678-1|pages=28–29}}</ref> the [[Belarusian People's Republic]], and the [[Ukrainian State]]. Following Germany's Armistice in World War I in November 1918, the states were abolished.<ref>Mieczysław B. Biskupski, "War and the Diplomacy of Polish Independence, 1914–18." ''Polish Review'' (1990): 5–17. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/25778473 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200127202015/https://www.jstor.org/stable/25778473 |date=27 January 2020 }}</ref><ref>Timothy Snyder, ''The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999'' (Yale UP, 2004)</ref>

Finland was the first republic that [[Finnish Declaration of Independence|declared its independence from Russia]] in December 1917 and established itself in the ensuing [[Finnish Civil War]] between nationalist German-supported [[White Guard (Finland)|White Guards]] and socialist Bolshevik-supported [[Red Guards (Finland)|Red Guards]] from January–May 1918.<ref>{{Cite journal|doi= 10.1080/03585522.1978.10407894|title= Revolutionary ferment in Finland and the origins of the civil war 1917–1918|year= 1978|last1= Kirby|first1= D. G.|journal= Scandinavian Economic History Review|volume= 26 |pages= 15–35|doi-access= free}}</ref> The [[Second Polish Republic]], [[History of Lithuania|Lithuania]], [[History of Latvia|Latvia]] and [[History of Estonia|Estonia]] formed their own armies immediately after the abolition of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and the start of the [[Soviet westward offensive of 1918–1919|Soviet westward offensive]] and subsequent [[Polish-Soviet War]] in November 1918.<ref>Anatol Lieven, ''The Baltic revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the path to independence'' (Yale UP, 1993) pp. 54–61. [https://www.amazon.com/Baltic-Revolution-Estonia-Lithuania-Independence/dp/0300055528/ excerpt] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210316223710/https://www.amazon.com/Baltic-Revolution-Estonia-Lithuania-Independence/dp/0300055528/ |date=16 March 2021 }}</ref>

=== Opposition and repression in Soviet Russia ===
==== Exclusion of Mensheviks and SRs ====
At the [[Fifth All–Russian Congress of Soviets]] of July 4, 1918, the [[Left Socialist-Revolutionaries]] had 352 delegates compared to 745 Bolsheviks out of 1132 total. The Left SRs raised disagreements on the suppression of rival parties, the death penalty, and mainly, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The Bolsheviks excluded the Right SRs and Mensheviks from the government on 14 June for associating with counterrevolutionaries and seeking to "organize armed attacks against the workers and peasants" (though Mensheviks did not exist as a united movement and were split into the [[Menshevik-Internationalists|left-wing "internationalist"]] and more right-wing factions), while the Left SRs advocated forming a government of all socialist parties. The Left SRs agreed with extrajudicial execution of political opponents to stop the counterrevolution, but opposed having the government legally pronouncing death sentences, an unusual position that is best understood within the context of the group's terrorist past. The Left SRs strongly opposed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and opposed Trotsky's insistence that no one try to attack German troops in Ukraine.{{sfn|Carr|1985|pages=161–164}}

According to historian [[Marcel Liebman]], Lenin's wartime measures such as banning opposition parties was prompted by the fact that several political parties either [[left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks|took up arms]] against the new [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic]], or participated in sabotage, collaboration with the deposed Tsarists, or made [[Assassination attempts on Vladimir Lenin|assassination attempts against Lenin]] and other Bolshevik leaders.<ref name="Leninism Under Lenin">{{cite book |last1=Liebman |first1=Marcel |title=Leninism Under Lenin |date=1985 |publisher=Merlin Press |isbn=978-0-85036-261-9 |pages=1–348 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OQjzAAAAMAAJ |language=en}}</ref> Liebman noted that opposition parties such as the Cadets and [[Mensheviks]] who were democratically elected to the Soviets in some areas, then proceeded to use their mandate to welcome in Tsarist and [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War|foreign capitalist military forces]].<ref name="Leninism Under Lenin"/> [[26 Baku Commissars|In one incident in Baku]], the British military, once invited in, proceeded to execute members of the Bolshevik Party who had peacefully stood down from the Soviet when they failed to win the elections. As a result, the Bolsheviks banned each opposition party when it turned against the Soviet government. In some cases, bans were lifted. This banning of parties did not have the same repressive character as later bans enforced under the [[Stalinist]] regime.<ref name="Leninism Under Lenin"/>

====Repression====
In December 1917, [[Felix Dzerzhinsky]] was appointed to the duty of rooting out [[counter-revolutionary]] threats to the [[Government of the Soviet Union|Soviet government]]. He was the director of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (aka [[Cheka]]), a predecessor of the KGB that served as the [[secret police]] for the Soviets.<ref name="Bird-2018" />

The Bolsheviks had begun to see the anarchists as a legitimate threat and associate criminality such as [[robberies]], [[expropriations]] and [[murders]] with anarchist associations. Subsequently, the [[Council of People's Commissars]] (Sovnarkom) decided to liquidate criminal recklessness associated with anarchists and disarm all anarchist groups in the face of their militancy.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Goodwin |first1=James |title=Confronting Dostoevsky's Demons: Anarchism and the Specter of Bakunin in Twentieth-century Russia |date=2010 |publisher=Peter Lang |isbn=978-1-4331-0883-9 |page=48 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pun07YW3t7sC&dq=anarchists+criminal+elements+cheka+april&pg=PA48 |language=en}}</ref>

From early 1918, the Bolsheviks started physical elimination of opposition, other socialist and revolutionary fractions. [[Anarchism|Anarchists]] were among the first:

{{Blockquote|text=Of all the revolutionary elements in Russia it is the Anarchists who now suffer the most ruthless and systematic persecution. Their suppression by the Bolsheviki began already in 1918, when — in the month of April of that year — the Communist Government attacked, without provocation or warning, the Anarchist Club of Moscow and by the use of machine guns and artillery "liquidated" the whole organisation. It was the beginning of Anarchist hounding, but it was sporadic in character, breaking out now and then, quite planless, and frequently self-contradictory.|author=[[Alexander Berkman]], [[Emma Goldman]]|title="Bolsheviks Shooting Anarchists"<ref name="Berkman"/>}}

Prior to the events that would officially catalyze the [[Red Terror]],<ref name="black">{{harvp|Werth|Bartosek|Panne|Margolin|1999|loc=Chapter 4: The Red Terror.}}</ref> [[Vladimir Lenin]] issued orders and made speeches which included harsh expressions and descriptions of brutal measures to be taken against the "class enemies", which, however, often were not actual orders or were not carried out as such. For example, in a telegram which became known as "[[Lenin's hanging order]]" he demanded and "crush" landowners in [[Penza]] and to publicly hang "at least 100 kulaks, rich bastards, and known bloodsuckers"<ref name="black"/> in response to an uprising there; yet, only the 13 organizers of the murder of local authorities and the uprising were arrested, while the uprising ended as propaganda activities were held there;<ref name="log"/> in 1920, having received information that in Estonia and Latvia, with which Soviet Russia had concluded peace treaties, volunteers were being enrolled in anti-Bolshevik detachments, Lenin offered to "advance by 10–20 miles (versts) and hang kulaks, priests, landowners" "while pretending to be greens",<ref name="litvinalkbterror">[[:ru:Литвин, Алтер Львович|Alter Litvin]] ''Красный и Белый террор в России в 1917—1922 годах [Red and White terror in Russia in 1917-1922]'' {{in lang|ru}}, {{ISBN|5-87849-164-8}}.</ref> but instead, his government confined itself to sending diplomatic notes.<ref name="log">[[:ru:Логинов, Владлен Терентьевич|Vladlen Loginov]]. Послесловие / ''В.И.Ленин. Неизвестные документы. 1891-1922''. {{in lang|ru}}, {{ISBN|5-8243-0154-9}}.</ref>

[[Leonid Kannegisser]], a young [[military cadet]] of the [[Imperial Russian Army]], assassinated [[Moisey Uritsky]] on August 17, 1918, outside the Petrograd Cheka headquarters in retaliation for the execution of his friend and other officers.<ref>[http://www.lib.ru/POLITOLOG/MELGUNOW/terror.txt Melgunov, S.P. ''Red Terror'' in Russia] {{in lang|ru}}</ref>

[[File:Lenin attempt.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Vladimir Pchelin's depiction of the assassination attempt on Lenin]]

{{Cleanup section|date=August 2023|reason=incomplete sentence starting with 'and sought to eliminate...'. Next sentence explains 'the term', which hasn't been introduced.}}

On August 30, the SR [[Fanny Kaplan]] unsuccessfully [[Assassination attempts on Vladimir Lenin|attempted to assassinate]] Lenin,<ref name=":11">Wilde, Robert. 2019 February 20. "[https://www.thoughtco.com/the-red-terror-1221808 The Red Terror]" ''ThoughtCo''. Retrieved March 24, 2021.</ref> who sought to eliminate political dissent, opposition, and any other threat to Bolshevik power.<ref>Llewellyn, Jennifer; McConnell, Michael; Thompson, Steve (11 August 2019). [https://alphahistory.com/russianrevolution/red-terror/ "The Red Terror"]. ''Russian Revolution''. Alpha History. Retrieved 4 August 2021.</ref> As a result of the failed attempt on Lenin's life, he began to crack down on his political enemies in an event known as the [[Red Terror]]. More broadly, the term is usually applied to Bolshevik political repression throughout the Civil War (1917–1922),<ref>Melgunov, Sergey [1925] 1975. ''The Red Terror in Russia''. Hyperions. {{ISBN|0-88355-187-X}}.</ref><ref>[[Sergei Melgunov|Melgunov, Sergei]]. 1927. "[http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/soviet/redterror.pdf The Record of the Red Terror] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181221170529/http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/soviet/redterror.pdf |date=21 December 2018 }}." ''[[Current History]]'' (November 1927):198–205.</ref><ref name="Bird-2018" />

During interrogation by the [[Cheka]], she made the following statement:

{{Blockquote|My name is Fanya Kaplan. Today I shot Lenin. I did it on my own. I will not say from whom I obtained my revolver. I will give no details. I had resolved to kill Lenin long ago. I consider him a traitor to the Revolution. I was exiled to Akatui for participating in an assassination attempt against a Tsarist official in Kiev. I spent 11 years at hard labour. After the Revolution, I was freed. I favoured the [[Russian Constituent Assembly|Constituent Assembly]] and am still for it.<ref name="spartacus">{{cite web|url=http://spartacus-educational.com/RUSkaplan.htm|title=Fanya Kaplan|work=Spartacus Educational}}</ref>}}

Kaplan referenced the Bolsheviks' growing authoritarianism, citing their forcible shutdown of the Constituent Assembly in January 1918, the [[1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election|elections]] to which they had lost. When it became clear that Kaplan would not implicate any accomplices, she was executed in [[Alexander Garden]]. The order was carried out by the commander of the Kremlin, the former Baltic sailor P. D. Malkov and a group of Latvian Bolsheviks<ref>{{Cite book|title=Malkov P. Notes of the Kremlin commandant. – M.: Molodaya gvardiya, 1968.S. 148–149.|pages=}}</ref>{{page needed|date=August 2021}}{{primary source inline|date=August 2021}} on September 3, 1918, with a bullet to the back of the head.<ref name="how">{{cite book |title=How Did They Die? |first1=Norman |last1=Donaldson |first2=Betty |last2=Donaldson |isbn=9780517403020 |page=221 |publisher=Greenwich House |date=January 1, 1983}}</ref> Her corpse was bundled into a barrel and set alight. The order came from [[Yakov Sverdlov]], who only six weeks earlier had ordered the [[Murder of the Romanov family|murder]] of the Tsar and his family.<ref>{{Citation|last=Slezkine |first=Yuri |title=The house of government: a saga of the Russian Revolution |isbn=978-1-5384-7835-6|oclc=1003859221 |page=158}}</ref><ref name="Lyandres">{{cite journal |doi=10.2307/2498997 |jstor=2498997 |title=The 1918 Attempt on the Life of Lenin: A New Look at the Evidence |first=Semion |last=Lyandres |journal=Slavic Review |volume=48 |issue=3 |date=Autumn 1989 |pages=432–448 |publisher=Cambridge University Press|s2cid=155228899 }}</ref>{{rp|442}}

These events persuaded the government to heed Dzerzhinsky's lobbying for greater terror against opposition. The campaign of mass repressions would officially begin thereafter.<ref name=":11" /><ref name="Bird-2018" /> The Red Terror is considered to have officially begun between 17 and 30 August 1918.<ref name=":11" /><ref name="Bird-2018">{{Cite magazine|last=Bird|first=Danny|date=September 5, 2018|title=How the 'Red Terror' Exposed the True Turmoil of Soviet Russia 100 Years Ago|url=https://time.com/5386789/red-terror-soviet-history/ |access-date=2021-03-24|magazine=Time}}</ref>

====Revolts against grain requisitioning====
Protests against grain requisitioning of the peasantry were a major component of the [[Tambov Rebellion]] and similar uprisings; Lenin's [[New Economic Policy]] was introduced as a concession.

The policies of "food dictatorship" proclaimed by the Bolsheviks in May 1918 sparked violent resistance in numerous districts of [[European Russia]]: revolts and clashes between the peasants and the [[Red Army]] were reported in [[Voronezh]], [[Tambov]], [[Penza]], [[Saratov]] and in the districts of [[Kostroma Oblast|Kostroma]], [[Moscow Oblast|Moscow]], [[Novgorod Oblast|Novgorod]], [[Leningrad Oblast|Petrograd]], [[Pskov Oblast|Pskov]] and [[Smolensk Oblast|Smolensk]]. The revolts were bloodily crushed by the Bolsheviks: in the Voronezh Oblast, the Red Guards killed sixteen peasants during the pacification of the village, while another village was shelled with artillery in order to force the peasants to surrender and in the Novgorod Oblast the rebelling peasants were dispersed with machine-gun fire from a train sent by a detachment of Latvian Red Army soldiers.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Scott Baldwin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5ueUEE8jVRsC |title=Captives of Revolution: The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolshevik Dictatorship, 1918–1923 |date=2011-04-15 |publisher=[[University of Pittsburgh Press]] |isbn=978-0-8229-7779-7 |pages=68–70 |language=en}}</ref> While the Bolsheviks immediately denounced the rebellion as orchestrated by the SRs, there is actually no evidence that they were involved into peasant violence, which they deemed as counterproductive.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Scott Baldwin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5ueUEE8jVRsC |title=Captives of Revolution: The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Bolshevik Dictatorship, 1918–1923 |date=2011-04-15 |publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press |isbn=978-0-8229-7779-7 |pages=68 |language=en}}</ref>

==Geography and chronology==
{{Main|Southern Front of the Russian Civil War|North Russia Campaign|Eastern Front of the Russian Civil War|Yakut Revolt|Finnish Civil War}}
In the European part of Russia the war was fought across three main fronts: the eastern, the southern and the northwestern. It can also be roughly split into the following periods.
[[File:Volunteer Army infantry company.jpg|thumb|left|Anti-Bolshevik [[Volunteer Army]] in South Russia, January 1918]]
The first period lasted from the Revolution until the Armistice, or roughly March 1917 to November 1918. Already on the date of the Revolution, [[Cossack]] General [[Alexey Kaledin]] refused to recognize it and assumed full governmental authority in the [[Don River, Russia|Don]] region,<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.hrono.info/biograf/kaledina.html| title = Каледин, Алексей Максимович. A biography of Kaledin (in Russian)| access-date = 24 February 2008| archive-date = 8 November 2017| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20171108100553/http://www.hrono.info/biograf/kaledina.html| url-status = live}}</ref> where the [[Volunteer Army]] began amassing support. The signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk also resulted in direct Allied intervention in Russia and the arming of military forces opposed to the Bolshevik government. There were also many German commanders who offered support against the Bolsheviks, fearing a confrontation with them was impending as well.

During the first period, the Bolsheviks took control of [[Central Asia]] out of the hands of the Provisional Government and White Army, setting up a base for the Communist Party in the [[Eurasian Steppe|Steppe]] and [[Russian Turkestan|Turkestan]], where nearly two million Russian settlers were located.{{sfn|Wheeler|1964|p=103}}

Most of the fighting in the first period was sporadic, involved only small groups and had a fluid and rapidly shifting strategic situation. Among the antagonists were the Czechoslovak Legion,<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A4241062 |title=The Czech Legion |publisher=Not Panicking, Ltd|website=h2g2.com |date=20 July 2005 |access-date=29 October 2020|archive-date=19 July 2012|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120719122821/http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A4241062|url-status=live}}</ref> the Poles of the [[4th Rifle Division (Poland)|4th]] and [[5th Rifle Division (Poland)|5th Rifle Divisions]] and the pro-Bolshevik Red [[Latvian riflemen]].

The second period of the war lasted from January to November 1919. At first the White armies' advances from the south (under Denikin), the east (under Kolchak) and the northwest (under Yudenich) were successful, forcing the Red Army and its allies back on all three fronts. In July 1919 the Red Army suffered another reverse after a mass defection of units in the Crimea to the anarchist Insurgent Army under Nestor Makhno, enabling anarchist forces to consolidate power in Ukraine. Leon Trotsky soon reformed the Red Army, concluding the first of two military alliances with the anarchists. In June the Red Army first checked Kolchak's advance. After a series of engagements, assisted by an Insurgent Army offensive against White supply lines, the Red Army defeated Denikin's and Yudenich's armies in October and November.

The third period of the war was the extended siege of the last White forces in the [[Crimea]] in 1920. General [[Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel|Wrangel]] had gathered the remnants of Denikin's armies, occupying much of the Crimea. An attempted invasion of southern Ukraine was rebuffed by the Insurgent Army under Makhno's command. Pursued into Crimea by Makhno's troops, Wrangel went over to the defensive in the Crimea. After an abortive move north against the Red Army, Wrangel's troops were forced south by Red Army and Insurgent Army forces; Wrangel and the remains of his army were evacuated to [[Istanbul|Constantinople]] in November 1920.

==Warfare==
===October Revolution===
{{Main|October Revolution}}
[[File:Russian civil war in the west.svg|thumb|upright=1.2|European theatre of the Russian Civil War]]
In the October Revolution, the Bolshevik Party directed the Red Guard (armed groups of workers and Imperial army deserters) to seize control of [[Petrograd]] and immediately began the armed takeover of cities and villages throughout the former Russian Empire. In January 1918 the Bolsheviks dissolved the [[Russian Constituent Assembly]] and proclaimed the Soviets (workers' councils) as the new government of Russia.

===Initial anti-Bolshevik uprisings===
{{Main|Kerensky-Krasnov uprising|Junker mutiny|Volunteer Army}}
The first attempt to regain power from the Bolsheviks was made by the Kerensky-Krasnov uprising in October 1917. It was supported by the Junker Mutiny in Petrograd but was quickly put down by the Red Guard, notably including the Latvian Rifle Division.

The initial groups that fought against the Communists were local Cossack armies that had declared their loyalty to the Provisional Government. Kaledin of the [[Don Cossacks]] and General [[Grigory Mikhailovich Semenov|Grigory Semenov]] of the [[Siberian Cossacks]] were prominent among them. The leading Tsarist officers of the Imperial Russian Army also started to resist. In November, General [[Mikhail Vasilevich Alekseev|Mikhail Alekseev]], the Tsar's Chief of Staff during the First World War, began to organize the Volunteer Army in [[Novocherkassk]]. Volunteers of the small army were mostly officers of the old Russian army, military cadets and students. In December 1917, Alekseev was joined by General Lavr Kornilov, Denikin and other Tsarist officers who had escaped from the jail, where they had been imprisoned following the abortive Kornilov affair just before the Revolution.{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|p=27}} On 9 December, the [[Military Revolutionary Committee]] in [[Rostov-on-Don|Rostov]] rebelled, with the Bolsheviks controlling the city for five days until the Alekseev Organization supported Kaledin in recapturing the city. According to [[Peter Kenez]], "The operation, begun on December 9, can be regarded as the beginning of the Civil War."{{sfn|Kenez|2004a|pp=64–67}}

Having stated in the November 1917 "[[Declaration of Rights of Peoples of Russia|Declaration of Rights of Nations of Russia]]" that any nation under imperial Russian rule should be immediately given the power of self-determination, the Bolsheviks had begun to usurp the power of the Provisional Government in the territories of Central Asia soon after the establishment of the Turkestan Committee in Tashkent.{{sfn|Coates|Coates|1951|p=72}} In April 1917 the Provisional Government set up the committee, which was mostly made up of former Tsarist officials.{{sfn|Wheeler|1964|p=104}} The Bolsheviks attempted to take control of the Committee in Tashkent on 12 September 1917 but it was unsuccessful, and many leaders were arrested. However, because the Committee lacked representation of the native population and poor Russian settlers, they had to release the Bolshevik prisoners almost immediately because of a public outcry, and a successful takeover of that government body took place two months later in November.{{sfn|Coates|Coates|1951|p=70}} The Leagues of Mohammedam Working People (which Russian settlers and natives who had been sent to work behind the lines for the Tsarist government in 1916 formed in March 1917) had led numerous strikes in the industrial centers throughout September 1917.{{sfn|Coates|Coates|1951|pp=68–69}} However, after the Bolshevik destruction of the Provisional Government in [[Tashkent]], Muslim elites formed an autonomous government in Turkestan, commonly called the "Kokand autonomy" (or simply [[Kokand]]).{{sfn|Coates|Coates|1951|p=74}} The White Russians supported that government body, which lasted several months because of Bolshevik troop isolation from Moscow.{{sfn|Allworth|1967|p=226}} In January 1918 the Soviet forces, under Lt. Col. [[Mikhail Artemyevich Muravyov|Muravyov]], invaded Ukraine and invested [[Kiev]], where the [[Central Council of Ukraine]] held power. With the help of the [[Kiev Arsenal January Uprising|Kiev Arsenal Uprising]], the Bolsheviks [[Battle of Kiev (1918)|captured the city]] on 26 January.{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|p=35}}

===Peace with the Central Powers===
{{Main|Treaty of Brest-Litovsk}}
[[File:Trotzki Deutsche Brest-Litowsk1917.jpg|thumb|Soviet delegation with [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]] greeted by German officers at Brest-Litovsk, 8 January 1918]]
The Bolsheviks decided to immediately make peace with the Central Powers, as they had promised the Russian people before the Revolution.<ref>{{harvnb|Figes|1997|p=258}} quotes such comments from the peasant soldiers during the first weeks of the war: We have talked it over among ourselves; if the Germans want payment, it would be better to pay ten roubles a head than to kill people. Or: Is it not all the same what Tsar we live under? It cannot be worse under the German one. Or: Let them go and fight themselves. Wait a while, we will settle accounts with you. Or: 'What devil has brought this war on us? We are butting into other people's business.'</ref> [[Vladimir Lenin]]'s political enemies attributed that decision to his sponsorship by the Foreign Office of [[Wilhelm II, German Emperor]], offered to Lenin in hope that, with a revolution, Russia would withdraw from [[World War I]]. That suspicion was bolstered by the German Foreign Ministry's sponsorship of Lenin's return to Petrograd.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Vladimir Lenin |url=https://spartacus-educational.com/RUSlenin.htm |website=Spartacus Educational |access-date=29 October 2020 |archive-date=10 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200810163715/https://spartacus-educational.com/RUSlenin.htm |url-status=live}}</ref> However, after the military fiasco of the summer offensive (June 1917) by the Russian Provisional Government had devastated the structure of the Russian Army, it became crucial that Lenin realize the promised peace.<ref>{{harvnb|Figes|1997|p=419}} "It was partly a case of the usual military failings: units had been sent into battle without machine-guns; untrained soldiers had been ordered to engage in complex maneuvers using hand grenades and ended up throwing them without first pulling the pins."</ref> Even before the failed summer offensive the Russian population was very skeptical about the continuation of the war. Western socialists had promptly arrived from France and from the UK to convince the Russians to continue the fight, but could not change the new pacifist mood of Russia.<ref>{{harvnb|Figes|1997|p=412}} "This new civic patriotism did not extend beyond the urban middle classes, although the leaders of the Provisional Government deluded themselves that it did."</ref>

On 16 December 1917 an armistice was signed between Russia and the Central Powers in [[Brest-Litovsk]] and peace talks began.{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|p=42}} As a condition for peace, the proposed treaty by the Central Powers conceded huge portions of the former Russian Empire to the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire, greatly upsetting [[nationalist]]s and [[Conservatism|conservatives]]. Leon Trotsky, representing the Bolsheviks, refused at first to sign the treaty while continuing to observe a unilateral cease-fire, following the policy of "No war, no peace".{{sfn|Smith|Tucker|2014|pp=554–555}}

Therefore, on 18 February 1918, the Germans began [[Operation Faustschlag]] on the Eastern Front, encountering virtually no resistance in a campaign that lasted 11 days.{{sfn|Smith|Tucker|2014|pp=554–555}} Signing a formal peace treaty was the only option in the eyes of the Bolsheviks because the Russian Army was demobilized, and the newly formed Red Guard could not stop the advance. The Soviets acceded to a peace treaty, and the formal agreement, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, was ratified on 3 March. The Soviets viewed the treaty as merely a necessary and expedient means to end the war.

===Ukraine, South Russia, and Caucasus (1918)===
{{Main|Ukrainian People's Republic|Kiev Arsenal January Uprising|Ice March|26 Baku Commissars|German Caucasus Expedition|Battle of Baku|Central Caspian Dictatorship|Romanian military intervention in Bessarabia}}
[[File:Dismembered Russia — Some Fragments (NYT article, Feb. 17, 1918).png|thumb|February 1918 article from ''[[The New York Times]]'' showing a map of the Russian Imperial territories claimed by the [[Ukrainian People's Republic]] at the time, before the annexation of the Austro-Hungarian lands of the [[West Ukrainian People's Republic]]]]

In Ukraine, the German-Austrian Operation Faustschlag had by April 1918 removed the Bolsheviks from Ukraine.<ref name="30076britbrit">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-30076/Ukraine |title=Ukraine – World War I and the struggle for independence |access-date=2008-01-30 |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |archive-date=15 June 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080615144832/http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-30076/Ukraine |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="UkrainianWeek16042018UwIbbb">{{citation |last=Tynchenko |first=Yaros |title=The Ukrainian Navy and the Crimean Issue in 1917–18 |url=http://ukrainianweek.com/History/105648 |work=[[The Ukrainian Week]] |date=23 March 2018 |access-date=October 14, 2018 |archive-date=11 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191111180649/https://ukrainianweek.com/History/105648 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="retrospective2014031918b">[https://iht-retrospective.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/29/1918-germany-takes-control-of-crimea/ Germany Takes Control of Crimea] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190930205920/https://iht-retrospective.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/29/1918-germany-takes-control-of-crimea/ |date=30 September 2019 }}, [[New York Herald]] (18 May 1918)</ref><ref name="harvard11181181bbb">[https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/11181181 War Without Fronts: Atamans and Commissars in Ukraine, 1917–1919] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190403174842/https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/11181181|date=3 April 2019}} by Mikhail Akulov, [[Harvard University]], August 2013 (page 102 and 103)</ref> The German and Austro-Hungarian victories in Ukraine were caused by the apathy of the locals and the inferior fighting skills of Bolsheviks troops to their Austro-Hungarian and German counterparts.<ref name="harvard11181181bbb"/>

Under Soviet pressure, the Volunteer Army embarked on the epic Ice March from [[Krasnodar|Yekaterinodar]] to [[Kuban]] on 22 February 1918, where they joined with the Kuban Cossacks to mount an abortive assault on Yekaterinodar.{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|p=29}} The Soviets recaptured Rostov on the next day.{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|p=29}} Kornilov was killed in the fighting on 13 April, and Denikin took over command. Fighting off its pursuers without respite, the army succeeded in breaking its way through back towards the Don by May, where the Cossack uprising against the Bolsheviks had started.{{sfn|Kenez|2004a|pp=115–118}}

The Baku Soviet Commune was established on 13 April. Germany landed its Caucasus Expedition troops in [[Poti]] on 8 June. The Ottoman [[Army of Islam (Ottoman Empire)|Army of Islam]] (in coalition with [[Azerbaijan Democratic Republic|Azerbaijan]]) drove them out of Baku on 26 July 1918. Subsequently, the [[Armenian Revolutionary Federation|Dashanaks]], Right SRs and [[Menshevik]]s started negotiations with Gen. [[Lionel Dunsterville|Dunsterville]], the commander of the British troops in [[Persia]]. The Bolsheviks and their [[Left SR]] allies were opposed to it, but on 25 July the majority of the Soviets voted to call in the British and the Bolsheviks resigned. The Baku Soviet Commune ended its existence and was replaced by the Central Caspian Dictatorship.

In June 1918 the Volunteer Army, numbering some 9,000 men, started its [[Second Kuban campaign]], capturing Yekaterinodar on 16 August, followed by [[Armavir, Russia|Armavir]] and [[Stavropol]]. By early 1919, they controlled the [[Northern Caucasus]].{{sfn|Kenez|2004a|pp=166–174, 182, 189–190}}

On 8 October, Alekseev died. On 8 January 1919, Denikin became the Supreme Commander of the [[Armed Forces of South Russia]], uniting the Volunteer Army with [[Pyotr Krasnov]]'s [[Don Army]]. [[Pyotr Wrangel]] became Denikin's Chief of Staff.{{sfn|Kenez|2004a|pp=195, 204, 267–270}}

In December, three-fourths of the army was in the Northern Caucasus. That included three thousand of [[Vladimir Liakhov]]'s soldiers around [[Vladikavkaz]], thirteen thousand soldiers under Wrangel and Kazanovich in the center of the front, Stankevich's almost three thousand men with the Don Cossacks, while [[Vladimir May-Mayevsky]]'s three thousand were sent to the [[Donets basin]], and de Bode commanded two thousand in Crimea.{{sfn|Kenez|2004b|pp=28–29}}

===Eastern Russia, Siberia and the Far East (1918)===
{{Main|Revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion|Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly|Provisional All-Russian Government}}
The revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion broke out in May 1918, and proceeded to occupy the [[Trans-Siberian Railway]] from [[Ufa]] to [[Vladivostok]]. Uprisings overthrew other Bolshevik towns. On 7 July, the western portion of the legion declared itself to be a new eastern front, anticipating allied intervention. According to [[William Henry Chamberlin]], "Two governments emerged as a result of the first successes of the Czechs: the [[Provisional Siberian Government (Omsk)|West Siberian Commissariat]] and the Government of the [[Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly]] in Samara." On 17 July, shortly before the fall of [[Yekaterinburg]], the former tsar and his family were [[Execution of the Romanov family|murdered]].{{sfn|Chamberlin|1935|pp=6–12, 91}}

[[File:Bolshveki killed at Vladivostok.jpg|thumb|Czechoslovak legionaries of the 8th Regiment at [[Nikolsk-Ussuriysky]] killed by Bolsheviks, 1918. Above them stand also members of the Czechoslovak Legion.]]
The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries supported [[peasant]]s fighting against Soviet control of food supplies.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Muldoon |first=Amy |url=https://isreview.org/issue/107/workers-organizations-russian-revolution |title=Workers' Organizations in the Russian Revolution |website=International Socialist Review |access-date=20 February 2018 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180221100132/https://isreview.org/issue/107/workers-organizations-russian-revolution |archive-date=21 February 2018}}</ref> In May 1918, with the support of the Czechoslovak Legion, they took [[Samara Oblast|Samara]] and [[Saratov]], establishing the [[Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly]]—known as the "Komuch". By July the authority of the Komuch extended over much of the area controlled by the Czechoslovak Legion. The Komuch pursued an ambivalent social policy, combining democratic and socialist measures, such as the institution of an [[eight hour day|eight-hour working day]], with "restorative" actions, such as returning both factories and land to their former owners. After the fall of [[Kazan]], Vladimir Lenin called for the dispatch of Petrograd workers to the Kazan Front: "We must send down the ''maximum'' number of Petrograd workers: (1) a few dozen 'leaders' like [[Benyamin Kayurov|Kayurov]]; (2) a few thousand militants 'from the ranks'".

After a series of reverses at the front, the Bolsheviks' War Commissar, Trotsky, instituted increasingly harsh measures in order to prevent unauthorised withdrawals, desertions, and mutinies in the Red Army. In the field, the Cheka Special Investigations Forces (termed the ''Special Punitive Department of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combat of Counter-Revolution and Sabotage'' or ''Special Punitive Brigades'') followed the Red Army, conducting field tribunals and summary executions of soldiers and officers who deserted, retreated from their positions, or failed to display sufficient offensive zeal.<ref>{{harvnb|Chamberlin|1987|p=31}} Frequently the deserters' families were taken hostage to force a surrender; a portion were customarily executed, as an example to the others.</ref>{{sfn|Daniels|1993|p=70}} The Cheka Special Investigations Forces were also charged with the detection of sabotage and counter-revolutionary activity by Red Army soldiers and commanders. Trotsky extended the use of the death penalty to the occasional political commissar whose detachment retreated or broke in the face of the enemy.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1996|p=175}} In August, frustrated at continued reports of Red Army troops breaking under fire, Trotsky authorised the formation of [[barrier troops]] – stationed behind unreliable Red Army units and given orders to shoot anyone withdrawing from the battle line without authorisation.<ref>{{harvnb|Volkogonov|1996|p=180}}: By December 1918 Trotsky had ordered the formation of special detachments to serve as blocking units throughout the Red Army.</ref>

[[File:Kolchak1919troops.jpg|thumb|left|Admiral [[Alexander Kolchak]] reviewing the troops, 1919]]

In September 1918, the Komuch, the Siberian Provisional Government, and other anti-Bolshevik Russians agreed during the [[State Meeting in Ufa]] to form a new [[Provisional All-Russian Government]] in Omsk, headed by a Directory of five: two [[Socialist Revolutionary Party|Socialist-Revolutionaries]]. [[Nikolai Avksentiev]] and [[Vladimir Zenzinov]], the [[Kadet]] lawyer V. A. Vinogradov, Siberian Premier Vologodskii, and General [[Vasily Boldyrev]].{{sfn|Chamberlin|1935|pp=20–21}}

By the fall of 1918, anti-Bolshevik White forces in the east included the People's Army ([[Komuch]]), the Siberian Army (of the Siberian Provisional Government) and insurgent Cossack units of Orenburg, the Urals, Siberia, Semirechye, Baikal, and Amur and Ussuri Cossacks, nominally under the orders of Gen. V.G. Boldyrev, Commander-in-Chief, appointed by the Ufa Directorate.

On the Volga, Col. [[Vladimir Kappel|Kappel]]'s White detachment captured Kazan on 7 August, but Red Forces recaptured the city on 8 September 1918 following a counteroffensive. On the 11th [[Simbirsk]] fell, and on 8 October [[Samara, Russia|Samara]]. The Whites fell back eastwards to Ufa and Orenburg.

In Omsk, the Russian Provisional Government quickly came under the influence and later the dominance of its new War Minister, the rear-admiral [[Aleksandr Vasilevich Kolchak|Kolchak]]. On 18 November, a [[Kolchak Coup|coup d'état]] established Kolchak as supreme leader. Two members of the Directory were arrested, and subsequently deported, while Kolchak was proclaimed "Supreme Ruler", and "Commander-in-Chief of all Land and Naval Forces of Russia."{{sfn|Chamberlin|1935|pp=177–178}} By mid-December 1918, the White armies had to leave Ufa, but they balanced that failure with a successful drive towards [[Perm, Russia|Perm]], which they took on 24 December.

==== Barrier troops ====
In the Red Army, the concept of barrier troops first arose in August 1918 with the formation of the заградительные отряды (''zagraditelnye otriady''), translated as "blocking troops" or "anti-retreat detachments" ({{langx|ru| заградотряды, заградительные отряды, отряды заграждения}}).<ref name=volko>Dmitri Volkogonov, ''Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary'', transl. and edited by Harold Shukman, HarperCollins Publishers, London (1996), p. 180</ref> The barrier troops comprised personnel drawn from the Cheka punitive detachments or from regular Red Army infantry regiments. <!-- The Red Army numbered some 2.9 million troops at the start of World War II.<ref>{{Cite book|title= Stalin and Stalinism|last= McCauley|first= Martin|publisher= Routledge|year= 2013|location= New York, New York|pages= 2099}}</ref> -->

The first use of the barrier troops by the Red Army occurred in the late summer and fall of 1918 in the [[Eastern Front (RSFSR)|Eastern front]] during the Russian Civil War, when Leon Trotsky authorized [[Mikhail Tukhachevsky]], the commander of the [[1st Army (RSFSR)|1st Army]], to station blocking detachments behind unreliable Red Army infantry regiments in the 1st Red Army, with orders to shoot if front-line troops either deserted or retreated without permission.<ref name=volko/>

In December 1918, Trotsky ordered that detachments of additional barrier troops be raised for attachment to each infantry formation in the Red Army. On December 18 he cabled: <blockquote>How do things stand with the blocking units? As far as I am aware they have not been included in our establishment and it appears they have no personnel. It is absolutely essential that we have at least an embryonic network of blocking units and that we work out a procedure for bringing them up to strength and deploying them.<ref name=volko/></blockquote>

In 1919, 616 "hardcore" deserters of the total 837,000 draft dodgers and deserters were executed following Trotsky's draconian measures.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Reese |first1=Roger R. |title=Russia's Army: A History from the Napoleonic Wars to the War in Ukraine |date=3 October 2023 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=978-0-8061-9356-4 |page=109 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hWS2EAAAQBAJ&dq=trotsky+desertion+612&pg=PA109 |language=en}}</ref> According to Figes, "a majority of deserters (most registered as "weak-willed") were handed back to the military authorities, and formed into units for transfer to one of the rear armies or directly to the front". Even those registered as "malicious" deserters were returned to the ranks when the demand for reinforcements became desperate". Forges also noted that the Red Army instituted [[amnesty]] weeks to prohibit punitive measures against desertion which encouraged  the voluntary return of 98,000-132,000 deserters to the army.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Figes |first1=Orlando |title=The Red Army and Mass Mobilization during the Russian Civil War 1918-1920 |journal=Past & Present |date=1990 |issue=129 |pages=168–211 |doi=10.1093/past/129.1.168 |jstor=650938 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/650938 |issn=0031-2746}}</ref>

The barrier troops were also used to enforce Bolshevik control over food supplies in areas controlled by the Red Army as part of Lenin's [[war communism]] policies, a role which soon earned them the hatred of the Russian civilian population.<ref>Lih, Lars T., ''Bread and Authority in Russia, 1914–1921'', University of California Press (1990), p. 131</ref>
These policies in part led to the [[Russian famine of 1921–1922]], which killed about five million people.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=War Communism|encyclopedia=[[Encyclopaedia Britannica]] |author=((The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica)) |date=8 June 2023 |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/War-Communism}}{{dubious|date=December 2023}}</ref>{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|p=[https://archive.org/details/russiancivilwar00evan/page/287 287]}} However, the famine was preceded by bad [[harvests]], harsh winter, [[drought]] especially in the [[Volga region|Volga Valley]] which was exacerbated by a range of factors including the war, the presence of the White Army and the methods of war communism.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Götz |first1=Norbert |last2=Brewis |first2=Georgina |last3=Werther |first3=Steffen |title=Humanitarianism in the Modern World: The Moral Economy of Famine Relief |date=23 July 2020 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-49352-9 |page=44 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wILoDwAAQBAJ&dq=war+communism+1921+famine&pg=PA44 |language=en}}</ref>  The outbreaks of diseases such as [[cholera]] and [[typhus]] were also contributing factors to the famine casualties.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Heinzen |first1=James W. |title=Inventing a Soviet Countryside: State Power and the Transformation of Rural Russia, 1917-1929 |date=1 February 2004 |publisher=University of Pittsburgh Pre |isbn=978-0-8229-7078-1 |page=52 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qICRs_f68KQC&dq=cholera+russian+famine+1921&pg=PA52 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Raleigh |first1=Donald J. |title=Experiencing Russia's Civil War: Politics, Society, and Revolutionary Culture in Saratov, 1917-1922 |date=11 May 2021 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-4374-9 |page=202 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U00gEAAAQBAJ&dq=cholera+russian+famine+1921&pg=PA202 |language=en}}</ref>

===Central Asia (1918)===
[[File:Europe map 1919.jpg|thumb|London Geographical Institute's 1919 map of [[Europe]] after Brest-Litovsk and [[Treaty of Batum|Batum]] and before the [[Treaty of Tartu (disambiguation)|treaties of Tartu]], [[Treaty of Kars|Kars]], and [[Peace of Riga|Riga]]]]

In February 1918, the Red Army overthrew the White Russian-supported Kokand Autonomy of Turkestan.{{sfn|Rakowska-Harmstone|1970|p=19}} Although that move seemed to solidify Bolshevik power in Central Asia, more troubles soon arose for the Red Army as the Allied Forces began to intervene. British support of the White Army provided the greatest threat to the Red Army in Central Asia during 1918. Britain sent three prominent military leaders to the area. One was Lieutenant Colonel [[Frederick Marshman Baile]], who recorded a mission to Tashkent, from where the Bolsheviks forced him to flee. Another was General [[Wilfrid Malleson]], leading the [[Malleson Mission]], who assisted the Mensheviks in Ashkhabad (now the capital of Turkmenistan) with a small Anglo-Indian force. However, he failed to gain control of Tashkent, Bukhara and Khiva. The third was Major General Dunsterville, who was driven out by the Bolsheviks of Central Asia only a month after his arrival in August 1918.{{sfn|Coates|Coates|1951|p=75}} Despite setbacks as a result of British invasions during 1918, the Bolsheviks continued to make progress in bringing the Central Asian population under their influence. The first regional congress of the Russian Communist Party convened in the city of Tashkent in June 1918 in order to build support for a local Bolshevik Party.{{sfn|Allworth|1967|p=232}}

===Left SR Uprising===
{{Main|Left SR uprising|Yaroslavl Uprising}}
On 6 July 1918, two [[Left Socialist-Revolutionaries]] and Cheka employees, [[Yakov Blumkin]] and Nikolai Andreyev, assassinated the German ambassador, Count [[Wilhelm Mirbach|Mirbach]]. In Moscow a [[Left SR uprising]] was put down by the Bolsheviks, mass arrests of Socialist-Revolutionaries followed, and executions became more frequent. Chamberlin noted, "The time of relative leniency toward former fellow-revolutionists was over. The Left Socialist Revolutionaries, of course, were no longer tolerated as members of the Soviets; from this time the Soviet regime became a pure and undiluted dictatorship of the Communist Party." Similarly, [[Boris Savinkov]]'s surprise attacks were suppressed, with many of the conspirators being executed, as "Mass Red Terror" became a reality.{{sfn|Chamberlin|1935|pp=50–59}}

===Estonia, Latvia and Petrograd===
{{Main|Estonian War of Independence|Latvian War of Independence|Battle of Petrograd}}
Estonia [[Estonian War of Independence|cleared its territory]] of the Red Army by January 1919.<ref>[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1514725/Baltic-War-of-Liberation Baltic War of Liberation] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141008052602/http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1514725/Baltic-War-of-Liberation |date=8 October 2014}} Encyclopedia Britannica</ref> [[Baltische Landeswehr|Baltic German volunteers]] captured [[Riga]] from the Red [[Latvian Riflemen]] on 22 May, but the Estonian 3rd Division [[Battle of Cēsis (1919)|defeated]] the Baltic Germans a month later, aiding the establishment of the [[Republic of Latvia]].<ref name=axishistory>{{cite web |url=http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=6953 |title=Generalkommando VI Reservekorps|publisher=Axis History|access-date=11 April 2012|archive-date=4 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304090953/http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=6953|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:NikolaiYudenich1916.jpeg|thumb|upright|General [[Nikolai Yudenich]]]]
That rendered possible another threat to the Red Army, from General Yudenich, who had spent the summer organizing the Northwestern Army in Estonia with local and British support. In October 1919, he tried to capture Petrograd in a sudden assault with a force of around 20,000 men. The attack was well-executed, using night attacks and lightning cavalry maneuvers to turn the flanks of the defending Red Army. Yudenich also had six British tanks, which caused panic whenever they appeared. The Allies gave large quantities of aid to Yudenich, but he complained of receiving insufficient support.

By 19 October, Yudenich's troops had reached the outskirts of the city. Some members of the Bolshevik central committee in Moscow were willing to give up Petrograd, but Trotsky refused to accept the loss of the city and personally organized its defenses. Trotsky himself declared, "It is impossible for a little army of 15,000 ex-officers to master a working-class capital of 700,000 inhabitants." He settled on a strategy of urban defense, proclaiming that the city would "defend itself on its own ground" and that the White Army would be lost in a labyrinth of fortified streets and there "meet its grave".<ref>Williams, Beryl, ''The Russian Revolution 1917–1921'', Blackwell Publishing (1987), {{ISBN|978-0-631-15083-1}}, {{ISBN|0-631-15083-8}}</ref>

Trotsky armed all available workers, men and women, and ordered the transfer of military forces from Moscow. Within a few weeks, the Red Army defending Petrograd had tripled in size and outnumbered Yudenich three to one. Yudenich, short of supplies, then decided to call off the siege of the city and withdrew. He repeatedly asked permission to withdraw his army across the border to Estonia. However, units retreating across the border were disarmed and interned by orders of the Estonian government, which had entered into peace negotiations with the Soviet Government on 16 September and had been informed by the Soviet authorities of their 6 November decision that if the White Army was allowed to retreat into Estonia, it would be pursued across the border by the Reds.{{sfn|Rosenthal|2006|p=516}} In fact, the Reds attacked Estonian army positions and fighting continued until a ceasefire went into effect on 3 January 1920. After the [[Treaty of Tartu (Russian–Estonian)|Treaty of Tartu]], most of Yudenich's soldiers went into exile. Former Imperial Russian and then Finnish General [[Mannerheim]] planned an intervention to help the Whites in Russia capture Petrograd. However, he did not gain the necessary support for the endeavour. Lenin considered it "completely certain, that the slightest aid from Finland would have determined the fate of [the city]".

===Northern Russia (1919)===
{{Main|North Russia intervention}}
The British occupied [[Murmansk]] and seized [[Arkhangelsk]] alongside United States forces. With the retreat of Kolchak in Siberia, they pulled their troops out of the cities before the winter trapped them in the port. The remaining White forces under [[Yevgeny Miller]] evacuated the region in February 1920.<ref>Ian C.D. Moffat, "The Allies Act—Murmansk and Archangel." in Ian C. D. Moffat. ed., ''The Allied Intervention in Russia, 1918–1920'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). 68–82.</ref>

===Siberia (1919)===
[[File:Uniformes (koltchak) 001.jpg|thumb|right|Russian soldiers of the anti-Bolshevik [[Siberian Army]] in 1919]]
At the beginning of March 1919, the general offensive of the Whites on the eastern front began. Ufa was retaken on 13 March; by mid-April, the White Army stopped at the [[Glazov]]–[[Chistopol]]–[[Bugulma]]–[[Buguruslan]]–Sharlyk line. Reds started their [[Eastern Front counteroffensive|counteroffensive against Kolchak's forces]] at the end of April. The Red 5th Army, led by the capable commander [[Tukhachevsky]], captured [[Elabuga]] on 26 May, [[Sarapul]] on 2 June and [[Izevsk]] on the 7th and continued to push forward. Both sides had victories and losses, but by the middle of summer the Red Army was larger than the White Army and had managed to recapture territory previously lost.<ref>Jonathan D. Smele, ''Civil war in Siberia: the anti-Bolshevik government of Admiral Kolchak, 1918–1920'' (Cambridge UP, 2006).</ref>

Following the abortive offensive at Chelyabinsk, the White armies withdrew beyond the [[Tobol]]. In September 1919 a White offensive was launched against the Tobol Front, the last attempt to change the course of events. However, on 14 October the Reds counterattacked, and thus began the uninterrupted [[Great Siberian Ice March|retreat of the Whites to the east]]. On 14 November 1919 the Red Army captured Omsk.<ref>{{cite news|title=Bolsheviki Grain Near Petrograd|newspaper=New York Tribune|date=15 November 1919 |url=http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1919-11-15/ed-1/seq-4/|access-date=10 September 2010 |agency=[[Library of Congress]]|location=Washington, DC|page=4 |archive-date=12 October 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121012044429/http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1919-11-15/ed-1/seq-4/ |url-status=live}}</ref> Adm. Kolchak lost control of his government shortly after the defeat; White Army forces in Siberia had essentially ceased to exist by December. Retreat of the eastern front by White armies lasted three months, until mid-February 1920, when the survivors, after crossing Lake Baikal, reached the [[Chita, Zabaykalsky Krai|Chita]] area and joined [[Ataman Semenov]]'s forces.

===South Russia (1919)===
[[File:За единую Россію.jpg|thumb|190px|right|Anti-Bolshevik propaganda poster "For united Russia" representing Soviet Russia as a fallen communist dragon and the White Cause as a crusading knight]]
[[File:Polish-soviet propaganda poster 1920.jpg|thumb|210px|Anti-Polish Soviet propaganda poster, 1920]]

The Cossacks had been unable to organise and capitalise on their successes at the end of 1918. By 1919 they had begun to run short of supplies. Consequently, when the Soviet Russian counteroffensive began in January 1919 under the Bolshevik commander [[Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko|Antonov-Ovseenko]], the Cossack forces rapidly fell apart. The Red Army captured Kiev on 3 February 1919.{{Sfn|Kenez|1977|p={{page needed|date=August 2023}}}}

[[Anton Denikin|Denikin]]'s military strength continued to grow in 1919, with significant munitions supplied by the [[British Empire|British empire]]. In January, Denikin's Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR) completed the elimination of Red forces in the northern Caucasus and moved north, in an effort to [[Battle for the Donbas (1919)|protect the Don district]].{{sfn|Kenez|2004b|pp=20–35}}

On 18 December 1918, French forces landed in [[Odessa]] and Crimea, but evacuated Odessa on 6 April 1919, and the Crimea by the end of the month. According to Chamberlin, "France gave far less practical aid to the Whites than did England; its sole independent venture in intervention, at Odessa, ended in a complete fiasco."{{sfn|Chamberlin|1935|pp=151, 165–167}}

Denikin then reorganized the Armed Forces of South Russia under the leadership of [[Vladimir May-Mayevsky]], [[Vladimir Sidorin]], and [[Pyotr Wrangel]]. On 22 May, Wrangel's Caucasian army defeated the [[10th Army (RSFSR)]] in the battle for [[Velikoknyazheskaya]], and then captured Tsaritsyn on 1 July. Sidorin advanced north toward [[Voronezh]], increasing his army's strength in the process. On 25 June, May–Mayevsky captured [[Kharkov]], and then [[Ekaterinoslav]] on 30 June, which forced the Reds to abandon Crimea. On 3 July, Denikin issued his [[Advance on Moscow (1919)|Moscow directive]], in which his armies would converge on Moscow.{{sfn|Kenez|2004b|pp=37–41}}

Although Britain had withdrawn its own troops from the theatre, it continued to give significant military aid (money, weapons, food, ammunition and some military advisers) to the White Armies during 1919. Major [[Ewen Cameron Bruce]] of the British Army had volunteered to command a British tank mission assisting the White Army. He was awarded the [[Distinguished Service Order]]<ref>{{Cite web|title=Distinguished Service Order citation for Bruce in the 1920 |work=London Gazette |url=http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/31875/supplements/4693/page.pdf}}</ref> for his bravery during the June 1919 [[Battle of Tsaritsyn]] for single-handedly storming and capturing the fortified city of Tsaritsyn, under heavy shell fire in a single tank, which led to the capture of over 40,000 prisoners.{{sfn|Kinvig|2006|p=225}} The fall of Tsaritsyn is viewed "as one of the key battles of the Russian Civil War" and greatly helped the White Russian cause.{{sfn|Kinvig|2006|p=225}} The notable historian [[Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart]] comments that Bruce's tank action during the battle is to be seen as "one of the most remarkable feats in the whole history of the Tank Corps".<ref name="BasilLiddellHart">Liddell Hart, Basil. "The Tanks: The History Of The Royal Tank Regiment And Its Predecessors, Heavy Branch Machine-Gun Corps, Tank Corps And Royal Tank Corps, 1914–1945. Vol I". Cassell: 1959, p. 211.</ref>

On 14 August, the Bolsheviks launched their [[Southern Front counteroffensive]]. After six weeks of heavy fighting the counteroffensive failed, and Denikin was able to capture more territory. By November, White Forces had reached the [[Zbruch]], the Ukrainian-Polish border.{{sfn|Kenez|2004b|pp=43, 154}}

[[File:Wrangel after worship Tsaritsyn 1919.jpg|thumb|left|General [[Pyotr Wrangel]] in [[Battle of Tsaritsyn|Tsaritsyn]], 15 October 1919]]

Denikin's forces constituted a real threat and for a time threatened to reach Moscow. The Red Army, stretched thin by fighting on all fronts, was forced out of Kiev on 30 August. [[Kursk]] and [[Oryol|Orel]] were taken, on 20 September and 14 October, respectively. The latter, only {{Convert|205|mi|km}} from Moscow, was the closest the AFSR would come to its target.{{Sfn|Kenez|1977|p=44}} The Cossack [[Don Army]] under the command of General [[Vladimir Sidorin]] continued north towards [[Voronezh]], but [[Semyon Budyonny]]'s cavalrymen defeated them there on 24 October. That allowed the Red Army to cross the [[Don River (Russia)|Don River]], threatening to split the Don and Volunteer Armies. Fierce fighting took place at the key rail junction of Kastornoye, which was taken on 15 November. Kursk was retaken two days later.{{Sfn|Kenez|1977|p=218}}

[[File:Klinom Krasnym Bej Belych.JPG|thumb|''[[Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge]]'', a Bolshevik [[Constructivism (art)|Constructivist]] propaganda poster by [[El Lissitzky]] that abstractly represents the defeat of the Whites by the Red Army]]

Kenez states, "In October Denikin ruled more than forty million people and controlled the economically most valuable parts of the Russian Empire." Yet, "The White armies, which had fought victoriously during the summer and early fall, fell back in disorder in November and December." Denikin's front line was overstretched, while his reserves dealt with Makhno's anarchists in the rear. Between September and October, the Reds mobilized one hundred thousand new soldiers and adopted the Trotsky-[[Jukums Vācietis|Vācietis]] strategy with the Ninth and Tenth armies forming V. I. Shorin's Southeastern Front between Tsaritsyn and Bobrov, while the Eighth, Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth armies formed [[Alexander Yegorov (soldier)|A. I. Egorov]]'s Southern Front between Zhitomir and Bobrov. [[Sergey Kamenev]] was in overall command of the two fronts. On Denikin's left was [[Abram Dragomirov]], while in his center was [[Vladimir May-Mayevsky]]'s Volunteer Army, [[Vladimir Sidorin]]'s Don Cossacks were further east, with Wrangel's Caucasian army at Tsaritsyn, and an additional was in the Northern Caucasus attempting to capture Astrakhan. On 20 October, May–Mayevsky was forced to evacuate Orel during the [[Orel-Kursk operation]]. On 24 October, [[Semyon Budyonny]] captured Voronezh, and Kursk on 15 November, during the [[Voronezh-Kastornoye operation (1919)]]. On 6 January, the Reds reached the Black Sea at Mariupol and Taganrog, and on 9 January, they reached Rostov. According to Kenez, "The Whites had now lost all the territories which they had captured in 1919, and held approximately the same area in which they had started two years before."{{sfn|Kenez|2004b|pp=213–223}}

===Central Asia (1919)===
By February 1919 the British government had pulled its military forces out of Central Asia.{{sfn|Allworth|1967|p=231}} Despite the success for the Red Army, the White Army's assaults in European Russia and other areas broke communication between Moscow and Tashkent. For a time, Central Asia was completely cut off from Red Army forces in Siberia.{{sfn|Coates|Coates|1951|p=76}} Although the communication failure weakened the Red Army, the Bolsheviks continued their efforts to gain support for the Bolshevik Party in Central Asia by holding a second regional conference in March. During the conference, a regional bureau of Muslim organisations of the Russian Bolshevik Party was formed. The Bolshevik Party continued to try to gain support among the native population by giving it the impression of better representation for the Central Asian population and throughout the end of the year could maintain harmony with the Central Asian people.{{sfn|Allworth|1967|pp=232–233}}

Communication difficulties with Red Army forces in Siberia and European Russia ceased to be a problem by mid-November 1919. Red Army successes north of Central Asia caused communication with Moscow to be re-established and the Bolsheviks to claim victory over the White Army in Turkestan.{{sfn|Coates|Coates|1951|p=76}}

In the Ural-Guryev operation of 1919–1920, the Red [[Turkestan Front]] defeated the [[Ural Army]]. During winter 1920, [[Ural Cossacks]] and their families, totaling about 15,000 people, headed south along the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea towards [[Fort-Shevchenko|Fort Alexandrovsk]]. Only a few hundred of them reached Persia in June 1920.{{sfn|Smele|2016|p=139}} The [[Orenburg Independent Army]] was formed from [[Orenburg Cossacks]] and other troops who rebelled against the Bolsheviks. During the winter 1919–20, the Orenburg Army retreated to [[Jetisu|Semirechye]] in what is known as the [[Starving March]], as half of the participants perished.{{sfn|Smele|2015|pp=1082–1083}} In March 1920 her remnants crossed the border into the Northwestern region of China.

===South Russia, Ukraine and Kronstadt (1920–21)===
[[File:Trotsky_on_a_Polish_poster_of_1920.jpg|thumb|Polish anti-Soviet poster depicting [[Leon Trotsky|Lev Trotsky]].{{efn|<poem>Small caption in the lower right corner reads:
The Bolsheviks promised:
We'll give you peace
We'll give you freedom
We'll give you land
Work and bread
Despicably they cheated
They started a war
With Poland
Instead of freedom they brought
The fist
Instead of land – confiscation
Instead of work – misery
Instead of bread – famine.</poem>}}]]
At the beginning of 1920, Denikin was reduced to defending Novorossia, the Crimean peninsula, and the Northern Caucasus. On 26 January, the Caucasian army retreated beyond the [[Manych]]. On 7 February, the Reds occupied Odessa, but then [[Makhnovshchina|Makhno's anarchists]] started fighting the Fourteenth Red Army. On 20 February, Denikin succeeded in recapturing Rostov, his last victory, before giving it up soon after.{{sfn|Kenez|2004b|pp=236–239}}

By the beginning of 1920, the main body of the Armed Forces of South Russia was rapidly retreating towards the Don, to Rostov. Denikin hoped to hold the crossings of the Don, then rest and reform his troops, but the White Army was not able to hold the Don area, and at the end of February 1920 started a retreat across Kuban towards [[Novorossiysk]]. Slipshod [[Evacuation of Novorossiysk (1920)|evacuation of Novorossiysk]] proved to be a dark event for the White Army. Russian and Allied ships evacuated about 40,000 of Denikin's men from Novorossiysk to the Crimea, without horses or any heavy equipment, while about 20,000 men were left behind and either dispersed or were captured by the Red Army. Following the disastrous Novorossiysk evacuation, Denikin stepped down and the military council elected Wrangel as the new Commander-in-Chief of the White Army. He was able to restore order to the dispirited troops and reshape an army that could fight as a regular force again. It remained an organized force in the Crimea throughout 1920.<ref>Viktor G. Bortnevski, "White Administration and White Terror (the Denikin Period)." ''Russian Review'' 52.3 (1993): 354–366 [http://sites.bu.edu/revolutionaryrussia/files/2013/09/White-Propaganda-Efforts-in-the-South-during-the-Russian-Civil-War.pdf online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200930231435/http://sites.bu.edu/revolutionaryrussia/files/2013/09/White-Propaganda-Efforts-in-the-South-during-the-Russian-Civil-War.pdf |date=30 September 2020 }}.</ref>

[[File:Tambov Rebellion.png|thumb|left|upright|The [[Tambov Rebellion]] was one of the largest and best-organised [[List of peasant revolts|peasant rebellion]]s challenging the Bolshevik regime]]
After Moscow's Bolshevik government signed a [[Starobilsk agreement|military and political alliance]] with [[Nestor Makhno]] and the [[Ukrainian anarchists]], the [[Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine|Insurgent Army]] attacked and defeated several regiments of Wrangel's troops in southern Ukraine, forcing him to retreat before he could capture that year's grain harvest.<ref>Berland, Pierre, "Makhno", ''Le Temps'', 28 August 1934: In addition to supplying White Army forces and their sympathizers with food, a successful seizure of the 1920 Ukrainian grain harvest would have had a devastating effect on food supplies to Bolshevik-held cities, while depriving both Red Army and Ukrainian Insurgent Army troops of their usual bread rations.</ref>

Stymied in his efforts to consolidate his hold, Wrangel then attacked north in an attempt to take advantage of recent Red Army defeats at the close of the [[Polish–Soviet War]] of 1919–1920. The Red Army eventually halted the offensive, and Wrangel's troops had to retreat to [[Siege of Perekop (1920)|Crimea in November 1920]], pursued by both the Red and Black cavalry and infantry. [[Wrangel's fleet]] evacuated [[Evacuation of the Crimea (1920)|him and his army to Constantinople]] on 14 November 1920, ending the struggle of Reds and Whites in Southern Russia.{{Sfn|Kenez|1977|p={{page needed|date=August 2023}}}}

After the defeat of Wrangel, the Red Army immediately repudiated its 1920 treaty of alliance with Nestor Makhno and attacked the anarchist Insurgent Army; the [[Bolshevik–Makhnovist conflict#Second phase (November 1920–August 1921)|campaign to liquidate Makhno and the Ukrainian anarchists]] began with an attempted assassination of Makhno by Cheka agents. Anger at continued repression by the Bolshevik Communist government and at its liberal use of the Cheka to put down anarchist elements led to a [[Kronstadt rebellion|naval mutiny at Kronstadt]] in March 1921, followed by peasant revolts – all of which were put down by the Bolsheviks. The outset of the year was marked by strikes and demonstrations – in both Moscow and Petrograd, as well as the countryside – due to discontent with the results of policies that made up [[war communism]].{{sfn|Daniels|1951|p=241}}{{sfn|Avrich|2004|p=41}} The Bolsheviks, in response to the protests, enacted martial law and sent the Red Army to disperse the workers.{{sfn|Chamberlin|1987|p=440}}{{sfn|Figes|1997|p=760}} This was followed up by mass arrests executed by the [[Cheka]].{{sfn|Avrich|2004|p=52}} Repression and minor concessions only temporarily quelled the discontent as Petrograd protests continued that year in March. This time the factory workers were joined by sailors stationed on the nearby island-fort of Kronstadt.{{sfn|Avrich|2004|p=73}} Disappointed in the direction of the Bolshevik government, the rebels demanded a series of reforms including: reduction in Bolshevik privileges, newly elected [[Soviet (council)|soviet]]s to include socialist and anarchist groups, economic freedom for peasants and workers, dissolution of the bureaucratic governmental organs created during the civil war, and the restoration of worker rights for the working class.<ref>{{cite web |last=Berkman |first=Alexander |url=https://archive.org/details/TheKronstandtRebellion/page/n11/mode/2up |title=The Kronstadt Rebellion |year=1922 |pages=10–11 }}</ref> The workers and sailors of the Kronstadt rebellion were promptly crushed by Red Army forces, with a thousand rebels killed in battle and another thousand executed the following weeks, with many more fleeing abroad and to the countryside.{{sfn|Figes|1997|p=767}}{{sfn|Avrich|1970|p=215}}{{sfn|Avrich|1970|pp=210–211}} These events coincided with the [[10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]]. There, Lenin argued that the soviets and the principle of [[democratic centralism]] within the Bolshevik party still assured democracy. However, faced with support for Kronstadt within Bolshevik ranks, Lenin also issued a "temporary" [[ban on factions in the Russian Communist Party]]. This ban remained until the [[revolutions of 1989]] and, according to some critics, made the democratic procedures within the party an empty formality, and helped Stalin to consolidate much more authority under the party. Soviets were transformed into the bureaucratic structure that existed for the rest of the history of the Soviet Union and were completely under the control of party officials and the [[Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee|politburo]].{{efn|See note regarding Library of Congress Country Studies. Chapter 7 – The Communist Party. Democratic Centralism.{{citation needed|date=August 2023}}}} Red Army attacks on the anarchist forces and their sympathisers increased in ferocity throughout 1921.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Peter C. |last=Mentzel |title=Chaos and Utopia: The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution and Civil War |journal=Independent Review |volume=22 |issue=2 |date=Fall 2017 |pages=173–181 |url= https://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_22_2_03_mentzel.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200229193315/https://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_22_2_03_mentzel.pdf |archive-date=29 February 2020}}; and {{cite book |first=Alexandre |last=Skirda |title=Nestor Makhno — Anarchy's Cossack: The Struggle for Free Soviets in the Ukraine, 1917–1921 |place=Chico CA |publisher=AK Press |year=2004 |isbn=9781902593685}}</ref>

===Siberia and the Far East (1920–22)===
{{Main|Far Eastern Front in the Russian Civil War}}
In Siberia, Admiral Kolchak's army had disintegrated. He himself gave up command after the loss of Omsk and designated Gen. [[Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov|Grigory Semyonov]] as the new leader of the White Army in Siberia. Not long afterward, Kolchak was arrested by the disaffected Czechoslovak Legion as he traveled towards [[Irkutsk]] without the protection of the army and was turned over to the socialist [[Political Centre (Russia)|Political Centre]] in Irkutsk. Six days later, the regime was replaced by a Bolshevik-dominated Military-Revolutionary Committee. On 6–7 February Kolchak and his prime minister Victor Pepelyaev were shot, and their bodies were thrown through the ice of the frozen Angara River, just before the arrival of the White Army in the area.{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|pp=319–321}}

Remnants of Kolchak's army reached [[Transbaikalia]] and joined Semyonov's troops, forming the Far Eastern army. With the support of the Japanese army, it was able to hold Chita, but after the withdrawal of Japanese soldiers from Transbaikalia, Semenov's position became untenable and in November 1920 he was driven by the Red Army from Transbaikalia and took refuge in China. The Japanese, who had plans to annex the [[Amur Krai]], finally pulled their troops out as Bolshevik forces gradually asserted control over the Russian Far East. On 25 October 1922 Vladivostok fell to the Red Army, and the [[Provisional Priamur Government]] was extinguished.

==Aftermath==
[[File:Europe in 1923.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|A map of Europe in 1923 after the [[revolutions of 1917–1923]]]]
With the end of the war, the [[Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]] no longer faced an acute military threat to its existence and power. However, the perceived threat of continued popular discontent, combined with the failure of socialist revolutions in other countries, such as the [[German revolution of 1918–1919]], contributed to the continued militarization of Soviet society.

The Bolsheviks managed to consolidate control over [[Soviet Russia|Russia]], but were only partially successful at re-establishing territorial control of the other provinces of the former [[Russian Empire]]. The [[treaty of Riga]], which was signed in March 1921 after the [[Polish–Soviet War]], split the territories in [[Belarusian Democratic Republic|Belarus]] and [[Ukrainian People's Republic|Ukraine]] between the [[Second Polish Republic|Republic of Poland]] and Soviet Russia. [[Estonian War of Independence|Estonia]], [[Finnish Civil War|Finland]], [[Latvian War of Independence|Latvia]], and [[Lithuanian–Soviet War|Lithuania]] all repelled Soviet invasions, while [[Red Army invasion of Armenia|Armenia]], [[Red Army invasion of Azerbaijan|Azerbaijan]] and [[Red Army invasion of Georgia|Georgia]] were occupied by the Red Army.{{sfn|Lee|2003|pp=84, 88}}{{sfn|Goldstein|2013|p=50}} In 1925, the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) changed its name to the [[All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]].

===Evacuations===
{{Main|White émigré}}
{{See also|Evacuation of Novorossiysk (1920)|Evacuation of the Crimea}}
[[File:Refugees on flatcars.jpg|thumb|Refugees on [[flatcar]]s]]
Around one to two million people known as the [[White émigré]]s fled Russia, many with General Wrangel, some through the Far East and others west into the newly independent Baltic countries. The émigrés included a large percentage of the educated and skilled population of Russia.<ref>{{Cite book|last=|first=|title=Collective of authors. Revolution and Civil War in Russia: 1917-1923. Encyclopedia in 4 volumes -|publisher=|year=2008|isbn=|location=|pages=}}</ref>

===Ensuing rebellion===
In Central Asia, Red Army troops continued to face resistance into 1923, where ''[[Basmachi Revolt|basmachi]]'' (armed bands of Islamic guerrillas) had formed to fight the Bolshevik takeover. The Soviets engaged non-Russian peoples in Central Asia, like [[Magaza Masanchi]], commander of the Dungan Cavalry Regiment, to fight against the Basmachis. The Communist Party did not completely dismantle the group until 1934.{{sfn|Wheeler|1964|p=107}}

General [[Anatoly Pepelyayev]] [[Yakut Revolt|continued armed resistance]] in the [[Ayano-Maysky District]] until June 1923. The regions of [[Kamchatka]] and Northern [[Sakhalin]] remained under Japanese occupation until their [[Soviet–Japanese Basic Convention|treaty]] with the Soviet Union in 1925, when their forces were finally withdrawn.

===Casualties===
[[File:Streetkids RussianCivilWar.JPG|thumb|Street children during the Russian Civil War]]
{{See also|Red Terror (Russia)|White Terror (Russia)}}
The results of the civil war were momentous. Soviet demographer Boris Urlanis estimated that 300,000 men were killed in action during the Civil War and Polish-Soviet War – 125,000 in the Red Army, 175,500 White armies and Poles – and the total number of military personnel from both sides dead from disease as 450,000.<ref>Urlanis B. ''Wars and Population''. Moscow, Progress publishers, 1971.</ref> Boris Sennikov estimated the total losses among the population of [[Tambov Oblast|Tambov region]] in 1920 to 1922 resulting from the war, executions, and imprisonment in concentration camps as approximately 240,000.<ref>Sennikov, B.V. (2004). [http://rusk.ru/vst.php?idar=321701 ''Tambov rebellion and liquidation of peasants in Russia''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190330141755/https://rusk.ru/vst.php?idar=321701 |date=2019-03-30 }}. Moscow: Posev. In Russian. {{ISBN|5-85824-152-2}}</ref> By 1922, there were at least 7,000,000 [[street children]] in Russia as a result of nearly ten years of devastation from World War I and the civil war.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20130621173456/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3763/is_/ai_n8801575 And Now My Soul Is Hardened: Abandoned Children in Soviet Russia, 1918–1930], Thomas J. Hegarty, Canadian Slavonic Papers</ref>

At the end of the Civil War the Russian SFSR was exhausted and near ruin. The droughts of 1920 and 1921, as well as the [[Russian famine of 1921]], worsened the disaster still further, killing roughly 5 million people. Disease had reached pandemic proportions, with 3,000,000 dying of [[typhus]] throughout the war. Millions more also died of widespread starvation, wholesale massacres by both sides and [[Pogroms of the Russian Civil War|pogroms against Jews in Ukraine and southern Russia]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Chapple |first=Amos |date=9 January 2019 |title=The Horror Of Russia's Civil War |url=https://www.rferl.org/a/the-horror-of-russias-civil-war-in-photos-from-red-cross-mission/29699442.html |website=Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty}}</ref>

====Civilian casualties====
[[File:Victims of Soviet Famine 1922.jpg|thumb|Victims of the [[Russian famine of 1921]]]]
As many as 10 million people died as a result of the Russian Civil War, and the overwhelming majority of these were civilian casualties.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Russian Civil War – Foreign intervention |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Civil-War/Foreign-intervention |access-date=2023-01-31 |website=Britannica |language=en}}</ref> There is no consensus among the Western historians on the number of deaths from the Red Terror. One source gives estimates of 28,000 executions per year from December 1917 to February 1922.{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=2}} Estimates for the number of people shot during the initial period of the Red Terror are at least 10,000.{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=114}} Estimates for the whole period go for a low of 50,000<ref name="anatomy">Stone, Bailey (2013). ''The Anatomy of Revolution Revisited: A Comparative Analysis of England, France, and Russia''. Cambridge University Press. p. 335.</ref> to highs of 140,000<ref name="anatomy"/><ref>Pipes, Richard (2011). ''The Russian Revolution''. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 838.</ref> and 200,000 executed.{{sfn|Lowe|2002|p=151}} Most estimations for the number of executions in total put the number at about 100,000.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lincoln |first=W. Bruce |author-link=W. Bruce Lincoln |year=1989 |title=Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War |publisher=Simon & Schuster |page=384 |isbn=0671631667 |quote=... the best estimates set the probable number of executions at about a hundred thousand.}}</ref> According to Vadim Erlikhman's investigation, the number of the Red Terror's victims is at least 1,200,000 people.<ref>{{cite book |last=Erlikhman |first=Vadim Viktorovich|author-link= |date=2004 |title=Poteri narodonaseleniya v XX veke. |trans-title=Population losses in the XX century |url=https://www.azstat.org/Kitweb/zipfiles/11553.pdf |location=Moscow |publisher=Russkaya panorama |page= |isbn=5-93165-107-1|language=ru}}</ref> According to [[Robert Conquest]], a total of 140,000 people were shot in 1917–1922, but Jonathan D. Smele estimates they were considerably fewer, "perhaps less than half that many".{{sfn|Smele|2015|p=934}} Candidate of Historical Sciences Nikolay Zayats states that the number of people shot by the Cheka in 1918–1922 is about 37,300 people, shot in 1918–1921 by the verdicts of the tribunals — 14,200, i.e. about 50,000–55,000 people in total, although executions and atrocities were not limited to the Cheka, having been organized by the Red Army as well.<ref>[https://scepsis.net/library/id_3807.html К вопросу о масштабах красного террора в годы Гражданской войны]</ref><ref>{{cite news |title="Красный террор": 1918– ...? |url=https://www.svoboda.org/a/29475805.html |newspaper=Радио Свобода |date=7 September 2018 |trans-title=The Red Terror: 1918– ...?}}</ref> In 1924, an anti-Bolshevik [[Popular Socialists (Russia)|Popular Socialist]] [[Sergei Melgunov]] (1879–1956) published a detailed account on the Red Terror in Russia, where he cited Professor [[Charles Saroléa]]'s estimates of 1,766,188 deaths from the Bolshevik policies. He questioned the accuracy of the figures, but endorsed Saroléa's "characterisation of terror in Russia", stating it matches reality.<ref>Часть IV. На гражданской войнe. // ''[[Sergei Melgunov]]'' [http://lib.ru/POLITOLOG/MELGUNOW/terror.txt «Красный террор» в России 1918—1923.]&nbsp;— 2-ое изд., доп.&nbsp;— Берлин, 1924</ref><ref>{{cite book |language=de |last=Melgunov |first=Sergei Petrovich |author-link=Sergei Melgunov |date=2008 |orig-date=1924 |title=Der rote Terror in Russland 1918–1923 |type=reprint of the 1924 Olga Diakow edition |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S3FGAQAAIAAJ |location=Berlin |publisher=OEZ |page=186, note 182 |quote= |isbn=9783940452474}} An online English translation of the second edition of Melgunov's work is accessible at [https://archive.org/details/RedTerrorInRussia1918-1923 Internet Archive], whence the following translated text is drawn (p. 85, note n. 128): "Professor [[Charles Saroléa|[Charles] Sarolea]], who published a series of articles about Russia in Edinburgh newspaper "The Scotsman" touched upon the death statistics in an essay on terror (No. 7, November 1923.). He summarized the outcome of the Bolshevik massacre as follows: 28 bishops, 1219 clergy, 6000 professors and teachers, 9000 doctors, 54,000 officers, 260,000 soldiers, 70,000 policemen, 12,950 landowners, 355,250 professionals, 193,290 workers, 815,000 peasants. The author did not provide the sources of that data. Needless to say that the precise counts seem [too] fictional, but the author's [characterisation] of terror in Russia in general matches reality." The note is somewhat abbreviated in the 1925 English edition indicated in the bibliography: in particular, there is no mention of the imaginative nature of the data (p. 111, note n. 1).</ref> Modern historian Sergei Volkov, assessing the Red Terror as the entire repressive policy of the Bolsheviks during the years of the Civil War (1917–1922), estimates the direct death toll of the Red Terror at 2 million people.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.iskupitel.info/node/770 |title=Istorik Sergey Volkov: "Geneticheskomu fondu Rossii byl nanesen chudovishchnyy, ne vospolnennyy do sego vremeni, uron" |trans-title=Historian Sergei Volkov: "Russia's genetic pool suffered monstrous damage, so far not repaired" (interview with the famous historian of the Civil War, Doctor of Historical Sciences Sergei Vladimirovich Volkov) |author=Perevozchikov', Artyom |date=9 September 2010 |website=iskupitel.info |publisher=Monarxist |access-date=9 May 2023 }}</ref> Volkov's calculations, however, do not appear to have been confirmed by other major scholars.{{efn|In particular, they seem quite at odds with the demographic considerations elaborated by Italian historian and professor [[:it:Andrea Graziosi|Andrea Graziosi]] in the light of the good quality Tsarist and early Soviet statistics. According to him, the [[Excess mortality|excess deaths]] between 1914 and 1922 were about 16 million, of which 4–5 were military, the rest civilian; the overwhelming majority of the latter resulted from "starvation, typhus, epidemics, the [[Spanish flu]] and the famine of 1921–22", the roughly number of "victims of the various kinds of terror, and red and white repressions" amounting to a few hundred thousand— which is indeed a dreadful number in itself, however.{{sfn|Graziosi|2007|pp=171 & 570}}}}

====Ethnic violence====
{{See also|Pogroms during the Russian Civil War}}
[[File:Khodorkiv Pogrom.jpg|thumb|Victims of a pogrom perpetrated by Ukrainian forces in Khodorkiv, 1919]]
Some 10,000–500,000 [[Cossacks]] were killed or deported during [[Decossackization]], out of a population of around three million.{{sfn|Gellately|2007|pp=70–71}} An estimated 100,000 Jews were killed in Ukraine.<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.2307/131078 |first=Peter |last=Kenez |title=The Prosecution of Soviet History: A Critique of Richard Pipes' ''The Russian Revolution'' |journal=Russian Review |volume=50|issue=3|year=1991 |pages=345–351 |jstor=131078}}</ref> Punitive organs of the All Great Don Cossack Host sentenced 25,000 people to death between May 1918 and January 1919.{{sfn|Holquist|2002|p=164}} Kolchak's government shot 25,000 people in Ekaterinburg province alone.<ref>{{cite web |website=Cult Info |url=http://www.cultinfo.ru/fulltext/1/001/008/063/073.htm |script-title=ru:Колчаковщина|language=ru|archive-url=https://archive.today/20050510090417/http://www.cultinfo.ru/fulltext/1/001/008/063/073.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=2005-05-10}}</ref> The White Terror, as it would become known, killed about 300,000 people in total.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Потери народонаселения в XX веке.|last=Эрлихман|first=Вадим|publisher=Издательский дом «Русская панорама»|year=2004|isbn=5931651071}}</ref>

===Economic impact===
The civil war had a devastating impact on the Russian economy. A [[black market]] emerged in Russia, despite the threat of [[martial law]] against profiteering. The [[Russian ruble|ruble]] collapsed, with barter increasingly replacing money as a medium of exchange<ref name="DaviesHarrison1993">{{cite book|author1=R. W. Davies|author2=Mark Harrison|author3=S. G. Wheatcroft|title=The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1913–1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7ULWRnskfr4C&pg=PA6|date=9 December 1993|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-45770-5|page=6}}</ref> and, by 1921, heavy industry output had fallen to 20% of 1913 levels. 90% of wages were paid with goods rather than money.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Bread and Authority in Russia, 1914-1921|url=https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft796nb4mj&chunk.id=d0e9364&toc.id=&brand=ucpress|access-date=2021-10-27|website=publishing.cdlib.org}}</ref> 70% of locomotives were in need of repair,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Russian Civil War - Intervention, Allies, Bolsheviks {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Civil-War/Foreign-intervention |access-date=2024-02-14 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> and food requisitioning, combined with the effects of seven years of war and a severe drought, contributed to a famine that caused between 3 and 10 million deaths.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm#RCW|title=Twentieth Century Atlas – Death Tolls|website=necrometrics.com|access-date=2017-12-12}}</ref> Coal production decreased from 27.5 million tons (1913) to 7 million tons (1920), while overall factory production also declined from 10,000 million roubles to 1,000 million roubles. According to the noted historian David Christian, the grain harvest was also slashed from 80.1 million tons (1913) to 46.5 million tons (1920).<ref>{{cite book|last=Christian|first=David|title=Imperial and Soviet Russia|year=1997|publisher=Macmillan Press Ltd|location=London|isbn=0-333-66294-6|page=236}}</ref>

[[War communism]] saved the Soviet government during the Civil War, but much of the Russian economy had ground to a standstill. Some peasants responded to [[Prodrazvyorstka|food requisitions]] by refusing to till the land. By 1921, cultivated land had shrunk to 62% of the pre-war area, and the harvest yield was only about 37% of normal. The number of horses declined from 35&nbsp;million in 1916 to 24&nbsp;million in 1920 and cattle from 58 to 37&nbsp;million. The exchange rate with the US dollar declined from two [[roubles]] in 1914 to 1,200&nbsp;Rbls in 1920. Although Russia experienced extremely rapid economic growth<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://nintil.com/the-soviet-union-gdp-growth/|title=The Soviet Union: GDP growth|date=2016-03-26|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200517053259/https://nintil.com/the-soviet-union-gdp-growth/|archive-date=2020-05-17}}</ref> in the 1930s, the combined effect of World War I and the Civil War left a lasting scar on Russian society and had permanent effects on the development of the Soviet Union.

===Political impact===
{{See also|Treaty of Rapallo (1922)}}
The complete failure of the [[Communist International]]-inspired revolutions was a sobering experience in Moscow, and the Bolsheviks moved from [[world revolution]] to [[socialism in one country]], the [[United Soviet Socialist Republics|Soviet Union]].<ref>Rex A. Wade, "The Revolution at One Hundred: Issues and Trends in the English Language Historiography of the Russian Revolution of 1917." ''Journal of Modern Russian History and Historiography'' 9.1 (2016): 9-38.</ref>

The [[Treaty of Rapallo (1922)]] was an agreement signed on 16 April 1922 between the [[Weimar Republic]] and Soviet Union, under which both renounced all territorial and financial claims against each other and opened friendly diplomatic relations.<ref name=Mueller>{{Cite journal |last=Mueller |first=Gordon H. |date=1976 |title=Rapallo Reexamined: A New Look at Germany's Secret Military Collaboration with Russia in 1922 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1986524 |journal=Military Affairs |volume=40 |issue=3 |pages=109–117 |doi=10.2307/1986524 |jstor=1986524 |issn=0026-3931}}</ref>

==In fiction==
===Literature===
The Civil War was a popular theme among the [[Socialist realism]] writers; it was championed in the works of such authors as [[Dmitri Furmanov]] (''[[:de:Tschapajew (Roman)|Chapayev]]'', 1923), [[Alexander Serafimovich]], [[Vsevolod Vishnevsky]] (''[[An Optimistic Tragedy]]'', 1933) and [[Alexander Fadeyev (writer)|Aleksandr Fadeyev]]; one of the best-known examples is the novel ''[[How the Steel Was Tempered]]'' (1934) by [[Nikolai Ostrovsky]].
* ''[[The Road to Calvary]]'' (1922–1941) by [[Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy]].
Other prominent works of fiction by the Soviet writers that didn't follow the methods and doctrine of Socialist realism include:
* ''[[The White Guard]]'' (1925) and ''[[A Young Doctor's Notebook]]'' (1925–1926) by [[Mikhail Bulgakov]]
* ''[[Red Cavalry]]'' (1926–1933) by [[Isaac Babel]]
* ''[[Chevengur]]'' (1927, fully published in 1971) by [[Andrei Platonov]]
* ''[[And Quiet Flows the Don|Quiet Flows the Don]]'' (1928–1940) by [[Mikhail Sholokhov]]
* ''Conquered City'' (1932) by [[Victor Serge]]
* ''[[Doctor Zhivago (novel)|Doctor Zhivago]]'' (1957) by [[Boris Pasternak]]
* ''[[The Red Wheel]] (1971–1991)'' by [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]]
by the [[White émigré|White ''émigré'']] authors:
* ''An Evening with Claire'' (1930) by [[Gaito Gazdanov]]
* ''[[Novel with Cocaine]]'' (1934) by [[M. Ageyev]]
Works by the Western and contemporary authors:
* ''Futility'' (1922) by [[William Gerhardie]]
* ''[[Coup de Grâce (novel)|Coup de Grâce]]'' (1939) by [[Marguerite Yourcenar]]
* ''[[Byzantium Endures]]'' (1981) by [[Michael Moorcock]]
* ''[[Fall of Giants]]'' (2010) by [[Ken Follett]]
* ''[[Bro (novel)|Bro]]'' (2011) by [[Vladimir Sorokin]]
* ''A Splendid Little War'' (2012) by [[Derek Robinson (novelist)]]

===Film===
* ''[[Arsenal (1929 film)|Arsenal]]'' (1928)
* ''[[Storm Over Asia (1928 film)|Storm Over Asia]]'' (1928)
* ''[[Chapaev (film)|Chapaev]]'' (1934)
* ''Thirteen'' (1936), directed by [[Mikhail Romm]]
* ''We Are from Kronstadt'' (1936), directed by [[Efim Dzigan|Yefim Dzigan]]
* ''[[Knight Without Armour]]'' (1937)
* ''The Year 1919'' (1938), directed by [[Ilya Trauberg]]
* ''The Baltic Marines'' (1939), directed by A. Faintsimmer
* ''[[Shchors (film)|Shchors]]'' (1939), directed by Dovzhenko
* ''[[How the Steel Was Tempered|Pavel Korchagin]]'' (1956), directed by A. Alov and V. Naumov
* ''[[The Forty-First (1956 film)|The Forty-First]]'' (1956), directed by [[Grigori Chukhrai]]
* ''[[The Communist (film)]]'' (1957), directed by [[Yuli Raizman]]
* ''[[And Quiet Flows the Don (film)|And Quiet Flows the Don]]'' (1958), directed by [[Sergei Gerasimov (film director)|Sergei Gerasimov]]
* ''[[Doctor Zhivago (film)|Doctor Zhivago]]'' (1965), directed by [[David Lean]]
* ''[[The Elusive Avengers]]'' (1966)
* ''[[The Red and the White (film)|The Red and the White]]'' (1967)
* ''[[White Sun of the Desert]]'' (1970)
* ''[[The Flight (1970 film)|The Flight]]'' (1970), directed by A. Alov and V. Naumov
* ''[[Reds (film)|Reds]]'' (1981), directed by [[Warren Beatty]]
* ''[[Corto Maltese|Corto Maltese in Siberia]]'' (2002)
* ''[[Nine Lives of Nestor Makhno]]'' (2005/2007)
* ''[[The Admiral (2008 film)|Admiral]]'' (2008)
* ''[[Sunstroke (2014 film)|Sunstroke]]'' (2014), directed by [[Nikita Mikhalkov]]

===Video games===
* ''[[Last Train Home (video game)]]'' (2023)
* ''[[Battlefield 1|Battlefield 1 In the Name of the Tsar]]'' (2017)<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.ea.com/games/battlefield/news/volga-all-you-need-to-know | title=Volga River: All You Need to Know | date=4 September 2017 }}</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|Soviet Union}}
* [[Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War]]
* [[Index of articles related to the Russian Revolution and Civil War]]
* [[Nikolayevsk incident]]
* [[Revolutionary Mass Festivals]]
* [[Timeline of the Russian Civil War]]
* [[Pro-independence movements in the Russian Civil War]]

== Notes ==
{{notelist}}

== References ==
=== Citations ===
{{Reflist}}

=== Bibliography ===
{{See also|Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War}}
{{Refbegin|30em|indent=true}}
* {{cite book |last1=Krivosheev |first1=G. |last2=Andronikov |first2=V. |last3=Gurkin |first3=V. |last4=Kruglov |first4=A. |last5=Rodionov |first5=E. |last6=Filimoshin |first6=M. |language=ru |script-title=ru:Гриф секретности снят: Потери вооружённых сил СССР в войнах, боевых действиях и конфликтах |trans-title=The secrecy stamp has been lifted: Losses of the USSR armed forces in wars, hostilities and conflicts |publisher=Воениздат |date=1993 |isbn=5-203-01400-0 |chapter=Людские потери красной армии в период гражданской войны и военной интервенции |trans-chapter=Human losses of the Red Army during the Civil War and military intervention }}
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{{refend}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin}}
* Acton, Edward, V. et al. eds. ''Critical companion to the Russian Revolution, 1914–1921'' (Indiana UP, 1997).
* Brovkin, Vladimir N. (1994). ''Behind the Front Lines of the Civil War: Political Parties and Social Movements in Russia, 1918–1922''. Princeton UP. [https://www.amazon.comdp/0691633770/ excerpt] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728140214/https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Front-Lines-Civil-War/dp/0691633770/ |date=28 July 2020 }}
* Dupuy, T. N. ''The Encyclopedia of Military History'' (many editions) Harper & Row Publishers.
* Ford, Chris. "Reconsidering the Ukrainian Revolution 1917–1921: The Dialectics of National Liberation and Social Emancipation." ''Debatte'' 15.3 (2007): 279–306.
* [[Peter Kenez]]. ''Civil War in South Russia, 1918: The First Year of the Volunteer Army'' (U of California Press, 1971).
* Lincoln, W. Bruce. ''Red victory: A history of the Russian Civil War'' (1989).
* Luckett, Richard. ''The White Generals: An Account of the White Movement and the Russian Civil War'' (Routledge, 2017).
* Marples, David R. ''Lenin's Revolution: Russia, 1917–1921'' (Routledge, 2014).
* Moffat, Ian, ed. ''The Allied Intervention in Russia, 1918–1920: The Diplomacy of Chaos'' (2015)
* Polyakov, Yuri. ''[https://archive.org/details/civilwarrussia The Civil War in Russia: Its Causes and Significance]'' (Novosti, 1981).
* Serge, Victor. ''Year One of the Russian Revolution'' (Haymarket, 2015).
* Smele, Jonathan D. "Still Searching for the 'Third Way': Geoffrey Swain's Interventions in the Russian Civil Wars". ''Europe-Asia Studies'' 68.10 (2016): 1793–1812. {{doi|10.1080/09668136.2016.1257094}}.
* Smele, Jonathan D. "'If Grandma had Whiskers...': Could the Anti-Bolsheviks have won the Russian Revolutions and Civil Wars? Or, the Constraints and Conceits of Counterfactual History." ''Revolutionary Russia'' (2020): 1–32. {{doi|10.1080/09546545.2019.1675961}}.
* Stewart, George. ''The White Armies of Russia: A Chronicle of Counter-Revolution and Allied Intervention'' (2008) [https://www.amazon.com/Armies-Russia-Chronicle-Counter-Revolution-Intervention/dp/1847349765/ excerpt] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150627113844/http://www.amazon.com/Armies-Russia-Chronicle-Counter-Revolution-Intervention/dp/1847349765 |date=27 June 2015 }}
* Stone, David R. "The Russian Civil War, 1917–1921," in ''The Military History of the Soviet Union''.
* Swain, Geoffrey (2015). ''The Origins of the Russian Civil War'' [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1138837458/ excerpt] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728140217/https://www.amazon.com/Origins-Russian-Civil-Modern-Wars/dp/1138837458/ |date=28 July 2020 }}

===Primary sources===
* Butt, V. P., et al., eds. ''The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives'' (Springer, 2016).
* McCauley, Martin, ed. ''The Russian Revolution and the Soviet State 1917–1921: Documents'' (Springer, 1980).
* Murphy, A. Brian, ed. ''The Russian Civil War: Primary Sources'' (Springer, 2000) [https://journals.openedition.org/monderusse/4022 online review] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200627165622/https://journals.openedition.org/monderusse/4022 |date=27 June 2020 }}
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Civil war of Russia}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Library resources box}}
* [https://www.net-film.ru/en/found-page-1/?search=1917-1935qcivil+war+in+Russia Newsreels about Russian Civil War // Net-Film Newsreels and Documentary Films Archive]
* Sumpf, Alexandre: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/russian_civil_war Russian Civil War], in: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home.html 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War].
* Mawdsley, Evan: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/international_responses_to_the_russian_civil_war_russian_empire International Responses to the Russian Civil War (Russian Empire)], in: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home.html 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War].
* Read, Christopher: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/revolutions_russian_empire Revolutions (Russian Empire)], in: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home.html 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War].
* Peeling, Siobhan: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/war_communism War Communism], in: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home.html 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War].
* Beyrau, Dietrich: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/post-war_societies_russian_empire Post-war Societies (Russian Empire)], in: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home.html 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War].
* Brudek, Pawe³: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/revolutions_east_central_europe Revolutions (East Central Europe)], in: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home.html 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War].
* Melancon, Michael S.: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/social_conflict_and_control_protest_and_repression_russian_empire Social Conflict and Control, Protest and Repression (Russian Empire)], in: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home.html 1914–1918 online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War].
* [http://libcom.org/library/russian-revolution Russian Revolution and Civil War archive at libcom.org/library] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140907125245/http://libcom.org/library/russian-revolution |date=7 September 2014 }}
* [https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/eastern_front_01.shtml "BBC History of the Russian Revolution"] (3 February 2007)
* [http://www.spartacus-educational.com/RUScivilwar.htm "Russian Civil War"] (Spartacus History, downloaded 3 January 2006)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20051221100007/http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/romeo/russia1918.htm "Russian Civil War 1918–1920"] (On War website, downloaded 4 January 2006)
* [http://www.answers.com/topic/civil-war-of-1917-1922 "Civil War of 1917–1922 at Encyclopedia of Russian History] (3 February 2007)

{{World War I}}
{{Russian Civil War|collapsed}}
{{Russian Revolution 1917}}
{{Russian Conflicts}}
{{Soviet Union topics}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Russian Civil War| ]]
[[Category:1910s in Russia]]
[[Category:1920s in Russia]]
[[Category:1920s in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Civil wars in Russia]]
[[Category:Civil wars of the 20th century]]
[[Category:Revolution-based civil wars]]
[[Category:Russian Revolution|*Civil War]]
[[Category:Wars involving Chechnya]]
[[Category:Wars involving Soviet Russia (1917–1922)]]
[[Category:Wars involving the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:1910s conflicts]]
[[Category:1920s conflicts]]
[[Category:Wars involving Ukraine]]
[[Category:Wars involving the Ottoman Empire]]
[[Category:Wars involving the Circassians]]