Civil War, 1918-1921 Bolsheviks overthrew Provisional

Government Most applauded All-Socialist Coalition Government Lenin refused January 1918: Constituent Assembly March 1918: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

Civil War (cont.)

Reds (pro-Bolshevik troops)Whites (anti-Bolsheviks from SRs to Army officers)

Greens (peasant insurgents)NationalistsWestern Allies

Civil War (cont.)Why did the Bolsheviks win?• Strategic, industrial center• Red Army (Trotsky)• Peasants’ conditional support

Whites • on periphery• lacked unity• refused to cooperate with nationalists

• Finnish Regent Mannheim’s offer (summer 1919)• Moderate land policy• Underestimated Bolsheviks

Civil War (cont.) Nationalists • on periphery• lacked unity• popular support

Peasants• poorly organized• local concerns• When forced to choose, supported Reds as

“lesser evil”• “Soviet Power” (local power)

Consequences of Russian Revolutions

First “communist” country

Not world revolution, but “socialism in one country”

Oct. 1920: end of Polish-Soviet War

Inspired many socialists

Increased fear in many others: “Red Scare”

Consequences of Russian Revolutions Civil war’s devastation:

Death: 7 million killed; 5 million starved (compared to 1.7 million in WWI)

De-urbanization Many transients barter economy Black market culture re-emerged. Destroyed industry and infrastructure:

industrial production less than 30% of pre-war levels.

Sown land greatly decreased. 1-2 million emigrated, mostly of upper and

middle classes

Consequences of Russian Revolutions

Second civil war “War Communism”

Grain requisitionscommunizationForced laborForced recruitmentControl of tradeWorkers not allowed to strikeFood rationingPrinting money?

Consequences of Russian Revolutions

Second civil war: “Defeat in Victory” (Isaac Deutscher)

Peasants resisted: Green movement in Eastern UkraineMakhnovshchinaAntonovshchina

Cheka “Detachments of special assignment” Workers’ strikes: Petrograd, Moscow,

Saratov, Kharkiv Kronstadt sailors’ revolt, 1-7 March

1921: “Soviets without communists”

10th Congress of RKP(b)8-16 March 1921

Lenin: “You all, of course, know perfectly well which sum of events, particularly owing to the extreme aggravation of poverty, provoked by the war, ruin, demobilization and crop failure, which sum of circumstances have made the peasantry’s situation especially difficult, critical, and have unavoidably strengthened its alienation from the proletariat to the bourgeoisie.”

New Economic Policy (NEP): retreat or “time out”

Prodnalog Allowed small free enterprise Internal trade

Consequences of Russian Revolutions

Non-Russian peasant revolts convinced Lenin of power of nationalism

Affirmative Action Empire Korenizatsiia - indigenization National communism

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Consequences of Russian Revolutions (contd.)

Instilled in many leading Bolsheviks the importance of violence to “the struggle.”

Many of Stalin’s supporters joined the party during the civil war.

Also inspired many idealists, such as Evgeniia Ginzburg and Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev.