When I teach the Russian Civil War to my pupils I explain them that is both the most complicated
as well as the most easy conflict to explain; complicated because of the countless different
factions involved. Easy because it can be narrowed down to Reds versus Whites and in
this video we're going to take a look at why the Reds won the Russian Civil War against
the Whites, because there were moments that a Red victory seemed very unlikely... keep watching.
Welcome back to the channel: if you're new I'm Stefan. I'm a Dutch history teacher and I like
to hustle history for you and if you find it interesting. Well consider subscribing
and also hit that notification bell. According to historian Robert Gerwarth the Russian Civil
War can be analyzed as three different conflicts: the conflict of the Reds versus the Whites; the
Reds versus the nationalist factions and the Reds versus the peasants. "What is commonly known as the
‘Russian Civil War’ was, in fact, a whole series of overlapping and mutually reinforcing conflicts: a
rapidly escalating struggle between the armed forces of Lenin’s Bolshevik government and its
counter-revolutionary’ opponents; the attempts by several regions on the western border of the
former Russian Empire to break away entirely from Petrograd’s rule; and peasant insurgencies, triggered by
the Communists’ forced requisitions of desperately needed foodstuffs.” In this video we're going to
focus on the conflict between between the Reds versus the Whites. Now the Russian Civil War
is a much broader conflict: I'll deal with the other chapters in the future and it's kind of a
challenge since much of these conflicts overlap so feel free to add your additional information
in the comments below. To give some background: in 1914 Russia was under the rule of Tsar Nicholas II
that year the country entered the First World War and fought against Germany, Austria-Hungary and the
Ottoman Empire. Especially the battles against a much more efficient German armies go very
bad for Russia. Due to the war efforts there was a food crisis at home and bred riot in February
1917 led to a revolution. The Czar abdicated. The succeeding Provisional Government continued the
war with Germany and political turmoil remained. In October the Bolsheviks, after months of continuous
agitation, seized power in the capital of Petrograd and in Moscow shortly after,
trying to live up to the promise of 'Peace, land and bread' they enter peace talks with the Central Powers
and signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty ceding large swaths of land. Signing this treaty showed the
pragmatic nature of the Bolsheviks: they were willing to give up land in order to save the
revolution, because they had to deal with many internal enemies and these enemies are commonly
known as the Whites. Who were the Whites? When the Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd there was resistance
immediately and some historians claim that this was the starting point of the Russian Civil War.
When the Provisional Government leader Kerensky, who got away from Petrograd when the Bolsheviks
seized power, was on his way to Pskov trying to rally troops he failed because the Bolsheviks had
already gained the support of the soldiers near the front and outside the city. Some skirmishes
did take place. It left 200 casualties. By the end of the day the revolt was snuffed out. Later
military school cadets took over several Bolshevik strongholds: this is known as the Junker Uprising
they waited for the troops of Pyotr Krasnov. However these troops were still miles away from
their position and thus this uprising failed as well. Krasnov and his 700 strong Cossack unit was
overwhelmed on the 30th of October at Tsarskoe Selo and surrendered: this was known Kerensky–Krasnov Uprising.
Kerensky made his way out of the country, Krasnov made his way to the Don area. The
Bolsheviks they had control of the geographical center of Russia and the Whites they gathered
in its peripheries: northwest of Petrograd, Southern Russia, the Caucasus region as well
as Central Asia and the vast Siberian expanse. “Everywhere, leadership was fragmented and the
local population divided along class and cultural lines. No single anti-Bolshevik figure or group
was able to construct a viable center of authority or an effective fighting force. The Empire, like
a porcelain vase, had crashed to the ground, leaving a heap of tiny shards, impossible to reassemble or
reshape into a new form.” Near Rostov-on-Don former tsarist officer Mikhail Alekseyev set-up the anti-Bolshevik
Volunteer Army that later was headed by Anton Denikin. This army attracted many officers from the
former tsarist Army eventually: 170 000 ex-tsarist officers would fight for the Whites. The main
reasons why they joined the Whites was that in the wake of the October Revolution they
were hunted down by mobs so they were basically driven into the arms of the White Movement.
“The Whites were uniformly hostile to Bolshevik rule, but the label implies a coherence they did not
possess. Geographically dispersed and internally fragmented, they had difficulty establishing a
firm social base in areas that were ethnically and religiously diverse.” The White leaders acted
largely independent from one another Admiral Alexander Kolchak in the east. General Nikolai
udenich and Colonel Pavel Bermondt-Avalov in the north-west; General Anton Denikin in the
North Caucasus and the Don region; General Pyotr Wrangel in the Crimea; warlords or ‘Atamans’ like
Grigory Semenov or Roman von Ungern-Sternberg in Siberia and southern Russia. Bolshevik Leon Trotsky
was the founder of the Red Army. Early 1918 he kept repeating this urge by claiming: “Comrades! Our Soviet
Socialist Republic must have a well-organized army.” or “The question of creating an army is for us now a question of life or death.”
He managed to get several experienced ex-tsarist officers on board.
As for rank-and-file soldiers 'compulsory militairy training' was introduced in April 1918.
And after the Czechoslovak Legion's uprising, I get to that in another video, conscription was introduced
in many regions. Political commissars were used as the ideological watchdogs and tribunals were created
to punish deserters and those who stepped out of line. With his rhetoric and organizational skills
Trotsky managed to create a effective fighting force; this fighting force was not always as
effective since its White adversaries were coming from three different directions. During the Russian
Civil War many battles were fought between the Reds and the Whites. Historian Orlando Figes
he points out to where three decisive battles. In the spring of 1919 the anti-Bolshevik Siberian
Army of Admiral Alexander Kolchak advanced towards the west with the goal of uniting the White forces.
One attack was supposed to reach Arkhangelsk and a second attack towards Ufa. Another force advanced
towards the southeastern steppe in order to link up with the White forces there and cut off the Reds
from Central Asia. Kolchak was a nominal head of the White forces. Thanks to his connections
with the Allies. He became the leader of the Omsk Government. The irony was that he was an admiral
that became the leader of a government based in a city that was thousands of kilometers away
a from the nearest port. Some argue Kolchak started his spring offensive too early and that he
should have waited for Denikin to be ready but Kolchak had his reasons to attack rather sooner
than later: “Some success was needed to ensure further Allied aid and recognition for the Kolchak
regime. The Reds appeared on the brink of collapse.” It started well mid-April Kolchak's forces had
advanced 300 kilometers and captured a territory the size of Great Britain. The Volga River was
close and the Reds they were plagued by peasant uprisings in the rear. Near the end of that month
the Red Army led by Mikhail Frunze attacked: with many conscriptive forces and the help of Bashkir
units that switched signs they managed to push back the White onslaught and mid-June Kolchak's forces
were back at where they started. After that the cities of the Urals fell to the Reds like dominoes for
the Red. The White Army crumbled and they hastily retreated, well... they were routed. Kolchak eventually
resettled in Irkutsk near the Lake Baikal and he was eventually captured by the Reds and executed
Let's take a look at Denikin's Volunteer Army in southern Russia: in the first half of 1918 they
made a hastily retreat from Rostov-on-Don towards the Kuban (known as the Ice March, not
to be confused with the Great Siberian Ice March, which is used to describe the retreat of Admiral
Kolchak's Siberian Army). Denikin's forces they started their offensive from Southern Russia in
the spring of 1919 around the same time that Kolchak launched his offensive however Denikin
was forced to make a choice: either go for Tsaritsyn, later known as Stalingrad, and link up with
Kolchak's White forces or to go for the Donbass where there were many coal mines and the Bolsheviks
were in short supply of coal. Now eventually he went for the Donbass and the coal mines and some
historians argue that this was a vital mistake: by advancing towards the Donbass Denikin did
ensure the support of the Cossacks due to the Red de-Cossackization campaigns in which during the early
months of 1919 some 20 000 Cossacks were executed as counter-revolutionaries thousands now joined
Denikin. On the 13th of June Kharkiv was taken and Ekaterinoslav on the 22nd. Led by Pyotr Wrangel
and with the support of British tanks Tsaritsyn was also taken on the 19th of June. The Reds were plagued by
poor morale and many deserted. On the 3rd of July Denikin issued his Moscow Directive which was
meant to deliver the Reds the definitive blow: “The three main White forces were to converge on the
capital in a gigantic pincer movement along the main railways, thus cutting off its main lines of
supply. […] It was an all-or-nothing gamble, counting on the speed of the White cavalry to exploit
the temporary weakness of the Reds.” It started well. Poltava was taken and soon the entire of
Ukraine was cleared of Bolsheviks. Denikin's forces moved further north and they captured Orel
and were only 400 kilometers from Moscow and 150 kilometers from Tula a crucial weapon arsenal
city; the Bolsheviks were in panic because around that time the Northwestern forces of General
Yudenich advanced from Estonia towards Petrograd. For once the Whites were able to coordinate
their attacks and for a few crucial days in October seeing that this would be enough to
defeat the Reds... yet it did not happen and why was that? Well, Denikin's forces had severely over
stretch themselves. In the rear there were plagued by Ukrainian nationalists, Makhno's anarchist
partisans as well as Chechen rebels from the south. The Cossacks they refused to leave their homeland
as the Whites did not promise them any autonomy for the Kuban. “But the real problem for the Whites — and
the single biggest reason why their offensive ran out of steam — was their inability to mobilize
enough troops within the newly occupied regions of the Ukraine and Russia. And here the Whites were
defeated by their own political failures.” The Whites often resorted to terror, alienating the local
population, as Wrangel stated: 'The population has come to hate us.' At some point the Reds
toned down on their oppression and they announced amnesty weeks: weeks in which Red Army deserters could
return to their ranks without any punishment. Soon their ranks grew to two hundred thousand; twice as
much troops as the Whites had with the help of the Striking group of Latvian rifles some 20 000
crack troops and a red cavalry of Semen Budenny the Whites were pushed back and would never made
it back to Central Russia again. Pyotr Wrangel would remain with the remnants of the Volunteer
Army in Crimea which was eventually taken by the Reds near the end of 1921. So let's take a look
the northwest of Russia where another army was attacking the Reds:
this was a Northwestern Army that was led by General Yudenich. The Army was created in
Pskov with the help of Germany in 1918. When Germany was defeated and the Reds came closer
they retreated into Estonia that witnessed its own civil war. The army managed to build up and in May
1919 re-entered Russia and advanced toward Petrograd with some 16 000 men. Upon entering former
Soviet-controlled territory they met a hostile population that was not willing to help them and
many conscripts began to desert. Yudenich pleaded for help with the Allies but he only got minimal
supplies the British they blockaded Petrograd for a while but there were no land forces involved.
Yudenich then asked the Estonians to help them but this was a young and fragile nation that was not
able nor willing to help the Whites, especially when the latter would not even promise Estonian
Independence. The Bolsheviks they did promise Estonia independence. On the 10th of October Yudenich
dashed for Petrograd. His troops advanced rapidly as many Red Army troops were fighting in
the south against the Denekin's army. By the 20th they had reached the Pulkovo Heights overlooking
Petrograd's suburbs. Lenin he wanted to abandon the city but Trotsky he refused: the birthplace of the
revolution had to be defended and he personally took charge in the defense of Petrograd.
“This was one of the few occasions in the civil war — much fewer than claimed by his acolytes — when Trotsky's
presence at the Front helped to decide the outcome of the battle. At one point he even mounted a horse,
rounded up the retreating troops and led them back into battle.” Trotsky managed to boost morale and
wanted to transform Petrograd into a fortress: a curfew was introduced, as well as barricades that
were erected on the streets and squares. The Whites made a very crucial mistake: they did not cut off
the railway link between Petrograd and Moscow and so the Reds were able to bring in reinforcements
and eventually 100 000 Red Army troops faced the outnumbered Yudenich army on the Pulkovo Heights.
There was a battle after which the remnants of Yudenich army retreated into Estonia where the
Army was disbanded. Another White Army was led by Pavel Bermondt-Avalov and known as the West
Russian Volunteer Army (or the Bermontians, named after its commander) fought in the Baltic wars of
Independence and suffered greatly at the hands of the Lithuanians. The Reds won because they
possessed a number of strengths the whites did not possess first of all the Red Army was much more
disciplined because they enforced inscription in the regions they occupied furthermore some
experienced ex-tsarist officers, among which Brusilov went over to the side of the Reds.
Trotsky's effective leadership also attributed to the victory of the Reds. He traveled to the front
line and enforced discipline but also encouraged the troops. He presented the war as ideological war
which was enforced by political commissars on the front line. Geographically the Bolsheviks
were way better off with Petrograd and Moscow in hands they possessed much of the industries
as well as the greater part of the railway and most of the population was living in their area
and could be rallied for the Bolshevik cause. The whites suffered from several weaknesses.
They did get support from the Allies but much of the supplies they got got lost due to
corruption. Where the Reds had a geographical center and could fight as a united force the
Whites did not and communication was bad. On top of that they had no central leadership and the
Whites perhaps even more than the Reds suffered desertions. And lastly, perhaps the biggest and
most important reason why the Whites lost the Russian Civil War they had no unified ideology.
The only thing they stood for was the tsarist empire. An empire the Russian population come to
hate very much. Eventually the Whites resorted to terror which result into more resistance against
the whites. The Reds also applied terror and they had to deal with many non-White anti-Bolshevik
insurgencies, but their terror was more coordinated. Tt was perpetrated by their secret police: the Cheka.
As soon as the Reds conquered a territory the Cheka made sure political opposition was
eliminated as soon as possible. Lenin was able to centralize power and therefore able to crush
the opposition.
I made an elaborate video about the Red Terror you can find it right here
and did you know that many ex-whites fought with Nazi Germany against the Soviets in WW2?
More than that right here.