CIVIL WAR AND INTERVENTION

Introduction

Chapter 1 Opposing forces

1. Political positions of the Bolsheviks

2. Political programs of the “left” movement

Chapter 2 Civil War and intervention

1. Civil War: "Whites"

First outbreaks

Hostilities

"White" terror

Causes of defeat

2. Civil War: "Reds"

Creation of the Red Army

"Red" terror

Decisive victories for the Reds

3. Between “red” and “white”

Peasants against the "reds"

Peasants against "whites"

"Green". "Makhnovshchina"

4. Intervention

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Introduction

The civil war in Russia was a time when unbridled passions were in full swing and millions of people were ready to sacrifice their lives for the triumph of their ideas and principles. This was typical for the Reds, the Whites, and the peasant rebels. All of them, fiercely at odds with each other, were paradoxically brought together by an emotional impulse, an excess of biological energy, and intransigence. Such a time caused not only greatest feats, but also the greatest crimes. The growing mutual bitterness of the parties led to the rapid decomposition of traditional folk morality. The logic of war devalued and led to the rule of emergency, to unauthorized actions, and the extraction of trophies.

The largest drama of the 20th century - the civil war in Russia - attracts the attention of scientists, politicians, writers to this day. However, to this day there are no clear answers to questions about what kind of historical phenomenon this is - the civil war in Russia, when it began and when it ended. On this subject, in the extensive literature (domestic and foreign) there are many points of view, sometimes clearly contradicting each other. You may not agree with all of them, but anyone interested in the history of the Russian Civil War should know this.

One of the first historians political history civil war in Russia, undoubtedly, is V.I. Lenin, in whose works we find answers to many questions about the political history of the life and activities of the people, the country, social movements and political parties. One of the reasons for this statement is that almost half of the post-October activities of V.I. Lenin, as the head of the Soviet government, falls during the years of the civil war. Therefore, it is not surprising that V.I. Lenin not only explored many problems of the political history of the civil war in Russia, but also revealed the most important features of the armed struggle of the proletariat and peasantry against the combined forces of internal and external counter-revolution.

For us, first of all, Lenin’s concept of the history of the civil war is interesting. IN AND. Lenin defines it as the most acute form of class struggle. This concept is based on the fact that the class struggle sharply intensifies as a result of ideological and socio-economic clashes, which, steadily increasing, make an armed clash between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie inevitable. Lenin's analysis of the relationship and alignment of class forces in the conditions of the civil war determines the role of the working class and its vanguard - the Communist Party; shows the evolution that the bourgeoisie undergoes; illuminates the controversial path of various political parties; reveals the differences between the national bourgeoisie and the Great Russian counter-revolution, who fought together against Soviet power.

The origins of the development of the history of the civil war and the history of its political aspects go back to the 20s, when the study of the broad issues of the diverse activities of political parties and movements was carried out “hot on the heels”. Unfortunately, after the death of V.I. Lenin, Soviet research became characterized by distortions of Lenin’s concept, non-recognition of bourgeois historiography, transformation of Stalin’s authoritarian assessments and judgments into dogmas, which seriously and permanently hampered development historical science. The ugly development of Soviet historiography essentially began in the late 20s, when, in connection with the 50th anniversary of the birth of I.V. Stalin published an article by K.E. Voroshilov "Stalin and the Red Army". In it, Stalin’s interpretation of the civil war, especially its political themes, was mainly and mainly reduced to the three campaigns of the Entente in 1919-1920. For all its accessibility, simplicity and clarity, such an interpretation did not stand up to scientific justification and was a serious departure from Lenin’s concept of the history of the civil war.

The study of the history of the Civil War was hampered by the ever-increasing influence of the cult of personality, which found concrete expression in the underestimation of the role of the masses, the distortion historical facts and political events, a simplified interpretation of the activities of political parties and movements. This continued until the mid-50s.

Began after the XX Congress of the CPSU in the mid-50s. new stage The development of Soviet historical science brought significant changes to the study of problems in the history of the Civil War, especially the history of non-proletarian bourgeois parties. However, many publications still contained familiar patterns and political stereotypes. In essence, there was no real cleansing of historical science from the legacy of Stalinism. Moreover, some of its essential features showed themselves in new forms twice (in the early 60s and 70s, early 80s). This is, first of all, voluntarism and subjectivism, characteristic of the years of stagnation and which became a logical continuation of the deep roots of the cult of personality in more high stage its development.

Unfortunately, the years of perestroika and the perestroika transition period changed little in the study of the problems of the history of the civil war. So, it is still almost not studied political situation anti-Soviet camp. There are no works exploring the political collapse of the White Guard and nationalist regimes. The processes of creation and activity of anti-Bolshevik governments as an integral part of the political history of the civil war are subject to research. Moreover, unprecedented criticism of the most “immutable” foundations Soviet life, including moral principles, the removal of “ideological taboos” from the real history of the former Soviet society, ideological confusion, or rather, unprincipled confusion given the political instability of the current regime continue to slow down the process of objective research into the problems of the history of the civil war.

However, it should be noted that an impressive effort has already been made to explore the political themes of the history of the Civil War. This means, first of all, the study of the history of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties. In particular, such political stereotypes as the Mensheviks - the original enemies of the people, accomplices of the White Guards - have been revised. A study began of the history of petty-bourgeois anarchism and political banditry, the “green” movement and the political basis of such a massive and long-term struggle as the Basmachi movement. The study of political portraits and biographies of the leaders of the opposing forces: revolution - counter-revolution is also worthy of attention. Among them V.I. Lenin, Ya.M. Sverdlov, L.D. Trotsky, I.V. Stalin, N.I. Bukharin, Yu.0. Martov, M.A. Spiridonova, P.N. Miliukov, P.B. Struve, A.I. Denikin, A.V. Kolchak, P.N. Wrangel, N.I. Makhno. At the same time, the historical truth about those who died during the years of lawlessness and the forgotten heroes of the war continues to await its researchers. The political problems of revolutionary violence, “white” and “red” terror, and the first wave of Russian emigration still remain unresolved and, most importantly, complicated. There are no works on public organizations proletariat and peasantry, bourgeoisie and intelligentsia, international and national associations.

As for foreign bourgeois (including emigrant) historiography, here too, for decades, a class approach to the consideration of political subjects in the history of the civil war in Russia has been felt. Let us note, first of all, that bourgeois historiography rightly considers the civil war in Russia the most significant of all civil wars of the 20th century. But the conclusions drawn from the correct conclusion are far from clear-cut. Some authors seek to obscure the close political connection between the civil war, military intervention and the October Revolution. Others do not consider civil war the most acute form of class struggle. Still others connect all aspects of the civil war and military intervention (political, military, socio-economic) with the events of the First World War. They are trying to prove that the allies in the intervention in Russia did not pursue anti-Bolshevik goals, but were guided only by the interests of armed struggle against states that were opponents of the Entente. At the same time, Western European historiography argues that the political mistake of the Allies was not that they organized a military intervention, but that their insufficiently decisive actions could not provide large-scale political assistance to the internal counter-revolution.

However, sober-minded bourgeois historians already in the 20s. recognized the anti-Soviet motives of military intervention as its main political aspects. In modern conditions, bourgeois objectivist historians, unlike representatives of the right wing, continue to recognize the anti-Soviet and counter-revolutionary essence of the intervention, agreeing with the class nature of the civil war and its political content.

The second aspect of the political history of the civil war, put forward by bourgeois historiography, is the conclusions about the “passivity of the popular masses” as opposed to the class nature of the war. Bourgeois authors strive to convince the reader that the majority of the population, especially those of non-Russian nationality, opposed both the “reds” and the “whites”, without being active in supporting the Bolsheviks. At the same time, it should be noted that in recent years, due to the increased interest of bourgeois historiography in the study of problems social psychology, political science and the creative activity of the masses abroad, attempts are being made to give a more balanced description of the reasons for the actual victory of the Bolsheviks in the civil war.

One of the important, but practically unexplored problems in the history of the civil war in Russia is its periodization. To be fair, we note that of the currently existing periodizations of the history of the Civil War, the most established was the period from mid-1918 to 1920. This periodization was proposed by V.I. Lenin, linking it with the main stages of history October revolution. But V.I. Lenin did not have in mind a periodization of the political history of the civil war.

In this regard, without touching on the general periodization of the history of the civil war and considering only the political aspects, it should be noted that the beginning and end of the civil war were not announced by anyone, much less declared. Further, when determining the periodization of political history, it is necessary to keep in mind that a civil war is not only the conduct of military operations on numerous fronts. The criterion for periodizing the political history of the civil war is fundamental changes in the relationship and alignment of class forces and social strata of the population at specific stages of the historical process.

In this regard, the political history of the civil war as a socio-political and historical phenomenon, a comprehensive political concept of a particularly acute and unique form of class struggle took place from February 1917 to October 1922.

In fact, after the overthrow of tsarism, Russia immediately became politically the most advanced and free country peace. This was expressed in the acute growth of political self-awareness of all classes and social strata Russian society, which in turn contributed to a clearer manifestation of class consciousness, demarcation and consolidation of class forces. This was confirmed by the April and July (1917) crises of the Provisional Government. And the Kornilov rebellion in 1917 was a conspiracy that led to the actual start of the civil war on the part of the bourgeoisie.

Thus, the civil war as a socio-political and historical phenomenon, a comprehensive political concept, a special form of class struggle, manifested in the specific conditions of various Russian regions (in the center, in the provinces, on the national outskirts), essentially began immediately after the overthrow of tsarism. This was the beginning of the first period of the civil war, which lasted until the victory of October.

The second period of the civil war begins in October 1917 and continues until October 1922. This is confirmed by specific historical facts and events. Within the specified chronological framework, an armed struggle of various classes and social strata of Russian society was carried out, defending the gains of the revolution of a bourgeois-democratic and socialist nature, which required the subordination of all aspects of the life of all classes and strata of the multinational population. By the fall of 1922, the main forces of the external and internal counter-revolution were defeated, although this victory did not receive legal confirmation from the warring parties. That is why in various regions of the country (Far East, middle Asia etc.) continued fighting, but they were already in the nature of suppressing the residual resistance of various military-political formations.

Chapter 1 Opposing forces.

1. Political positions of the Bolsheviks.

The split in Russian society, which was clearly evident at the time of the first revolution, after the October Revolution reached its extreme - civil war. The civil war began immediately on October 25, 1917, with the fierce resistance of the cadets in Moscow, General Krasnov’s campaign against Petrograd, and the revolts of the chieftains Kaledin and Dutov. And the worst thing is that the civil war was programmed; it was considered by the Bolsheviks as a “natural” continuation of the revolution. “Our war,” Lenin declared and emphasized, “is a continuation of the policy of revolution, the policy of overthrowing the exploiters, capitalists and landowners” 1 . Moreover, according to the original plans of the Bolsheviks, the civil war was planned on a worldwide scale. This was also called for by the slogan put forward by Lenin at the beginning of the World War: “Let us turn the imperialist war into a civil war.”

It is known that Lenin severely criticized those party members, in particular Trotsky, who proposed resolving the issue of transferring power to the Bolsheviks at the Congress of Soviets. Lenin, not without reason, insisted on the need to confront the congress with a fait accompli. The enthusiasm with which the delegates received II The message of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets about the overthrow of the Provisional Government in our historical literature and cinema is somewhat exaggerated. Moreover, already at the very beginning of the congress, L. Martov warned that recent events were fraught with civil war, and proposed to begin the creation of a “unified democratic government.” The right Mensheviks and right Socialist Revolutionaries demanded to begin negotiations with the Provisional Government on the formation of a cabinet based on all layers of society. Having not met any understanding, they refused to recognize the powers of the new government and left the congress, thereby formally excluding the possibility of their entry into the new government.

II All-Russian Congress implemented the slogan “All power to the Soviets”, approving a new structure of state power, emphasizing, however, that it is temporary and is valid until the convening of the Constituent Assembly. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee, which represents the highest state power between congresses of Soviets, included representatives of all parties remaining at the congress. The first “workers’ and peasants’” government – ​​the Council of People’s Commissars – was a one-party Bolshevik.

Lenin was elected its head.

The position of the Bolshevik leadership was clearly stated on October 26 from the pages of Pravda by Lenin: “We are taking power alone, relying on the voice of the country and counting on the friendly help of the European proletariat. But, having taken power, we will deal with the enemies of the revolution and saboteurs with an iron fist...” However, not all comrades shared this hard line.

Soon after the formation of the first Soviet government, the question of a coalition of left-wing parties arose with renewed vigor. Events unfolded around the position taken by the All-Russian Executive Committee of the Union of Railway Workers (Vikzhel). During the days of the October revolution, the neutrality of the Vikzhel, which did not allow trains from the front to Petrograd, to a certain extent contributed to the victory of the Bolsheviks. On October 29, the leadership of this professional organization demanded the creation of a homogeneous socialist government, the abolition of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, and the formation of a “People's Council” that would exclude the participation of “personal perpetrators of the October Revolution.” Vikzhel invited various parties to begin negotiations on these issues, threatening otherwise a general strike of railway workers. At a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(b), held on the same day, in the absence of Lenin and Trotsky, it was decided to agree with “the need to change the composition of the government.” The Central Committee delegation sent to negotiate with Vikzhel did not object to the creation of a coalition government consisting of representatives of all socialist parties, including the Bolsheviks, but without Lenin and Trotsky. The latter assessed this position as a betrayal, tantamount to renunciation of Soviet power. “If you have a majority,” Lenin told supporters of a multi-party government, “take power in the Central Committee. But we will go to the sailors." In response to this, Kamenev, Rykov, Milyutin, Nogin left the Central Committee; Rykov, Teodorovich, Milyutin, Nogin resigned as people's commissars. In their statement, they emphasized that preserving a purely Bolshevik government is possible only through political terror.

Later, Lenin, having come to power, raised the question of postponing the convening of the Constituent Assembly. To the objection that such a step would be difficult to explain, since the RSDLP(b) criticized the Provisional Government for precisely this, Lenin reacted very sharply: “Why is it inconvenient to delay? And if the Constituent Assembly turns out to be a Cadet-Menshevik-Socialist Revolutionary Assembly, will that be convenient?” Now he believed that “in relation to the Provisional Government, the Constituent Assembly meant or could mean a step forward, but in relation to Soviet power, and especially with the current lists, it will inevitably mean a step back.”

In the spring and summer of 1918, a sharp confrontation arose between the Bolsheviks and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. The latter demanded the decentralization of the grain business, the abandonment of the grain monopoly, and protested against the expropriation of the merchant class and the creation of poor committees. At a meeting of the Central Committee of the PLSN on June 24, 1918, a decision was made “in the interests of the Russian international revolution, to put an end to the so-called respite in the shortest possible time, created thanks to the ratification by the majority of governments Treaty of Brest-Litovsk" At the same meeting, it was decided to organize a series of terrorist acts against “representatives of German imperialism”, and in order to implement their goal, the question was raised of taking measures to ensure that “the working peasantry and the working class would join the uprising and actively support the party in this action "

But initially the Left Social Revolutionaries launched a peaceful “parliamentary” attack on the Bolsheviks, using the platform V Congress of Soviets. Having been defeated at the congress, the Left Social Revolutionaries made an open break with the Bolsheviks, which began with the murder of the German ambassador Mirbach on July 6, 1918. The Bolsheviks regarded this adventure as the beginning of a rebellion against Soviet power and took energetic measures to eliminate it. On the evening of July 6, the Left Socialist Revolutionary faction led by M. Spiridonova was arrested. On July 7, 13 Left Socialist-Revolutionaries who were captured with weapons in their hands were shot.

On July 14, 1918, at a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the question of the counter-revolutionary activities of the parties included in the Council was raised. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to “exclude from its composition representatives of the Socialist-Revolutionary parties (right and center) and Mensheviks, and also propose to the soviets to remove representatives of these factions from their midst.” By this decision, the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, like the Cadets earlier, were essentially outlawed. Thus, the period of peaceful political confrontation between socialist parties ended.

The final split between the Bolsheviks and the revolutionary democrats was also facilitated by the peasant revolts against Soviet power that began in the summer of 1918. Between June and August, 245 mass peasant uprisings were recorded in 20 Russian provinces. Between the Urals and the Volga they merged with the armed actions of the Czechoslovak corps. There were cases when workers also went over to the side of the White Guards (uprisings in Votkinsk and Izhevsk) 7 . The civil war, which until now had declared itself only in isolated protests against the Soviet regime, taking place against the backdrop of its “triumphant march,” is now acquiring a permanent character, giving way to the process of restoration of the old order.

Apart from the territories occupied by the Germans, the first Soviet power to lose were those vast and, as a rule, industrially underdeveloped areas where the agrarian question, due to the absence of landownership, was not as acute as in other places. First of all, it was Siberia, the face of which was determined by the farms of wealthy peasant owners, often united in cooperatives with the predominant influence of the Socialist Revolutionaries. These were also lands inhabited by the Cossacks, known for their love of freedom and commitment to a free way of economic and social organization of life. It was the Cossack villages that became the first stronghold of the armed struggle against Soviet power, led by Ataman A. I. Dutov in the Orenburg region and A. M. Kaledin on the Don. However, resistance new government, although it was of a fierce nature, it was essentially an emotional outburst, a spontaneous reaction of those sections of society that were little attracted to Bolshevik slogans. Therefore, the rebel atamans were defeated quite quickly. At the same time, along with the local anti-Bolshevik movement, the first military-political organization with a clearly expressed unifying idea of ​​“great power” is being formed on the Don. It was here that the “white movement” was born, which began with the creation of the Volunteer Army, headed by the light of the Russian generals: M. V. Alekseev, L. G. Kornilov, A. I. Denikin, A. S. Lukomsky and others. This army joined the fight against Soviet power already in November 1917.

2.Political programs of the “white movement”.

In September 1918, a meeting of representatives of all anti-Bolshevik governments was held in Ufa, which, under strong pressure from the Czechoslovaks, who threatened to open the front to the Bolsheviks, formed a single “all-Russian” government - the Ufa Directory, headed by the leaders of the AKP Avsentiev and Zenzinov. The offensive of the Red Army forced the Ufa directory to move to a safer place - Omsk. There, Admiral A.V. Kolchak was invited to the post of Minister of War. Thus, the socialist-revolutionaries, who played the main role in the directory, formed an open bloc with forces that they had recently considered their main enemies. Relying on the military power of the Czechoslovak corps, the directory sought to create its own armed formations that acted against Soviet power in the vast expanses of Siberia and Ukraine. However, the Russian officers did not want to compromise with the socialists. According to Kolchak, all the army representatives with whom he met “had a completely negative attitude towards the Directory.” They said that the Directory is a repetition of the same Kerensky, that Avsentiev is the same Kerensky, that by following the same path that Russia has already taken, he will inevitably lead it again to Bolshevism, and that there is no trust in the Directory in the army.”

On the night of November 17-18, 1918, a group of conspirators from the officers of the Cossack units stationed in Omsk arrested 3 members of the Directory, who two days later were expelled abroad, and full power was offered to Admiral Kolchak, who accepted the title of “Supreme Ruler of Russia” "

The Social Revolutionaries openly challenged Kolchak by announcing the creation of a new committee headed by V. Chernov, which set itself the goal of “fighting the criminal invaders of power.” All townspeople were required to obey only the orders of the committee and its authorized representatives. However, this committee was overthrown as a result of a military uprising in Yekaterinburg. Chernov and other members of the Constituent Assembly were arrested. The Social Revolutionaries went underground, starting an underground struggle against the Kolchak regime, while becoming de facto allies of the Bolsheviks.

Events in the south developed somewhat differently. The creation here of the Volunteer Army, which from the first steps of its existence was an integral military-political organism, predetermined their character of the emerging new government - military-dictatorial. It was this circumstance that contributed to the fact that the South became the center of gravity for the leaders of monarchist parties and organizations. The Cadets also turned their attention here, thereby providing grounds for banning the activities of their party.

The political leaders of monarchists and cadets who appeared in the Volunteer Army tried to give the regime the necessary military-dictatorial ideological justification, supplementing it with a kind of “civil constitution”, which was called upon to personify by a special body under the commander of the Volunteer Army - the “special meeting”. The regulations on the “special meeting” were developed under the leadership of the famous Duma figure, leader of the Russian nationalist party V.V. Shulgin.

Article 1. Regulations of August 18, 1918 read: “The special meeting aims to: a) examine all issues related to the restoration of organs government controlled and self-government in areas where the power and influence of the Volunteer Army extends; b) ... preparation of bills in all branches of government, both of local importance for the management of areas that came within the sphere of influence of the Volunteer Army, and on a broad national scale for the restoration of Russia within its former borders ... "

Thus, the slogan of “united and indivisible Russia” and the idea of ​​​​restoring the monarchical system became fundamental for the Denikin government. It did not consider it necessary, although for tactical purposes, as Kolchak did, to camouflage its program with democratic retreats.

It is quite natural that such a political orientation of the “white movement” sharply narrowed its social base, especially among the peasantry, who feared the restoration of landownership, as well as the nationalistically minded middle strata of the Russian outskirts.

Meanwhile, the foreign policy situation has changed dramatically. At the beginning of 1918, the world war ended with the defeat of Germany and its allies. In the defeated countries, popular discontent grew into revolutions that overthrew the monarchies in Germany and Austria-Hungary. On November 13, the Soviet government annulled the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. All these events could not have come at a better time for the Bolsheviks. They allowed them to raise the shaky authority of the party. In an instant, the Bolsheviks got rid of the label of anti-patriots. On the other hand, Lenin’s hypothesis about the Russian revolution, preserved as a springboard for the world revolutionary process, seemed to be confirmed.

Thus, in the fall of 1918 - spring of 1919, the military opposition front against the Bolsheviks was significantly narrowed due to the withdrawal of revolutionary democratic parties from it. The most significant armed opposition remained the forces united by the “white idea,” the power of which increased significantly after the start of direct intervention by the Allied troops. However, the tragedy of the “white movement” was that it did not have a broad social base inside the country. The bet that the anarchist idea, uniting the people, would become an alternative to the communist idea, did not materialize. No less serious miscalculations were made in the implementation of economic policy. Overwhelmed by ardent hatred of the Bolsheviks, the white generals relied mainly on military force, almost excluding other methods of struggle from their arsenal. It is possible to talk about the existence of a certain economic program with a certain degree of convention. However, these were precisely the issues that came to the fore in the territories reconquered by the whites.

The question of land had already been practically and exhaustively resolved by the Soviet government. The white government could either accept this as a fait accompli, or try to reverse events. The middle path, as always happens at turning points and crises, is not perceived by the radicalized masses, but the white governments initially tried to follow exactly this path.

In the spring of 1919, the Kolchak government issued a declaration on the land issue, which announced the right of peasants cultivating other people's land to harvest from it. Subsequently making a number of promises to provide land to landless and land-poor peasants, the government pointed to the need to return the seized lands of small landowners who cultivate them with their labor, and stated that “in its final form, the age-old land issue will be resolved by the national assembly.”

This declaration was the same marking time as the policy of the Provisional Government in its time on the land issue, and was essentially indifferent to the Siberian peasant, who did not know the oppression of the landowner. It did not give anything definite to the peasantry of the Volga provinces.

The government of southern Russia, headed by General Denikin, was even less able to satisfy the peasantry with its land policy, demanding that the owners of the occupied lands be given a third of their harvest. Some representatives of Denikin's government went even further, beginning to install the expelled landowners in the old ashes.

Chapter 2 Civil War and Intervention

Civil War: "Whites"

The first outbreaks. The seizure of power by the Bolsheviks marked the transition of the civil confrontation into a new, armed phase - the civil war. However, initially the military actions were local in nature and had the goal of preventing the establishment of Bolshevik power locally.

On the night of October 26, a group of Mensheviks and Right Socialist Revolutionaries who left the Second Congress of Soviets formed the All-Russian Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution in the City Duma. Relying on the help of cadets from Petrograd schools, the committee attempted to carry out a counter-coup on October 29. But the very next day this performance was suppressed by Red Guard troops.

A.f. Kerensky led the campaign of the 3rd cavalry corps of General P. N. Krasnov to Petrograd. On October 27 and 28, the Cossacks captured Gatchina and Tsarskoe Selo, creating an immediate threat to Petrograd. However, on October 30, Krasnov’s troops were defeated. Kerensky fled. P, N. Krasnov was arrested by his own Cossacks, but then released on his word of honor that he would not fight against the new government.

Soviet power was established in Moscow with great complications. Here, on October 26, the City Duma created the “Public Security Committee,” which had 10 thousand well-armed soldiers at its disposal. Bloody battles broke out in the city. Only on November 3, after the storming of the Kremlin by revolutionary forces, Moscow came under Soviet control.

After the flight of A.F. Kerensky, General N.N. Dukhonin declared himself the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army. He refused to comply with the order of the Council of People's Commissars to enter into armistice negotiations with the German command and on November 9, 1917 he was removed from his post. A detachment of armed soldiers and sailors was sent to Mogilev, led by the new commander-in-chief, warrant officer N.V. Krylenko. On November 18, General N.N. Dukhonin was killed. The headquarters came under the control of the Bolsheviks.

With the help of weapons, new power was established in the Cossack regions of the Don, Kuban, and Southern Urals.

Ataman A. M. Kaledin headed the anti-Bolshevik movement on the Don. He declared the Don Army's disobedience to the Soviet government. Everyone dissatisfied with the new regime began to flock to the Don. However, most of the Cossacks at this time adopted a policy of benevolent neutrality towards the new government. And although the Decree on Land gave the Cossacks little, they had land, but they were very impressed by the Decree on Peace.

At the end of November 1917, General M.V. Alekseev began the formation of the Volunteer Army to fight Soviet power. This army marked the beginning of the white movement, so named in contrast to the red revolutionary one. White color as if symbolizing law and order. And the participants in the white movement considered themselves the spokesmen for the idea of ​​restoring the former power and might of the Russian state, the “Russian state principle” and a merciless struggle against those forces that, in their opinion, plunged Russia into chaos and anarchy - the Bolsheviks, as well as representatives of other socialist parties .

The Soviet government managed to form a 10,000-strong army, which entered the Don territory in mid-January 1918. Part of the population provided armed support to the Reds. Considering his cause lost, Ataman A. M. Kaledin shot himself. The volunteer army, burdened with convoys with children, women, politicians, journalists, professors, went to the steppes, hoping to continue their work in the Kuban. On April 17, 1918, near Ekaterinodar, the commander of the Volunteer Army, General L. G. Kornilov, was killed. General A.I. Denikin took command.

Simultaneously with the anti-Soviet protests on the Don, a Cossack movement began in the Southern Urals. It was headed by the ataman of Orenburg Cossack army A. I. Dutov. In Transbaikalia, the fight against the new government was led by Ataman G.S. Semenov.

However, the protests against Soviet power, although fierce, were spontaneous and scattered, did not enjoy mass support from the population, and took place against the backdrop of the relatively rapid and peaceful establishment of Soviet power almost everywhere (“the triumphal march of Soviet power,” as the Bolsheviks declared). Therefore, the rebel atamans were defeated fairly quickly. At the same time, these speeches clearly indicated the formation of two main centers of resistance - in Siberia, whose face was determined by the farms of wealthy peasant owners, often united in cooperatives with the predominant influence of the Socialist Revolutionaries, as well as on lands inhabited by the Cossacks, known for their love of freedom and commitment to a special way of economic and social life. A civil war is a clash of various political forces, social and ethnic groups, and individuals defending their demands under banners of various colors and shades. However, on this multi-colored canvas, the two most organized and irreconcilably hostile forces stood out, fighting for mutual destruction - “white” and “red”.

Hostilities

Eastern front. The performance of the Czechoslovak corps was a turning point that determined the entry of the civil war into a new phase. It was characterized by the concentration of forces of the opposing sides, the involvement of the spontaneous movement of the masses in the armed struggle and its transfer into a certain organizational channel, and the consolidation of the opposing forces in “their” territories. All this brought the civil war closer to the forms of regular war with all the ensuing consequences. With the advance of the Czechoslovaks, the Eastern Front is formed.

The corps consisted of Czech and Slovak prisoners of war of the former Austro-Hungarian army, who expressed a desire to participate in hostilities on the side of the Entente at the end of 1916. In January 1918, the corps leadership declared itself part of the Czechoslovak army, which was under the command of the commander-in-chief of the French troops. An agreement was concluded between Russia and France on the transfer of the Czechoslovak corps to Western Front. The trains with Czechoslovaks were to proceed along Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok, there to board ships and sail to Europe.

By the end of May 1918, 63 trains with corps units stretched along the railway line from the Rtishchevo station (in the Penza region) to Vladivostok, i.e. over a distance of 7 thousand km. The main places where trains accumulated were the areas of Penza, Zlatoust, Chelyabinsk, Novonikolaevsk, Mariinsk, Irkutsk, and Vladivostok. The total number of troops was more than 45 thousand people. At the end of May, a rumor spread through the echelons that the local Soviets had been ordered to disarm the corps and hand over the Czechoslovaks as prisoners of war to Austria-Hungary and Germany. At a meeting of regiment commanders, it was decided not to surrender their weapons and, if necessary, to fight their way to Vladivostok. On May 25, the commander of the Czechoslovak units concentrated in the area of ​​Novonikolaevsk, r. Gaida, in response to L. Trotsky’s intercepted order confirming the disarmament of the corps, gave the order to his echelons to seize the stations where they were currently located and, if possible, to advance on Irkutsk.

In a relatively short period of time, with the help of the Czechoslovak corps, Soviet power was overthrown in the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East. The Czechoslovak bayonets paved the way for new governments that reflected the political sympathies of the Czechoslovaks, among whom the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks predominated. The disgraced leaders of the dispersed Constituent Assembly flocked to the East.

In September 1918, a meeting of representatives of all anti-Bolshevik governments was held in Ufa, which formed a single “all-Russian” government - the Ufa Directory, in which the leaders of the AKP played the main role.

The offensive of the Red Army forced the Ufa directory to move to a safer place - Omsk. There, Admiral A.V. Kolchak was invited to the post of Minister of War. The Socialist Revolutionary leaders of the Directory hoped that the popularity enjoyed by A.V. Kolchak in the Russian army and navy would allow him to unite the disparate military formations that were acting against Soviet power in the vast expanses of Siberia and the Urals and create its own armed forces for the Directory. However, the Russian officers did not want to compromise with the “socialists.”

On the night of November 17-18, 1918, a group of conspirators from the officers of the Cossack units stationed in Omsk arrested the socialist leaders of the Directory and handed over full power to Admiral A.V. Kolchak. At the insistence of the allies, A.V. Kolchak was declared “the supreme ruler of Russia.”

And although the command of the Czechoslovak corps received this news without much enthusiasm, it, under pressure from the allies, did not resist. And when the news of Germany’s surrender reached the corps, no forces could force the Czechoslovaks to continue the war. The baton of armed struggle against Soviet power on the Eastern Front was picked up by Kolchak’s army.

However, the admiral's break with the Social Revolutionaries was a gross political miscalculation. The Social Revolutionaries went underground and began active underground work against the Kolchak regime, becoming de facto allies of the Bolsheviks.

On November 28, 1918, Admiral Kolchak met with representatives of the press to explain his political line. He stated that his immediate goal was to create a strong, combat-ready army for a “merciless and inexorable fight against the Bolsheviks,” which should be facilitated by a “sole form of power.” And only after the liquidation of Bolshevik power in Russia should a meeting be convened National Assembly“for the reign of law and order in the country.” All economic and social reforms should also be postponed until the end of the fight against the Bolsheviks.

From the very first steps of its existence, the Kolchak government embarked on the path of exceptional laws, introducing the death penalty, martial law, and punitive expeditions. All these measures caused massive discontent among the population. Peasant uprisings flooded the whole of Siberia in a continuous stream. The partisan movement acquired enormous proportions. Under the blows of the Red Army, the Kolchak government was forced to move to Irkutsk. On December 24, 1919, an anti-Kolchak uprising was raised in Irkutsk. The allied forces and the remaining Czechoslovak troops declared their neutrality.

At the beginning of January 1920, the Czechs handed over A.V. Kolchak to the leaders of the uprising. After a short investigation, the “supreme ruler of Russia” was shot in February 1920.

Southern front. The second center of resistance to Soviet power was the south of Russia. In the spring of 1918, the Don was filled with rumors about the upcoming equalizing redistribution of all lands. The Cossacks began to murmur. Following this, an order arrived to hand over weapons and requisition bread. An uprising broke out. It coincided with the arrival of the Germans on the Don. The Cossack leaders, forgetting about past patriotism, entered into negotiations with their recent enemy. On April 21, the Provisional Don Government was created, which began to form the Don Army. On May 16, the Cossack circle - the “Circle of Salvation of the Don” - elected Tsarist General P. N. Krasnov as ataman of the Don Army, giving him almost dictatorial powers. Relying on German support, P. N. Krasnov declared state independence for the region of the All-Great Don Army.

Using cruel methods, P. N. Krasnov carried out mass mobilizations, bringing the size of the Don Army to 45 thousand people by mid-July 1918. Weapons were supplied in abundance by Germany. By mid-August, P. N. Krasnov’s units occupied the entire Don region and, together with German troops, launched military operations against the Red Army.

Rushing into the territories of the “red” provinces, Cossack units hanged, shot, hacked, raped, robbed and flogged the local population. These atrocities spread fear and hatred, a desire for revenge using the same methods. A wave of anger and hatred swept the country.

At the same time, A.I. Denikin’s Volunteer Army began its second campaign against Kuban. The “volunteers” adhered to the Entente orientation and tried not to interact with the pro-German detachments of P. N. Krasnov.

Meanwhile, the foreign policy situation has changed dramatically. At the beginning of November 1918, the world war ended with the defeat of Germany and its allies. Under pressure and with the active assistance of the Entente countries, at the end of 1918, all anti-Bolshevik armed forces of southern Russia were united under the single command of A.I. Denikin.

From the very beginning, White Guard power in southern Russia was military-dictatorial in nature. The main ideas of the movement were: without prejudging the future final form of government, the restoration of a single, indivisible Russia and a merciless fight against the Bolsheviks until their complete destruction. In March 1919, Denikin's government published a draft land reform. Its main provisions boiled down to the following: preservation of the owners of their rights to land; the establishment of certain land norms for each individual locality and the transfer of the remaining land to land-poor land “through voluntary agreements or through forced alienation, but also necessarily for a fee.” However, the final solution to the land issue was postponed until the complete victory over Bolshevism and was entrusted to the future legislative assembly. In the meantime, the government of southern Russia has demanded that the owners of the occupied lands be given a third of the total harvest. Some representatives of the Denikin administration went even further, beginning to install the expelled landowners in the old ashes.

Drunkenness, floggings, pogroms, and looting became common occurrences in the Volunteer Army. Hatred for the Bolsheviks and everyone who supported them drowned out all other feelings and lifted all moral prohibitions. Therefore, soon the rear of the Volunteer Army began to shake from peasant uprisings, just as the rear of Kolchak’s white armies shook. They received a particularly large scale in Ukraine, where the peasant element found an extraordinary leader in the person of N. I. Makhno.

In relation to the working class, the policy of all white governments in theory did not go beyond vague promises, but in practice was expressed in repression, the suppression of trade unions, the destruction of workers' organizations, etc.

Of no small importance was the fact that the white movement functioned on the outskirts of the former Russian Empire, where protest against the national and bureaucratic arbitrariness of the center had long been brewing. The White Guard governments, with their unambiguous slogan of “a united and indivisible Russia,” very soon disappointed the national intelligentsia and the middle strata who initially followed them.

Northern front. The government of northern Russia was formed after the landing of the Entente powers in Arkhangelsk in August 1918. It was headed by the people's socialist N.V. Tchaikovsky.

At the very beginning of 1919, the government came into contact with the “supreme ruler of Russia” Admiral Kolchak, who gave the order to organize a military governor-general in northern Russia headed by General E.K. Miller. This meant the establishment of a military dictatorship here.

On August 10, 1919, at the insistence of the British command, the government of the North-Western Region was created. Revel became his residence. In fact, all power was concentrated in the hands of the generals and atamans of the North-Western Army. The army was led by General N.N. Yudenich.

In the field of agrarian policy, the White Guard governments of the north issued a decree according to which all sown crops, all mowing land, estates and equipment were returned to the landowners. The arable land remained with the peasants until the land issue was resolved by the Constituent Assembly. But in the conditions of the north, mowing land was the most valuable, so the peasants again fell into bondage to the landowners.

White terror. On the night of July 6, 1918, armed anti-Soviet protests began in Yaroslavl, and then in Rybinsk and Murom. The purpose of the uprisings is clear from the resolution of the commander-in-chief of the Yaroslavl province, commander of the armed forces of the Volunteer Army of the Yaroslavl region: “I announce to the citizens of the Yaroslavl province that from the date of publication of this resolution ... 1. The authorities and officials that existed under the current laws before the October Revolution of 1917 are being restored throughout the province , i.e. before the capture central government Council of People's Commissars..." Signature: Colonel Perkurov. He is the chief of staff of the rebels.

Having captured part of the city, the leaders of the uprising began merciless terror. Brutal reprisals were carried out against Soviet party workers. Thus, the commissioner of the military district S. M. Nakimson and the chairman of the executive committee of the city council D. S. Zakiym died. 200 arrested were taken to the “death barge” anchored in the middle of the Volga. Hundreds of people were shot, destroyed houses, remains of fires, ruins. A similar picture was observed in other Volga cities.

This was just the beginning of the “white” terror. A.I. Denikin in his “Essays on the Russian Troubles” admitted that the volunteer troops left “dirty dregs in the form of violence, robberies and Jewish pogroms. And as for the enemy (Soviet) warehouses, stores, convoys or property of the Red Army soldiers, they were sorted out randomly, without a system.” White General noted that his counterintelligence agencies “covered the territory of the south with a dense network and were hotbeds of provocations and organized robbery.” Facts indicate that almost immediately after the victory of October, international reaction moved from political, economic, and ideological methods of struggle directly to military ones. Along with the active support of the counter-revolutionary generals, the interventionists themselves launched mass terror, the silent witnesses of which are the “death camps” Mudyug and Yokanga, the Mezen and Pinezh convict prisons. During the year of occupation, 38 thousand arrested people passed through the Arkhangelsk prison alone, 8 thousand of whom were shot. Order of Kolchak’s General Rozanov: “It is possible to put an end to the Yenisei uprising as quickly and decisively as possible, without stopping at the most terrible and harsh measures against not only the rebels, but also the population supporting them. In this regard, the example of the Japanese in the Amur region, who announced the destruction of villages hiding the Bolsheviks, was apparently caused by the need to achieve success in a difficult partisan struggle.” Back in November 1919, the White Czechs wrote in their memorandum: “Under the protection of Czechoslovak bayonets, local Russian military bodies (meaning Kolchak’s) allow themselves actions that would horrify the entire civilized world. The burning of villages, the beating of peaceful Russian citizens... executions without trial of representatives of democracy on simple suspicion of political unreliability are common occurrences.” Vologodsky spoke about this to Kolchak during a conversation over a direct wire on November 21, 1919: “All layers of the population, even the most moderate, are outraged by the arbitrariness that reigns in all areas of life...” And the “supreme ruler” himself, in moments of revelation, confessed to his like-minded person, the then minister Internal Affairs to V.N. Pepelyaev: “The activities of the heads of district police, special forces, all kinds of commandants, heads of individual detachments constitute a complete crime.” It was this cruelty of Kolchakism, the lawlessness and arbitrariness perpetrated by Kolchak’s henchmen that forced the Siberian peasants to rise up to fight him.

In the fratricidal war, familiar concepts disappeared and became alien to many: instead of mercy and compassion, mutual brutality, instead of a calm flow of life - a state of fear. What was happening in the dungeons of the counterintelligence of Novorossiysk, in the rear of the White Army, was reminiscent of the darkest times of the Middle Ages. The situation in the white rear was something incongruous, wild, drunken and dissolute. No one could be sure that he would not be robbed or killed without any reason.

Reasons for the defeat. The policy of the “white movement” could not but cause mass peasant discontent, which resulted in peasant uprisings behind the lines of the white armies. They received a particularly wide scope in Ukraine, where, under the leadership of N. I. Makhno, well-armed peasant detachments operated, coordinating their military operations with the military actions of regular units of the Red Army.

Thus, the largest White Guard groups were unable to establish relationships with the millions of middle peasants, which largely predetermined their subsequent downfall.

In relation to the working class, the policy of all white governments in theory did not go beyond vague promises, but in practice was expressed in a number of repressions, the suppression of the prof. unions, the destruction of workers' organizations. The majority of the working class supported the Soviet regime.

Of no small importance was the fact that the “white movement” had to function on the outskirts of the former Russian Empire, where protest against the national and bureaucratic oppression of the center had long been brewing, which was expressed in the desire for “independence” and autonomy. The White Guard governments, with their unambiguous slogan of “a united and indivisible Russia,” very soon disappointed the national intelligentsia and the middle strata who initially followed them.

Thus, due, obviously, to the reasons that the white movement was led not by politicians, but by generals, it was also unable to propose a program that could lead to the agreement of all forces dissatisfied with the Bolshevik regime. Moreover, the lack of experience in political compromises, focus on foreign assistance, borrowing from the opponent’s arsenals of the most extreme methods of warfare, turmoil and disunity of forces in the White camp itself led to the fact that the White Guards lost all their potential allies within the country, and the gradual collapse, in For many reasons, foreign intervention marked the end of the white movement.

At the same time, at the last stage of the existence of the Volunteer Army, an attempt was made to rethink both the ideology and policy of the white movement. This attempt is associated with the name of General P. Wrangel, who in early April 1920, after the defeat of A. Denikin’s army, was elected commander-in-chief of the Russian army in Crimea. In his fight against the Bolsheviks, he relied on the help of the entire Russian population. To this end, he decided to turn Crimea into a kind of “experimental field” by recreating there the democratic order interrupted by the October coup, which was supposed to spread throughout Russia with the help not so much of the Russian army as of the peasant initiative, which was supposed to receive a powerful impetus in the form of democratic Crimea.

On May 25, 1920, Wrangel published the “Land Law,” according to which part of the landowners’ lands were transferred to the ownership of peasants for a small ransom. In addition to the “Land Law”, the “Law on volost zemstvos and rural communities” was published, which were supposed to become bodies of peasant self-government during the time of rural councils. In an effort to win over the Cossacks, Wrangel approved a new regulation on the order of regional autonomy for the Cossack lands. Workers were promised new factory legislation that would actually protect their rights.

In fact, Wrangel and his government, composed of prominent representatives of the Kadet Party, proposed the very “third way” that was justified by the parties of revolutionary democracy. However, time was lost. Not a single opposition force now posed a danger to the Bolsheviks. The white movement was crushed, the socialist parties were split. The people of Russia have reached such a state that they have ceased to trust anyone at all. A huge number of soldiers were on both sides. They fought in Kolchak’s troops, then, taken prisoner, they served in the ranks of the Red Army, transferred to the Volunteer Army and again fought against the Bolsheviks, and again ran over to the Bolsheviks and fought against the volunteers. In the south of Russia, the population experienced 14 regimes, and each government demanded obedience to its orders and laws. Now the Ukrainian Rada with the German occupation, now the Hetmanate under the protectorate of the Germans, now Petlyura, now the Bolsheviks, now the Whites, then the Bolsheviks again. And so on several times. People were waiting to see who would take it. Under these conditions, the Bolsheviks tactically outplayed all their opponents.

Civil War: "Reds"

Creation of the Red Army. One of the main provisions of the Bolshevik doctrine was the affirmation of the inextricable connection between revolution and war. No matter how significant the history of military operations is, it is still only one side of the civil war, and it cannot be understood in isolation from the other. First of all, the war required the creation of armed forces. Moreover, this became a decisive test for the new government: it had to give up some of its principles. Initially, it was envisaged to create not a regular and standing army, but a militia - that is, the arming of the people, of all previously oppressed classes. It was precisely these concepts that inspired the creators of the Decree on the organization of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, adopted on January 15 (28), 1918.

However, from the decree to reality there was a long and difficult path. The Red Guard units rather than the surviving units of the old army were taken as the starting point for the construction of the new armed forces. At first, during the dramatic weeks of the Brest negotiations, the emphasis was on the registration of volunteers and compulsory military training of all workers (vsevobuch). The requirements of discipline soon forced us to abandon the principle of electing commanders. The confrontation with such a well-organized force as the Czechoslovak corps forced us to go even further along this path. In June 1918, compulsory conscription into the army was carried out for the first time. At first it extended, in accordance with the class principle, only to workers and poor peasants and only in Moscow, Petrograd and several other provinces. Then, in September, they moved to conscription of entire age contingents and, finally, in April 1919, to general mobilization.

This transition took place simultaneously with the determination of the structure of the regular army, with its command, headquarters, and districts; operational connections. The lack of military experience prompted him to turn to non-commissioned officers of the previous regime for help. Voluntarily or under threat, they were asked to give their knowledge to the new system. And in order for them not to be left to their own devices, a completely new figure, typical of the Red Army, was created - a political commissar, a representative of the revolutionary government, called upon to control the actions of the “specialists” from among the old officers and at the same time to inspire and politically educate the troops, who had to fight for the revolution.

The formation of the Red Army was one of the most difficult and painful processes of that period. It took months before the first undisciplined detachments, unfamiliar with the principle of unity of command, sometimes capable of unprecedented heroism, but easily susceptible to panic, turned into an organized force, divided into armies and divisions. Both criteria underlying the transformation - a regular rather than a "partisan" army and the use of old officers - met with sharp resistance in the Bolshevik party. For many Bolsheviks, this meant almost undermining the very foundations of their worldview. There were endless disputes in the Central Committee. At the Eighth Party Congress in March 1919, disagreements escalated to the extreme. The “Theses” of Trotsky, who, with the support of Lenin, was the main proponent of the new course, barely gathered the necessary majority and were approved as temporary, forced measures. Meanwhile, an army was born.

During the battles, new military leaders emerged who, contrary to all expectations, could prevail over professional soldiers. These were people of very different origins: former officers who had already risen to high ranks in the old army, like the first two commanders-in-chief, Vatsetis and Kamenev (not to be confused with the namesake, a famous party leader); chief officers who suddenly soared to the highest command posts, like Tukhachevsky and Blucher (the first order bearer in the Red Army); professional revolutionaries like Frunze, Sklyansky and Voroshilov; partisan commanders who had difficulty acquiring the skills and experience of command, like Budyonny and Chapaev.

Much attention was paid to the formation of team personnel. In addition to short-term courses and schools for training mid-level commanders from the most distinguished Red Army soldiers, in 1917-1919. higher education institutions were opened educational establishments: Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army, Artillery, Military Medical, Military Economic, Naval, Military Engineering Academies. In September 1918, a unified structure for command and control of front and army troops was created. At the head of each front, a Revolutionary Military Council was appointed, consisting of a front commander and two political commissars. All front-line and military institutions were headed by the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, headed by L. D. Trotsky. Measures were taken to tighten discipline. Representatives of the Revolutionary Military Council, endowed with emergency powers up to and including the execution of traitors and cowards without trial, went to the most tense areas of the front.

Red terror. In the article “How the bourgeoisie uses renegades,” Lenin, criticizing K. Kautsky’s book “Terrorism and Communism,” explains his views on the problems of terror in general and revolutionary violence in particular. Responding to accusations that the Bolsheviks were previously opponents of the death penalty, but now use mass executions, Lenin wrote: “Firstly, it is an outright lie that the Bolsheviks were opponents of the death penalty for the era of the revolution... Not a single revolutionary government without the death penalty can it will work out and that the whole question is only against which class is the weapon of the death penalty directed by this government.” Lenin, as a theorist and politician, unequivocally advocated the possibility of the peaceful development of the revolution, noting that in the ideal of Marxism there is no place for violence against people and that the working class would, of course, prefer to peacefully take power into their own hands.

The Soviet government and its punitive agencies initially refrained from violence as a means of combating enemies, and only after anti-Bolshevik forces began to carry out mass terror did the Soviet government declare “red” terror. On June 26, 1918, Lenin wrote to Zinoviev: “Only today we heard in the Central Committee that in St. Petersburg the workers wanted to respond to the murder of Volodarsky with mass terror and that you ... restrained it. I strongly protest! We are compromising ourselves: even in the resolutions of the Council of Deputies we threaten with mass terror, but when it comes down to it, we slow down the revolutionary initiative of the masses, which is quite correct. This is impossible! Terrorists will consider us wimps. It's arch-war time. We must encourage the energy and mass character of terror against counter-revolutionaries...” The appeal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of August 30, 1918 about the assassination attempt on the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Lenin, said: “The working class will respond to the assassination attempt directed against its leaders by even greater consolidation of its forces, will respond with merciless mass terror against all enemies of the revolution.” On September 5, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars adopted a resolution that went down in history as the resolution on the “red” terror. It said that the chairman of the Cheka had heard a report on the fight against counter-revolution and the Council of People's Commissars believed that “in this situation, ensuring the rear through terror is a direct necessity... What needs to be secured Soviet republic from class enemies by isolating them in concentration camps; that persons involved in White Guard conspiracies and rebellions are subject to execution; that it is necessary to publish the names of all those executed, as well as the reasons for applying this measure to them.” In December 1918, the Izvestia newspaper published a conversation with the newly appointed Chairman of the Revolutionary Tribunal, K. K. Danilevsky. He said: “The Tribunals are not and should not be guided by any legal rules. This is a punitive body, created in the process of intense revolutionary struggle, which makes its sentences, guided exclusively by the principles of expediency and legal consciousness of communists. This leads to the mercilessness of the sentences. But no matter how merciless each individual sentence may be, it must be based on a sense of solidarity of justice and must awaken this feeling. Given the enormous complexity of the tasks of military tribunals, their leaders also bear enormous responsibility. Unjust, cruel, and motiveless sentences should not take place. In this regard, the heads of military tribunals must exercise special caution.” Thus, on the one hand, there is the mercilessness of the sentences, and on the other, the absence of any legal norms, the right of the accused to defense. This left a certain imprint on the content of the activities of the Cheka.

Decisive victories for the Reds. In the first half of May 1919, when the Red Army was winning decisive victories over Kolchak, General Yudenich's attack on Petrograd began. At the same time, anti-Bolshevik protests took place among the Red Army soldiers in the forts Krasnaya Gorka, Seraya Loshad, Obruchev, against which not only regular units of the Red Army were used, but also naval artillery of the Baltic Fleet. After suppressing these uprisings, the troops of the Petrograd Front went on the offensive and drove Yudenich’s units back to Estonian territory. The second offensive against Peter Yudenich in October 1919 also ended in failure. In February 1920, the Red Army liberated Arkhangelsk, and in March Murmansk. The "white" north became "red".

The rapid offensive of the “Reds” in the fall of 1919 led to the division of the Volunteer Army into two parts – the Crimean and the North Caucasus. In February - March 1920, its main forces were defeated and the Volunteer Army itself ceased to exist.

Between "red" and "white"

Peasants against the "reds". Clashes between regular units of the Red and White armies were only a facade of the civil war, demonstrating its two extreme poles, not the most numerous, but the most organized. Meanwhile, the victory of one side or another depended, first of all, on the sympathy and support of those who constituted the most impressive force of the state - the peasantry.

The Decree on Land gave the peasants what they had been seeking for so long - landowner land. At this point, the peasants considered their revolutionary mission over. They were grateful to the Soviet government for the land, but they were in no hurry to fight for this power with arms in their hands, hoping to wait out the troubled time in their village, near their own plot. The emergency food policy was met with bewilderment by the peasants. They could not understand why land was needed if bread was taken away to the last grain. Clashes with food detachments began in the village. In July-August 1918 alone, 150 such clashes were recorded in Central Russia. The Bolsheviks applied extraordinary measures to the dissatisfied - putting them on trial, revolutionary tribunals, imprisonment, confiscation of property and even execution on the spot.

When the Revolutionary Military Council announced mobilization into the Red Army, the peasants responded by massively evading it. Up to 75% of conscripts did not show up at recruiting stations. On the eve of the first anniversary of the October Revolution, peasant uprisings broke out almost simultaneously in 80 districts of Central Russia. The mobilized peasants, having seized weapons and dispersed from the recruiting stations, roused their fellow villagers to defeat the Committees of Poor People's Commissars, Soviets, and party cells. A significant number of peasant uprisings in Central Russia were explained by the fact that these areas were very intensively exploited by food detachments. And their mass appeal was ensured by the participation of the middle peasantry and even the poor, although the Bolsheviks declared each performance “kulak”. True, the very concept of “fist” was very loose and uncertain and had a political rather than an economic meaning.

At the same time, it is necessary to emphasize that the peasant uprisings can hardly be characterized as anti-Soviet or even anti-Bolshevik. In the minds of the masses, the Soviet government and the Bolsheviks were associated with the democratic stage of the revolution, which gave peace, land, and democracy. But the peasants could not come to terms with the forced confiscation of grain, forced conscription, and the lack of freedom of trade.

Peasants against the “whites” Massive discontent among the peasants was also observed in the rear of the white armies. However, it had a slightly different direction than in the rear of the “Reds”. If the peasants of the central regions of Russia opposed emergency measures, but not against Soviet power as such, then the peasant movement in the rear of the White armies arose as a reaction to attempts to restore the old land order and, therefore, inevitably took on a Bolshevik orientation. After all, it was the Bolsheviks who gave the peasants land. At the same time, the allies of the peasants in these areas were the workers, which made it possible to create a broad anti-White Guard front, which was strengthened by the inclusion of the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, who did not find a common language with the White Guard rulers.

"Green". “Makhnovshchina.” The peasant movement developed somewhat differently in the areas bordering the Red and White fronts, where power was constantly changing, but each of them demanded submission through its own order and law, and sought to replenish its ranks by mobilizing the local population. Peasants deserting both the White and Red Army, fleeing the new mobilization, took refuge in the forests and created partisan detachments. They chose as their symbol green color- the color of will and freedom, simultaneously opposed themselves to both the red and white movements. The “greens” protests covered the entire south of Russia: the Black Sea region, the North Caucasus, and Crimea.

But the peasant movement reached its greatest scope and organization in the south of Ukraine. This was largely due to the personality of the leader of the rebel peasant army N.I. Makhno. Fighting both the Germans and the Ukrainian nationalists-Petliurists, Makhno did not allow the Reds and their food detachments into the territory liberated by his troops. In December 1918, Makhno’s army captured the largest city in the south, Yekaterinoslav. By February 1918, the Makhnovist army had increased to 30 thousand regular fighters and 20 thousand unarmed reserves, which, if necessary, could be raised to arms overnight. Under his control were the most grain-producing districts of Ukraine, a number of the most important railway junctions. Makhno agreed to join his troops in the Red Army for a joint fight against Denikin. However, while providing military support to the Red Army, Makhno took an independent political position, establishing his own rules.

Intervention.

At the same time, the civil war beginning in Russia was complicated from the very beginning by the intervention of foreign states.

In December 1917, Romania, taking advantage of the weakness of the new government, occupied Bessarabia.

In Ukraine, the Central Rada, created after the February Revolution, as a body of nationalist forces, declared itself the supreme government in November 1917, and in January 1918, with the support of Austria-Hungary and Germany, declared the independence of Ukraine.

In February, under the blows of the Red Army, the government of the Central Rada fled from Kiev to Volyn. In Brest-Litovsk, it concluded a separate agreement with the Austro-German bloc and in March returned to Kyiv along with the Austro-German troops, who occupied almost all of Ukraine. Taking advantage of the fact that there were no clearly fixed borders between Ukraine and Russia, German troops invaded the Oryol, Kursk, Voronezh province, captured Simferopol, Rostov and crossed the Don. On April 29, 1918, the German command dispersed the Central Rada and replaced it with the government of Hetman P. P. Skoropadsky.

In April 1918, Turkish troops crossed the state border and moved deep into Transcaucasia. In May, a German corps also landed in Georgia.

From the end of 1917, British, American and Japanese warships began to arrive at Russian ports in the North and Far East, ostensibly to protect them from possible German aggression. At first, the Soviet government took this calmly. And the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) agreed to accept assistance from the Entente countries in the form of food and weapons. But after the conclusion of the Brest Peace Treaty, the military presence of the Entente began to be viewed as a direct threat to Soviet power. However, it was already too late. On March 6, 1918, the first landing force landed in the port of Murmansk from the English cruiser Glory. Following the British, the French and Americans appeared.

In March, at a meeting of heads of government and foreign ministers of the Entente countries, a decision was made on non-recognition of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and the need to intervene in the internal affairs of Russia.

In April 1918, Japanese paratroopers landed in Vladivostok. Then they were joined by British, American, French and other troops.

V.I. Lenin regarded these actions as the beginning of an intervention and called for armed resistance to the aggressors, despite the fact that the armed forces of the Entente refrained from direct military intervention in the internal affairs of Russia, preferring to provide material support and advisory assistance to the forces opposing the Bolsheviks. Even after the end of the First World War, the Entente did not decide on a large-scale intervention, limiting itself to a naval landing in Odessa, Crimea, Baku, Batumi in January 1919, and also somewhat expanding its presence in the ports of the North and the Far East. However, this caused a sharply negative reaction from the personnel of the expeditionary forces, for whom the end of the war was delayed indefinitely. Therefore, the Black Sea and Caspian landings were evacuated already in the spring of 1919; The British left Arkhangelsk and Murmansk in the fall of 1919. In 1920, British and American units were forced to evacuate from the Far East. Only Japanese troops remained there until October 1922, although the Entente countries initially relied on the Czechoslovak corps, located in the internal territories of Russia.

Conclusion

The civil war ended with the victory of the “reds”. However, this was the first victory. Its influence on the subsequent move historical development our country is catastrophic. Taking as an axiom the proposition that the civil war was won thanks to the wise policy of the Bolshevik Party, its leader transferred all his military developments to peaceful life. Emergency administrative methods of management, laid down during the civil war in the process of the war for the survival of Soviet power, were subsequently brought to the point of absurdity. Terror, which could somehow be explained in conditions of tough confrontation, becomes a necessary attribute of suppressing the slightest dissent. One-party rule and dictatorship of the party will be declared highest achievement democracy. The totalitarian system that saved the party during the civil war will become its reliable stronghold in the future.

Data on the victims of the civil war is still very fragmentary and incomplete. However, all researchers agree that most casualties were among civilians, and in the armed forces more soldiers died from disease than died in battle. In the ranks of the Red Army and the Red partisans, according to some estimates, up to 600 thousand people died in battle and died from wounds and illnesses.

There is no reliable data on white losses. Taking into account their much smaller (four to five times) number and better combat training, as well as the fact that up to ¼ of Soviet losses occurred in the war against Poland, the number of those killed in battle and those who died from disease in the white armies can be estimated at 200 thousand Human.

At least 2 million are the number of victims of terror, mainly “Red”, and the losses of peasant formations (“Greens”), who fought both the Reds and the Whites. At least 300 thousand people died during the Jewish pogroms.

In total, due to the civil war, the population of the USSR (within post-war borders) decreased by more than 10 million people. Of these, more than 2 million emigrated, and more than 3 million civilians died of hunger and disease.

The civil war caused irreparable damage to the country.

Bibliography

1. History of Russia XIX - XX centuries Lecture course. part 1 under. ed. B. V. Levanova

2. Giuseppe Boffa History of the Soviet Union., M. 1994.

3. A. A. Danilov, L. G. Kosulina History of Russia XX century., M. 1996

4. P. A. Shevotsukov. Pages of the history of the Civil War. A look through the decades., M. 1996

5. Sh. M. Muchaev, V. M. Ustinov. Russian history. Textbook for universities., M. 1998

6. History of Russia: XX century Course of lectures ed. B.V. Lichman, Ekaterinburg 1993

7. Encyclopedia. Russian history: XX century., M. 1998

Exactly one hundred years ago, the first volunteers began to join the ranks of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army in order to stand on the side of the Bolsheviks in defense of the October Revolution. Red Army soldiers on the fronts of the Civil War - in the Ria.ru photo feed.

The day of the creation of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army is considered to be February 23, 1918. On this day, mass registration of volunteers began in the Red Army detachments, which were created in accordance with the decree of the Council of People's Commissars, signed on January 15 (28), 1918.

The decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR "On the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army" stated that it was created "from the most conscious and organized elements of the working classes" under the age of 18, who are ready to "give their strength, their lives to defend the won October Revolution, and the power of the Soviets and socialism."

On February 23, 1918, the appeal of the Council of People's Commissars "The Socialist Fatherland is in Danger!" was published, the authorship of which, apparently, belongs to Leon Trotsky, which demanded to "defend every position to the last drop of blood", destroy food supplies that could fall "into the hands of the enemy", and shoot enemy agents at the scene of the crime. On the basis of this decree, Nikolai Krylenko, appointed Supreme Commander-in-Chief by the Bolsheviks, signed an order for “revolutionary mobilization.”

The “Appeal of the Military Commander-in-Chief,” published on the same day, said: “All to arms. All to defend the revolution. Whole-scale mobilization for digging trenches and sending out trench detachments is entrusted to the councils with the appointment of responsible commissars with unlimited powers for each detachment. This order is sent out as an instruction to all councils in all cities."

Five days before the publication of the appeal of the Military Commander-in-Chief, German and Austro-Hungarian troops began an offensive along the entire Eastern Front. Their small flying detachments advanced 50 kilometers per day without encountering local resistance.

On February 23, 1918, Lenin’s article “Peace or War” was published in Pravda, in which the chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars insisted on immediate peace. On the same day, at a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), he demanded that the committee, in order to save Soviet Russia, conclude peace on the terms of Kaiser Wilhelm II. On the night of February 24, the German ultimatum was accepted, but the offensive German troops lasted until the signing of the Brest Peace Treaty on March 4 (it was annulled by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on November 13, 1918).

Promises of peace, which the soldiers who participated in the First World War were so looking forward to, provided support for the Soviets in many regions of the country, but the campaign organized by soldiers' committees and revolutionary committees to enroll volunteers in the new armed forces did not bring tangible results.

To fight the rebellious regions that refused to accept the Soviet government, by the spring of 1918 it was possible to gather about 70 thousand volunteers, which was approximately a percentage of all soldiers who were in the active army in the fall of 1917.

The Red Army was formed from completely heterogeneous elements - parts of the old army, detachments of Red Guards and sailors, peasant militias - and “partisanship” reigned in it: fighters at rallies could discuss issues of conducting operations, choose commanders at their discretion, or exercise collective command of units.

Nevertheless, the first units of the Red Army, due to the support of the population, overwhelming numerical superiority and a good supply of ammunition from the warehouses of the old army, managed to establish Soviet power in the Don and Kuban and hold Yekaterinodar, which the Volunteer Army was trying to capture.

On April 22, 1918, by decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee “On the procedure for filling positions in the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army,” the election of command personnel was abolished.

In order to fully form the command structure of the troops, it was necessary to attract “military experts” - officers of the old army.

Political control in the Red Army was exercised by the Institute of Military Commissars, established in the spring of 1918.

In fact, the first commander-in-chief of the Red Army and one of its key founders was Leon Trotsky. As People's Commissar of Military and later Naval Affairs, he rode his personal armored train along the fronts of the Civil War for two and a half years, imposing discipline, promoting the use of "military experts" and the system of political commissars.

On May 29, 1918, on the basis of universal conscription, the creation of a regular Red Army began, the number of which in the fall of 1918 amounted to 800 thousand people, by the beginning of 1919 - 1.7 million, by December 1919 - 3 million, and by November 1, 1920 - 5 .5 million people.

The infantry was the most numerous branch of the Red Army. The largest rifle unit in the 1920s was the rifle regiment, consisting of battalions, regimental artillery, engineer and signal units, and a regimental headquarters.

During the Civil War, the First Cavalry Army was created, led by Semyon Budyonny. The army was formed from three divisions of his 1st Cavalry Corps in November 1919. The cavalry played a significant role in the defeat of the troops of Denikin and Wrangel.

Aviation in the Soviet Armed Forces began to take shape in 1918. Initially, it consisted of separate aviation detachments of district directorates, later it came under the command of combined arms armies, and in 1920 the field directorates were reorganized into air fleet headquarters with direct subordination to the commanders of fronts and armies.

In March 1919, a new program of the RCP(b) was adopted, which, in particular, noted that the party was striving to implement real, and not formal, equality of women. By implementing this slogan, the authorities attracted women to active work and in the army. Communists became not only literary instructors and commissars, but during the Civil War they took a direct part in hostilities: they were machine gunners, riflemen, cartridge carriers, cavalrymen, signalmen and, of course, nurses. By the end of the war, 66 thousand women served in the Red Army, more than 60 of them were awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

By the end of the military intervention and the Civil War, the Red Army included rifle troops, cavalry, artillery, the Workers' and Peasants' Red Air Fleet, armored forces, engineering, chemical troops and signal troops.

After the end of the Civil War in 1924-1925, under the leadership of the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, Mikhail Frunze, who replaced Trotsky in this post, a large-scale military reform. The number of troops was reduced, the principle of unity of command was introduced, and the military apparatus and political administration of the Red Army were reorganized. The military doctrine developed by Frunze assigned a special place in the army to political departments and communist cells.

Initially, the Soviet Red Army, the creation of which took place against the backdrop of the beginning of the civil war, had utopian features. The Bolsheviks believed that under a socialist system the army should be built on a voluntary basis. This project was in line with Marxist ideology. Such an army was opposed to the regular armies of Western countries. According to the theoretical doctrine, society could only have “universal arming of the people.”

Creation of the Red Army

The first steps of the Bolsheviks indicated that they really wanted to abandon the previous tsarist system. On December 16, 1917, a decree abolishing officer ranks. Commanders were now elected by their own subordinates. According to the party's plan, on the day the Red Army was created, the new army was to become truly democratic. Time has shown that these plans could not survive the trials of the bloody era.

The Bolsheviks managed to seize power in Petrograd with the help of a small Red Guard and separate revolutionary detachments of sailors and soldiers. The provisional government was paralyzed, which made the task indecently easier for Lenin and his supporters. But outside the capital there remained a huge country, most of which was not at all happy with the radical party, whose leaders came to Russia in a sealed carriage from enemy Germany.

By the beginning of a full-scale civil war, the Bolshevik armed forces were characterized by poor military training and the absence of centralized effective control. Those who served in the Red Guard were guided by revolutionary chaos and their own political convictions, which could change at any moment. The position of the newly proclaimed Soviet power was more than precarious. She needed a fundamentally new Red Army. The creation of armed forces became a matter of life and death for the people sitting in Smolny.

What difficulties did the Bolsheviks face? The party could not form its own army using the previous apparatus. The best cadres of the period of the monarchy and the Provisional Government hardly wanted to cooperate with the radical left. The second problem was that Russia had already been at war against Germany and its allies for several years. The soldiers were tired - they were demoralized. In order to replenish the ranks of the Red Army, its founders needed to come up with a nationwide incentive that would be a compelling reason to take up arms again.

The Bolsheviks did not have to go far for this. They made the principle of class struggle the main driving force of their army. Since coming to power, the RSDLP(b) issued many decrees. According to the slogans, peasants received land, and workers received factories. Now they had to defend these gains of the revolution. Hatred of the previous system (landowners, capitalists, etc.) was the foundation on which the Red Army rested. The creation of the Red Army took place on January 28, 1918. On this day, the new government, represented by the Council of People's Commissars, adopted a corresponding decree.

First successes

Vsevobuch was also established. This system was intended for universal military training of residents of the RSFSR, and then the USSR. Vsevobuch appeared on April 22, 1918, after the decision to create it was made at the VII Congress of the RCP (b) in March. The Bolsheviks hoped that the new system would help them quickly fill the ranks of the Red Army.

The formation of armed units was directly carried out by councils at the local level. In addition, for this purpose they were established. At first, they enjoyed significant independence from the central government. Who did the then Red Army consist of? The creation of this armed structure entailed an influx of a variety of personnel. These were people who served in the old tsarist army, peasant militias, soldiers and sailors from among the Red Guards. The heterogeneity of the composition had a negative impact on the combat readiness of this army. In addition, the units often acted uncoordinatedly due to the election of commanders, collective and rally management.

Despite all the shortcomings, the Red Army was able to achieve important successes in the first months of the civil war, which became the key to its future unconditional victory. The Bolsheviks managed to hold Moscow and Yekaterinodar. Local uprisings were suppressed due to a noticeable numerical advantage, as well as widespread popular support. The populist decrees of the Soviet government (especially in 1917-1918) did their job.

Trotsky at the head of the army

It was this man who stood at the origins of the October Revolution in Petrograd. The revolutionary led the seizure of city communications and the Winter Palace from Smolny, where the Bolshevik headquarters was located. At the first stage of the Civil War, the figure of Trotsky was in no way inferior to the figure of Vladimir Lenin in terms of its scale and importance of the decisions made. Therefore, it is not surprising that Lev Davidovich was elected People's Commissar for Military Affairs. His organizational talent manifested itself in all its glory in this post. The very first two people's commissars stood at the origins of the creation of the Red Army.

Tsarist officers in the Red Army

Theoretically, the Bolsheviks saw their army as meeting strict class requirements. However, the lack of experience among the majority of workers and peasants could be the reason for the defeat of the party. Therefore, the history of the creation of the Red Army took another turn when Trotsky proposed staffing its ranks with former tsarist officers. These specialists had significant experience. They all passed the first world war, and some remembered the Russian-Japanese. Many of them were nobles by birth.

On the day the Red Army was created, the Bolsheviks proclaimed that it would be cleared of landowners and other enemies of the proletariat. However, practical necessity gradually corrected the course of Soviet power. In conditions of danger, she was quite flexible in her decisions. Lenin was a pragmatist much more than a dogmatist. Therefore, he agreed to a compromise on the issue with the tsarist officers.

The presence of a “counter-revolutionary contingent” in the Red Army had long been a headache for the Bolsheviks. Former tsarist officers repeatedly rebelled. One of these was the rebellion led by Mikhail Muravyov in July 1918. This left Socialist Revolutionary and former tsarist officer was appointed by the Bolsheviks as commander of the Eastern Front, when the two parties still formed a single coalition. He tried to seize power in Simbirsk, which at that time was located next to the theater of military operations. The rebellion was suppressed by Joseph Vareikis and Mikhail Tukhachevsky. Uprisings in the Red Army, as a rule, occurred due to the harsh repressive measures of the command.

The appearance of the commissars

Actually, the date of the creation of the Red Army is not the only important mark on the calendar for the history of the formation of Soviet power in the vastness of the former Russian Empire. Since the composition of the armed forces gradually became more heterogeneous, and the propaganda of opponents became stronger, the Council of People's Commissars decided to establish the post of military commissars. They were supposed to conduct party propaganda among soldiers and old specialists. The commissars made it possible to smooth out contradictions in the rank and file, which had diverse political views. Having received significant powers, these party representatives not only enlightened and educated the Red Army soldiers, but also reported to the top about the unreliability of individuals, discontent, etc.

Thus, the Bolsheviks imposed dual power in military units. On one side there were commanders, and on the other, commissars. The history of the creation of the Red Army would have been completely different if not for their appearance. IN emergency the commissar could become the sole leader, leaving the commander in the background. Military councils were created to manage divisions and larger formations. Each such body included one commander and two commissars. Only the most ideologically seasoned Bolsheviks became them (as a rule, people who joined the party before the revolution). With the increase in the army, and therefore the commissars, the authorities had to create a new educational infrastructure necessary for the operational training of propagandists and agitators.

Propaganda

In May 1918, the All-Russian Main Headquarters, and in September - the Revolutionary Military Council. These dates and the date of the creation of the Red Army became key to the spread and strengthening of Bolshevik power. Immediately after the October Revolution, the party set a course for radicalizing the situation in the country. After unsuccessful elections for the RSDLP(b), this institute (necessary for determining the Russian future on an elective basis) was dispersed. Now Bolshevik opponents were left without legal tools to defend their position. The white movement quickly emerged in different regions of the country. It was possible to fight it only by military means - this is precisely why the creation of the Red Army was needed.

Photos of defenders of the communist future began to be published in a huge pile of propaganda newspapers. The Bolsheviks initially tried to ensure an influx of recruits with the help of catchy slogans: “The Socialist Fatherland is in danger!” etc. These measures had an effect, but it was insufficient. By April, the size of the army had increased to 200 thousand people, but this would not have been enough to subjugate the entire territory of the former Russian Empire to the party. We should not forget that Lenin dreamed of a world revolution. For him, Russia was only the initial springboard for the offensive of the international proletariat. To strengthen propaganda in the Red Army, a Political Directorate was established.

In the year of the creation of the Red Army, people joined it not only for ideological reasons. In the country, exhausted by the long war with the Germans, there had long been a shortage of food. The danger of famine was especially acute in cities. In such bleak conditions, the poor sought to be in the service at any cost (where regular rations were guaranteed).

Introduction of universal conscription

Although the creation of the Red Army began in accordance with the decree of the Council of People's Commissars in January 1918, the accelerated pace of organizing new armed forces began in May, when the Czechoslovak Corps rebelled. These soldiers, captured during World War I, sided with the White movement and opposed the Bolsheviks. In a paralyzed and fragmented country, a relatively small 40,000-strong corps became the most combat-ready and professional army.

News of the uprising excited Lenin and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. The Bolsheviks decided to take the lead. On May 29, 1918, a decree was issued introducing forced recruitment into the army. It took the form of mobilization. In domestic policy, the Soviet government adopted the course of war communism. The peasants not only lost their harvests, which went to the state, but also enlisted in large numbers into the army. Party mobilizations to the front became commonplace. By the end of the Civil War, half of the members of the RSDLP (b) ended up in the army. At the same time, almost all Bolsheviks became commissars and political workers.

In the summer, Trotsky became the initiator. The history of the creation of the Red Army, in short, crossed another important milestone. On July 29, 1918, all healthy men who were between 18 and 40 years old were registered. Even representatives of the enemy bourgeois class (former merchants, industrialists, etc.) were included in the rear militia. Such drastic measures have borne fruit. The creation of the Red Army by September 1918 made it possible to send more than 450 thousand people to the front (another 100 thousand remained in the rear troops).

Trotsky, like Lenin, put Marxist ideology aside for a time in order to increase the combat effectiveness of the armed forces. It was he, as People's Commissar, who initiated important reforms and transformations at the front. The death penalty for desertion and failure to follow orders was reinstated in the army. The insignia, uniform uniform, sole authority of leadership and many other signs of tsarist times returned. On May 1, 1918, the first parade of the Red Army took place on Khodynka Field in Moscow. The Vsevobuch system began working at full capacity.

In September, Trotsky headed the newly formed Revolutionary Military Council. This government body became the top of the management pyramid that led the army. Trotsky's right hand was Joachim Vatsetis. He was the first to receive the position of commander-in-chief under Soviet rule. That same autumn, fronts were formed - Southern, Eastern and Northern. Each of them had its own headquarters. The first month of the creation of the Red Army was a time of uncertainty - the Bolsheviks were torn between ideology and practice. Now the course towards pragmatism became the main one, and the Red Army began to take those forms that turned out to be its foundation over the next decades.

War communism

Without a doubt, the reasons for the creation of the Red Army were to protect Bolshevik power. At first, it controlled a very small part of European Russia. At the same time, the RSFSR was under pressure from opponents on all sides. After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed with the Kaiser's Germany, Entente forces invaded Russia. The intervention was minor (it covered only the north of the country). The European powers supported the Whites mainly with arms and money. For the Red Army, the attack by the French and British was only an additional reason for consolidating and strengthening propaganda among the rank and file. Now the creation of the Red Army could be briefly and clearly explained by the defense of Russia from foreign invasion. Such slogans allowed to increase the influx of recruits.

At the same time, throughout the Civil War there was a problem of supplying the armed forces with all kinds of resources. The economy was paralyzed, strikes often broke out at enterprises, and hunger became the norm in the countryside. It was against this background that the Soviet government began to pursue the policy of war communism.

Its essence was simple. The economy was becoming radically centralized. The state took full control of the distribution of resources in the country. Industrial enterprises were nationalized immediately after the October Revolution. Now the Bolsheviks needed to squeeze all the juice out of the village. Prodrazverstka, harvest taxes, individual terror of peasants who did not want to share their grain with the state - all this was used in order to feed and finance the Red Army.

Fight against desertion

Trotsky personally went to the front in order to monitor the execution of his orders. On August 10, 1918, he arrived in Sviyazhsk, when battles for Kazan were taking place nearby. In a stubborn battle, one of the Red Army regiments faltered and fled. Then Trotsky publicly shot every tenth soldier in this formation. This reprisal, more like a ritual, was reminiscent of the ancient Roman tradition - decimation.

By decision of the People's Commissar, they began to shoot not only deserters, but also malingerers who took time off from the front due to an imaginary illness. The apogee of the fight against fugitives was the creation of foreign detachments. During the offensive, specially selected military men stood behind the main army and shot the cowards right during the battle. Thus, with the help of draconian measures and incredible cruelty, the Red Army became exemplary disciplined. The Bolsheviks had the courage and pragmatic cynicism to do something that Trotsky’s commanders, who did not disdain any methods to spread Soviet power, did not dare to do, soon began to be called the “demon of the revolution.”

Unification of the armed forces

The appearance of the Red Army soldiers gradually changed. At first, the Red Army did not provide for a uniform uniform. Soldiers, as a rule, wore out their old military uniforms or civilian clothes. Due to the huge influx of peasants shod in bast shoes, there were many more than those shod in the usual boots. This anarchy lasted until the end of the unification of the armed forces.

At the beginning of 1919, according to the decision of the Revolutionary Military Council, sleeve insignia were introduced. At the same time, the Red Army soldiers received their own headdress, which became popularly known as the Budenovka. Tunics and overcoats now have colored flaps. The red star sewn onto the headdress became a recognizable symbol.

Introduction into the Red Army of some characteristic features the former army led to the emergence of an opposition faction in the party. Its members advocated the rejection of ideological compromise. Lenin and Trotsky, having joined forces, were able to defend their course at the VIII Congress in March 1919.

The fragmentation of the white movement, the powerful propaganda of the Bolsheviks, their determination to carry out repressions to unite their own ranks and many other circumstances led to the fact that Soviet power was established on the territory of almost the entire former Russian Empire, except for Poland and Finland. The Red Army won the Civil War. At the final stage of the conflict, its number was already 5.5 million people.

The Red Army, created by the Bolsheviks, was formed to protect the new state from imperialist intervention. Erupted in Russian Empire The revolution and subsequent events led to the collapse of the old tsarist army, which had existed since the time of Peter the Great. From its ruins, the parties participating in the Civil War tried to put together their “new” armed forces. Only the Bolshevik communists managed to do this, who created an army that won not only the civil war, but also the bloodiest and cruelest in the history of mankind - the Second World War.

Reasons for the creation of the Red Army

The Bolsheviks, who came to power as a result of the October uprising of 1917, seized it with the help of Red Guard detachments, consisting mainly of Bolshevik workers and the most revolutionary-minded soldiers and sailors. Considering the old tsarist army to be “bourgeois,” the Bolsheviks wanted to abandon the old system, and at first they were going to build a “revolutionary” army of a new type, based on a voluntary basis. The history of the Red Army is full of heroic events, its formation is the creation of a powerful army previously unprecedented in the world.

According to Marxist doctrine, in society, instead of a regular army - “an instrument of oppression of the working people by the bourgeoisie,” there should have been only “general arming of the people.” Such a new “people's revolutionary” army was opposed to the “bourgeois” regular armies of the capitalist countries of the West. But this utopian statement did not justify itself in the critical conditions of post-revolutionary Russia.

On December 16, 1917, a decree was published on the abolition of officer ranks. Now subordinates chose their own commanders. According to the plan of the party leadership, such an army was to become truly “people's”. However, the Civil War that flared up in the spring of 1918 and the subsequent armed intervention of the Entente countries showed the complete utopianism of these plans and forced the army to be built as before - on the principles of unity of command and centralized control and command.

Creation of a new army

Already at the beginning of 1918, it became clear to the Bolshevik leadership that victory, in the context of a full-scale war flaring up, would be won by those who had a strong, well-organized and ideologically united army. The Red Guard units were often unreliable and uncontrollable, since many who served in them were guided by revolutionary chaos and general confusion, as well as their own political views, which could change at any time.

The position of the newly victorious Soviet Power was very unstable. Under these conditions, a new type of army was required. 01/15/1918 V.I. Lenin signs the decree on the formation of the Red Army (Workers' and Peasants' Red Army). The newly created Red Army was built on the principle of class struggle - the struggle of “the oppressed against the oppressors.”

Structure

The headquarters of the Supreme Military Council was created on the basis of the old Headquarters of the VG, and subsequently the Field Headquarters of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic was created on the basis of the headquarters. It was headed by the tsarist staff generals Bonch-Bruevich M.D., Rattel N.I., Kostyaev F.V., Lebedev P.P.

In September, by a resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the initiators of which were L. Trotsky and Ya. Sverdlov, who held the position of Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the RVS - Revolutionary Military Council was formed; the functions of the Air Force, two departments of the General Staff: military-statistical and operational, and the military people's commissariat were assigned to it. Trotsky was appointed chairman of the RVSR. Danishevsky K.Kh., Kobozev P.A., Mekhnoshin K.A., Raskolnikov F.F., Rosengolts A.P., Smirnov I.N. were elected members of the council. and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. This post was introduced in September 1918, the first commander-in-chief was Colonel of the Tsarist Army I.I. Vatsetis, in July 1919, Colonel S.S. was appointed. Kamenev.

The governing body of the army was the Council of People's Commissars (SNK). Direct control and leadership is entrusted to the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs and the Supreme Military Council (VVS) created under it. The first People's Commissar for Military Affairs was Nikolai Podvoisky (1880 - 1948). He was elected in November 1917. In March 1918, Leon Trotsky (1879 - 1940), one of the outstanding organizers of Soviet Power, became People's Commissar. It was he who was the chairman of the RVSR during the difficult times of the Civil War and his contribution to the formation of the Red Army was colossal.

Development of the Red Army

Following the signing of the Brest Peace Treaty, the formation of the Red Army began at an accelerated pace. Despite the enslaving conditions for Russia under this agreement, the Bolsheviks needed time to organize the army. They were unable to fight on two fronts, and they clearly understood this. On April 22, 1918, the Supreme Military Council canceled the elections of command personnel. It was very important step to strengthen the Red Army and involve military personnel, most of whom were officers of the tsarist army.

Commanders of units, brigades, and divisions were now appointed by the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs. In the spring of 1918, the Air Force made a decision that determined the main military unit, which became a division. The staffing levels of all formations and units are approved. Work was completed on the plan to create a million-strong army. As combat experience accumulated, especially after the massive recruitment of former officers - “military experts” - into the ranks of the army, the formation of full-fledged military formations and institutions proceeded at an accelerated pace.

In November 1918, the RVSR order on conscription was published. All former chief officers under the age of 50, staff officers under 55 and generals under 60 were subject to it.

The Red Army was replenished with more than 50,000 military specialists. The leadership of the Republic was also intensively training new specialists for the Red Army. Vseobuch was established - a structure for military training of citizens of the Republic. A system of military educational institutions was developed. Red commanders were trained there. The Civil War brought forward such commanders as M. Frunze, K. Voroshilov, S. Budyonny, V. Chapaev, V. Blucher, G. Kotovsky, I. Yakir and others.

Party political apparatus

The party-political apparatus of the Red Army was actively formed. In the spring of 1918, the so-called institution of commissars was formed to organize control of the party and restore order in the units. According to the documents, there should have been 2 commissars in all units, headquarters and institutions. The controlling body was the Bureau of Military Commissars created under the RVSR. It was headed by K.K. Yurenev.

Local military authorities

In parallel with this, the creation of local military administration bodies took place, including military districts, as well as military commissariats - district, provincial, district and volost. When forming the district system, the headquarters and institutions of the old army were used. For 1918-1920 27 military districts were newly created or reconstructed. The district system played an outstanding role in the creation of the Red Army, significantly increasing its mobilization and organizational capabilities.

Strengthening the army

All these measures gave positive results. During 1918-1920 the army was continuously strengthened. If in September 1918 the Bolsheviks could put forward up to 30 combat-ready divisions, then in September 1919 their number was 62. If at the beginning of 1919 3 cavalry divisions were formed in the Red Army, then in 1920 there were already 22.

The army grew not only numerically, but with the accumulation of experience, the combat capabilities of the Red Army also grew, and the level of planning and organization of military operations increased. During the Civil War, 33 regular armies were formed, including 2 cavalry. At the fronts there were 85 rifle divisions, 39 rifle brigades, 27 cavalry divisions and 7 cavalry brigades.

Formation of the White Army

Parts of the young Red Army received their first baptism of fire in February 1918, during the German attack on Petrograd. In general, the situation for the Bolsheviks was very difficult. On the Don, in the Cossack lands, as a result of the struggle for power, A.M. was elected ataman. Kaledin is an ardent opponent of Soviet Power. There on the Don by a group of former tsarist generals, which included Alekseev M.V., Kornilov P.G., Denikin A.I., Markov S.L., the formation of the White Volunteer Army began. The above-mentioned generals did not accept the power of the Soviets and could not come to terms with the signing of the “obscene” Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty.

Military-political situation

This led to the occupation by German troops of vast territories of the former Tsarist Russia(Ukraine, Belarus, Crimea, Baltic states, part of the South of Russia). In addition, in the spring of 1918, under the pretext of “defense from Germany”, an armed intervention of the Entente countries began, in March 1918 the British occupied Arkhangelsk, in June - Murmansk, under the cover of British troops in the North, a white government was formed, which began the formation of the “Slavic-British Legion” , and the so-called “Murmansk Volunteer Army”.

May 1918 was marked by the mutiny of the Czechoslovak Corps. It is considered to be the beginning of the Civil War. As a result of this rebellion, Soviet Power was suppressed vast territories from the Volga to Vladivostok. The Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik Komuch (committee of members of the Constituent Assembly) was formed in Samara; the government of the Ufa Directory arose in Siberia, which was overthrown in November by Admiral A.V. Kolchak.

Combat actions of the Red Army, years 1918 – 1919

However, despite all their weakness and lack of organization, units of the young Red Army were able to hold Petrograd and Moscow, as well as part of the most important industrial areas.

1919 was the most critical moment for Soviet Power. The “white flood” began. Three white armies are formed, which became the main ones in the white movement:

• A volunteer army created in the South of Russia, commanded by L. Kornilov, and after his death by A. Denikin.
• A. Kolchak's army in Siberia. It is he who is proclaimed the Supreme Ruler of Russia.
• The army of N. Yudenich was formed in the North-West.

Kolchak's troops crossed the Urals and almost reached the Volga. Denikin's volunteer army occupied Kyiv. In the fall of 1919, Oryol fell. Yudenich's troops reached the near approaches to Petrograd. It seemed that everything was over for the Bolsheviks, but the Red Army managed to stop the great offensive of the White armies at the end of 1919.

Troops Eastern Front, under the command of the talented commander-nugget M. Frunze, defeated Kolchak’s armies, threw them back beyond the Urals and went on the offensive. The Red Army entered Siberia. Yudenich's army was defeated and retreated to the Baltic states. On the Southern Front, the Red Army, reinforced by the First Cavalry Army, commanded by the legendary commander S. Budyonny, defeated the Volunteer Army and forced it to begin a retreat.

Victories of the Red Army, years 1920 -1921

Truly, 1920 was the year of the “red flood”. The Red Army won victories on all fronts. In January, Admiral A. Kolchak was arrested and shot in Irkutsk, and a large-scale retreat of the Volunteer Army began. The Red Army occupied Rostov-on-Don, Odessa was occupied on February 8, Novorossiysk fell on March 27. In February 1920, after the departure of the Entente troops, the Northern Region was occupied by the Red Army - Arkhangelsk and Murmansk again went over to the Reds.

The Red Army managed to repel the attack Polish invaders during the Soviet-Polish War that broke out in 1919-1921. However, further offensive actions aimed at capturing Warsaw were unsuccessful and ended in disaster. A peace was signed with Poland, according to which it received the Western regions of Ukraine and Belarus.

The last attempt to destroy Soviet Power was made by Baron P. Wrangel in the summer of 1920. Taking advantage of the fact that the main forces of the Red Army were busy with the war with Poland, the White Guard Armed Forces of the South of Russia launched a strike from the Crimea, hoping to unite with the Polish army and cut off the South of Russia from the RSFSR.

However, these plans failed; the Red Army, under the command of M. Frunze, urgently called from Turkestan, stopped the White advance. Then she threw them back to Crimea. On October 28, 1920, the Bolshevik army launched an offensive on the Crimea, crossing Sivash and breaking through the defenses of the white troops.

The Red Army occupied Simferopol and Sevastopol, forcing the remnants of the white troops to hastily evacuate. By the end of 1922, units of the Red Army, commanded by V. Blucher, occupied Vladivostok. The bloody and brutal Civil War was over.

Afterword

The myth that the Bolsheviks who came to power were a bunch of adventurers, corrupt German recruited agents is a lie designed to denigrate our history, to once again present our people as brainless sheep. The people made their choice. The victory of the Red Army was a natural event in the development of the country. Not all officers ran to the Don to Baron Wrangel or to Siberia to Admiral Kolchak.

Their reasons for this were different. Some remained due to some circumstances, but the majority, having swallowed shame in the Russian-Japanese and the First World War, and faced with the disintegration of the ruling army elite, did not want to restore the monarchy or save the incompetent Provisional Government. They remained with their people, not always understanding them and not sharing many of the views of the Bolsheviks. Helped build new army. They trained red commanders. It was thanks to them that a powerful army was created in a short time, capable of repelling the White Army and the Entente interventionists.

The leadership of the formation of the Red Army, on the part of the Bolsheviks, was headed by talented organizers and leaders who accurately represented the goals of the tasks assigned to them to create an army capable of repelling anyone who encroached on the gains of the revolution. There were no career military men among them, but extraordinary individuals, faced with the need to build a new army, were able to organize the work in the shortest possible time in such a way that the result was simply stunning not only for the White Army, but for the whole world.

History of the Red Army

See main article History of the Red Army

Personnel

In general, the military ranks of junior command personnel (sergeants and foremen) of the Red Army correspond to the tsarist non-commissioned officer ranks, the ranks of junior officers - chief officer (the statutory address in the tsarist army is “your honor”), senior officers, from major to colonel - headquarters officers (the statutory address in the tsarist army is “your honor”), senior officers, from major general to marshal - general (“your excellency”).

A more detailed correspondence of ranks can only be established approximately, due to the fact that the very number of military ranks varies. Thus, the rank of lieutenant approximately corresponds to the lieutenant, and the tsarist rank of captain approximately corresponds to the Soviet military rank major.

It should also be noted that the insignia of the Red Army of the 1943 model was also not an exact copy of the tsarist ones, although they were created on their basis. Thus, the rank of colonel in the tsarist army was designated by shoulder straps with two longitudinal stripes and without stars; in the Red Army - two longitudinal stripes, and three medium-sized stars, arranged in a triangle.

Repressions 1937-1938

Battle Banner

Battle banner of one of the units of the Red Army during the civil war:

The imperialist army is a weapon of oppression, the Red Army is a weapon of liberation.

For each unit or formation of the Red Army, its Battle Banner is sacred. It serves as the main symbol of the unit, and the embodiment of its military glory. In the event of the loss of the Battle Banner, the military unit is subject to disbandment, and those directly responsible for such disgrace are subject to trial. A separate guard post is established to guard the Battle Banner. Each soldier, passing by the banner, is obliged to give it a military salute. On especially solemn occasions, the troops carry out a ritual of solemnly carrying out the Battle Banner. To be included in the banner group directly conducting the ritual is considered a great honor, which is awarded only to the most honored officers and warrant officers.

Oath

It is mandatory for recruits in any army in the world to take an oath. In the Red Army, this ritual is usually carried out a month after conscription, after the young soldier has completed the course. Before being sworn in, soldiers are prohibited from being entrusted with weapons; There are a number of other restrictions. On the day of the oath, the soldier receives weapons for the first time; he breaks ranks, approaches the commander of his unit, and reads a solemn oath in front of the formation. The oath is traditionally considered an important holiday, and is accompanied by the ceremonial carrying out of the Battle Banner.

The text of the oath was changed several times; the first option sounded like this:

I, a citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, joining the ranks of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, take the oath and solemnly swear to be an honest, brave, disciplined, vigilant fighter, to strictly preserve military and state secret, unquestioningly carry out all military regulations and orders of commanders, commissars and superiors.

I swear to conscientiously study military affairs, to protect military property in every possible way and to my last breath to be devoted to my people, my Soviet Motherland and the workers' and peasants' government.

I am always ready, by order of the workers' and peasants' government, to defend my Motherland - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and, as a warrior of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, I swear to defend it courageously, skillfully, with dignity and honor, not sparing my blood and life itself to achieve complete victory over the enemy.

If, out of malicious intent, I violate this solemn oath of mine, then may I suffer the severe punishment of Soviet law, the general hatred and contempt of the working people.

Late version

I, a citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, joining the ranks Armed Forces, I take the oath and solemnly swear to be an honest, brave, disciplined, vigilant warrior, to strictly maintain military and state secrets, to unquestioningly carry out all military regulations and orders of commanders and superiors.

I swear to conscientiously study military affairs, to protect military and national property in every possible way, and to be devoted to my people, my Soviet Motherland and the Soviet government until my last breath.

I am always ready, by order of the Soviet government, to defend my Motherland - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and, as a warrior of the Armed Forces, I swear to defend it courageously, skillfully, with dignity and honor, not sparing my blood and life itself to achieve complete victory over enemy.

If I violate this solemn oath of mine, then may I suffer the severe punishment of Soviet law, the general hatred and contempt of the Soviet people.

Modern version

I (last name, first name, patronymic) solemnly swear allegiance to my Motherland - the Russian Federation.

I swear to sacredly observe its Constitution and laws, to strictly comply with the requirements of military regulations, orders of commanders and superiors.

I swear to fulfill my military duty with dignity, to courageously defend freedom, independence and constitutional order Russia, people and Fatherland.