Management during the Civil War. Anti-Bolshevik governments during the Civil War and their policies Head of the Soviet Government during the Civil War

49. The Civil War in Russia: Causes, Course, Results: Causes of the Civil War in Historical Literature

World history theory:Materialistic direction (Kim, Kukushkin Zimin, Rabakov, Fedorov): After the October Socialist Revolution, Soviet power was established throughout the country in a few months, the people started building a new society on communist principles. The world bourgeoisie, in order to restore the capitalist order, unleashed the Civil War in Russia. The territory of Russia was divided between the capitalist countries, and the internal counter-revolution received political, economic, military assistance from world capitalism.

Liberal direction (Ostrovsky, Utkin, Ionov, Pipes, Kobrin, Skrynnikov): As a result of the coup d'état, the Bolsheviks seized power, began to liquidate private property and unleashed the Red Terror, which marked the beginning of the Civil War in Russia.

Historians of different directions also disagree about the beginning of the Civil War. Materialist historians date the war from the entry of the Entente troops into the territory of Russia and the emergence of counter-revolutionary armies, i.e. from November 1918. Liberal historians consider the coming of the Bolsheviks to power as the beginning of the Civil War - i.e. from October 1917

Causes of the war

The civil war in Russia was an armed struggle between various groups of the population, which initially had a regional (local) and then acquired a national scale. Among the reasons for the outbreak of the Civil War in Russia were:

changes in the political system in the state;

the refusal of the Bolsheviks from the principles of parliamentarism (dispersal of the Constituent Assembly), other non-democratic measures of the Bolsheviks, which aroused discontent not only among the intelligentsia and peasants, but also among the workers.

The economic policy of the Soviet government in the countryside, which led to the de facto repeal of the Decree on Land.

The nationalization of all the land and the confiscation of the landlord provoked fierce resistance from its former owners. The bourgeoisie, frightened by the scale of the nationalization of industry, wanted to return the factories and plants. The elimination of commodity-money relations and the establishment of a state monopoly on the distribution of products and goods hit hard on the property status of the middle and petty bourgeoisie.

The creation of a one-party political system alienated the socialist parties and democratic public organizations from the Bolsheviks.

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

Classes and political parties in the Civil War

The armed confrontation between opponents and supporters of Soviet power began from the first days of the revolution. By the summer of 1918, the entire spectrum of political forces opposing the Bolsheviks was divided into three main camps.

The first of them was represented by a coalition of the Russian bourgeoisie, nobility, political elite, with the leading force of the Cadet party.

The second camp of the so-called "third way" or "democratic counter-revolution" was made up of the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks who adjoined them at different stages, whose activity in practice was expressed in the creation of self-declared governments - Komuch in Samara, the Provisional Siberian Government in Tomsk, etc.

The third political camp was mainly represented by the former allies of the Bolsheviks - anarchists and left SRs, who found themselves in opposition to the RSDLP (b) after the Brest Peace and the suppression of the Left SR revolt.

During the Civil War, the leading force in the struggle against the Bolsheviks and the Soviet regime was a powerful military-political force in the person of the white movement, whose representatives opposed the Bolsheviks for the salvation of a united and indivisible Russia. The strength of the white armies was relatively small. The outcome of the Civil War was largely determined by the behavior of the peasantry.

The main stages of the Civil War

First stage: October 1917 - May 1918... During this period, armed clashes were of a local nature. After the October uprising, General Kaledin rose to fight the revolution, followed by the ousted Prime Minister Kerensky, the Cossack General Krasnov. By the end of 1917, a powerful hotbed of counter-revolution emerged in the south of Russia. The Central Rada of Ukraine came out against the new government here. The Volunteer Army was formed on the Don (commander-in-chief - Kornilov, after his death - Denikin). In March-April 1918, British, American and Japanese (in the Far East) troops landed.

Second stage: May - November 1918... At the end of May, an armed attack by the Czechoslovak corps began in Siberia. More than 200 peasant uprisings took place in the summer. The socialist parties, relying on peasant rebel detachments, formed in the summer of 1918 a number of governments — Komuch in Samara; Ufa directory. Their programs included demands for the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, the restoration of the political rights of citizens, the abandonment of the one-party dictatorship and strict state regulation of the economic activities of the peasants.

In November 1918, in Omsk, Admiral Kolchak staged a coup, as a result of which the provisional governments were dispersed and a military dictatorship was established, under whose rule the whole of Siberia, the Urals, the Orenburg province.

Third stage: November 1918 - spring 1919... At this stage, the military-dictatorial regimes in the East (Kolchak), South (Denikin), North-West (Yudenich) and the North of the country (Miller) became the leading force in the struggle against the Bolsheviks.

By the beginning of 1919, the number of foreign armed forces had grown significantly, which caused a patriotic upsurge in the country, and in the world - a movement of solidarity under the slogan "Hands off Soviet Russia!"

Fourth stage: spring 1919 - April 1920 The city is characterized by a combined offensive by anti-Bolshevik forces. From the East, in order to join with Denikin's forces for a joint attack on Moscow, Kolchak's army began an offensive (the offensive was repelled by the Eastern Front under the command of Kamenev and Frunze), in the north-west, Yudenich's army carried out military operations against Petrograd.

Simultaneously with the actions of the white armies, peasant demonstrations began in the Don, Ukraine, the Urals, in the Volga region. In late 1919 - early 1920, under the blows of the Red Army and peasant rebel detachments, Kolchak's troops were finally defeated. Yudenich was pushed back to Estonia, the remnants of Denikin's army, led by General Wrangel, fortified in the Crimea.

Fifth stage: May - November 1920... In May 1920, the Red Army entered the war with Poland, trying to seize the capital and create the necessary conditions for the proclamation of Soviet power there. However, this attempt ended in military failure. Under the terms of the Riga Peace Treaty, a significant part of the territory of Ukraine and Belarus went to Poland.

The main event of the final period of the Civil War was the defeat of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, led by General Wrangel. During 1920-1921. with the help of detachments of the Red Army, the process of Sovietization was completed on the territory of Central Asia and the Transcaucasus. The civil war ended by the end of 1920, but the peasant war continued.

The reasons for the victory of the Bolsheviks.

the leaders of the white movement revoked the Land Decree and returned the land to its former owners. This turned the peasants against them.

The slogan of preserving "one and indivisible Russia" ran counter to the hopes of many peoples for independence.

The reluctance of the leaders of the white movement to cooperate with the liberal and socialist parties narrowed its socio-political base.

Punitive expeditions, pogroms, mass executions of prisoners - all this caused discontent among the population, up to and including armed resistance.

During the civil war, the opponents of the Bolsheviks failed to agree on a single program and a single leader of the movement. Their actions were poorly coordinated.

The Bolsheviks won the civil war because they managed to mobilize all the country's resources and turn it into a single military camp. The Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the Council of People's Commissars created a politicized Red Army, ready to defend Soviet power. The leadership of the Bolsheviks managed to present themselves as the defender of the Fatherland and accuse their opponents of betraying national interests.

International solidarity, the assistance of the proletariat of Europe and the United States, which undermined the unity of actions of the Entente powers, weakened the strength of their military onslaught on Bolshevism, was of great importance.

Results of the civil war

The Bolsheviks, in the course of fierce resistance, managed to retain power, and in the struggle against the forces of intervention, they managed to preserve Russian statehood.

However, the Civil War led to a further deterioration of the economic situation in the country, to complete economic devastation. Material damage amounted to more than 50 billion rubles. gold. Industrial production decreased by 7 times. The transport system was completely paralyzed.

Many sections of the population, forcibly drawn into the war by the opposing sides, became its innocent victims. In battles, from hunger, disease and terror, 8 million people died, 2 million people were forced to emigrate. Among them were many representatives of the intellectual elite.

The October Revolution split Russian society into supporters and opponents of the revolution. Further developments intensified mutual intolerance, a deep internal split occurred, and the struggle of various socio-political forces intensified.

A significant part of the intelligentsia, the military, the clergy opposed the Bolshevik regime, and other strata of the population of Russia joined them. In the spring of 1918, a civil war broke out in Russia (1918 - 1920).

Civil war is an armed struggle between large masses of people belonging to different classes and social groups for state power.

The initial causes of the civil war were: the violent overthrow of the Provisional Government; seizure of state power by the Bolsheviks, dispersal of the Constituent Assembly. Armed clashes were local in nature. From the end of 1918, armed clashes took on the character of a nationwide struggle. This was facilitated both by the measures of the Soviet government (nationalization of industry, the conclusion of the Brest Peace, etc.), and by the actions of opponents (the revolt of the Czechoslovak corps).

The alignment of political forces. The civil war marked out three main socio-political camps.

The Red camp, represented by the workers and the poorest peasants, was the mainstay of the Bolsheviks.

The white camp (white movement) included representatives of the former military-bureaucratic elite of pre-revolutionary Russia, landlord-bourgeois circles. Their representatives were the Cadets and Octobrists. The liberal intelligentsia was on their side. The White movement advocated a constitutional order in the country, for the preservation of the integrity of the Russian state.

The third camp in the civil war was made up of broad strata of the peasantry and the democratic intelligentsia. Their interests were expressed by the parties of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and others. Their political ideal was democratic Russia, the path to which they saw in the elections to the Constituent Assembly.

The following stages of the civil war are distinguished in history:

Stage I: end of May - November 1918 ;

Phase II: November 1918 - April 1919;

Stage I of the Civil War (end of May - November 1918). In 1918, the main centers of the anti-Bolshevik movement were formed. Thus, in February 1918 in Moscow and Petrograd, the Union for the Renaissance of Russia arose, uniting the Cadets, Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. In March of the same year, the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom was formed under the leadership of BV Savinkov. A strong anti-Bolshevik movement developed among the Cossacks. On the Don and Kuban it was headed by General P. N. Krasnov, in the South Urals - by Ataman A. I. Dutov. In the south of Russia and the North Caucasus, under the leadership of Generals M.V. Alekseev and L.G. Kornilov, an officer's Volunteer Army began to form, which became the basis of the white movement. After the death of L.G. Kornilov (April 13, 1918), General A.I.Denikin assumed command.

In the spring of 1918, foreign intervention began. German troops occupied Ukraine, Crimea, part of the North Caucasus. Romania captured Bessarabia. The Entente countries signed an agreement on non-recognition of the Brest-Litovsk Peace and the future partition of Russia.

Revolt of the Left SRs. The Bolsheviks were opposed by their recent allies, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. At the V Congress of Soviets in July 1918, they demanded to abolish the food dictatorship, to dissolve the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty, and to liquidate the kombedi. On July 6, 1918, the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Y. Blumkin killed the German ambassador, Count V.A.Mirbakh. In early July 1918, they seized a number of buildings in Moscow and fired at the Kremlin. Their performances took place in Yaroslavl, Murom, Rybinsk and other cities. On July 6-7, the Left SRs attempted to overthrow the Soviet government in Moscow. It ended in complete failure. As a result, many leaders of the Left SRs were arrested. After that, the Left SRs began to be expelled from the Soviets at all levels.

The complication of the military-political situation in the country influenced the fate of the imperial family. In the spring of 1918, Nicholas II and his family were transferred from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg under the pretext of activating the monarchists. Having coordinated their actions with the Center, the Ural Regional Council shot the tsar and his family on the night of July 16-17. On the same days, the king's brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, and 18 other members of the imperial family were killed.

The White Volunteer Army operated in a limited area of ​​the Don and Kuban. Only the Cossack ataman P. N. Krasnov managed to advance towards Tsaritsyn, and the Ural Cossacks ataman A. I. Dutov managed to capture Orenburg.

By the summer of 1918, the position of the Soviet country had become critical. It controlled only a quarter of the territory of the former Russian Empire.

To defend their power, the Bolsheviks took decisive and purposeful actions.

Creation of the Red Army. After the October Revolution, the tsarist army ceased to exist. The only "splinter" of the old army on the side of the Soviets that retained the spirit and military discipline was the regiments of the Latvian riflemen. Latvian riflemen became the mainstay of Soviet power in the first year of its existence.

The decree on the creation of the Red Army was issued on January 15 (28), 1918. And a Russian peasant immediately joined the Red Army. In the village, the situation was constantly deteriorating, and the army was given rations, clothes, shoes. In May 1918 there were 300 thousand people. But the fighting efficiency of this army was low. In the spring, when sowing began, the peasants were irresistibly drawn back to the village. The Red Army was melting before our eyes.

Then, to strengthen the Red Army, the Bolsheviks took urgent and energetic measures. The strictest discipline was established in the army. For desertion of servicemen, members of their families were taken hostage.

Since June 1918, the army has ceased to be voluntary. The transition to universal military service was carried out. The Bolsheviks began work to draft the poorest peasants and workers into the Red Army. The institute of military commissars was introduced in the army.

In September 1918, the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic (Revolutionary Military Council) was created, headed by L. D. Trotsky. The Revolutionary Military Council began to exercise leadership of the army, navy, as well as all institutions of the military and naval departments. The Revolutionary Military Council decided to create cavalry as part of the Red Army. LD Trotsky put forward the slogan "Proletarian! On a horse!" The slogan was extremely popular among the peasants. The cavalry in the Russian army was considered an aristocratic branch of the army and has always been the privilege of the nobles. The First Cavalry and Second Cavalry armies were created, which played a significant role in the course of the civil war.

As a result of these and other measures, the Red Army grew and became stronger. By 1920, its population was 5 million. (as well as the tsarist army). One of the ministers in the government of A. V. Kolchak wrote with bitterness: "Instead of the Red Army rags, a regular Red Army has arisen, which is driving and driving us to the east."

Already in June 1918, the Eastern Front was formed against the insurgent Czechoslovak corps under the command of I. I. Vatsetis (since July 1919 - S. S. Kamenev). Special communist and trade union mobilizations were carried out to the Eastern Front, troops were transferred from other regions. The Bolsheviks achieved a numerical superiority in military forces, and at the beginning of September 1918 the Red Army launched an offensive and during October-November drove the enemy out of the Urals.

Changes were made to the rear. At the end of February 1918, the Bolsheviks reinstated the death penalty, abolished by the Second Congress of Soviets. The powers of the Cheka punitive body were significantly expanded. In September 1918, after the assassination attempt on V. I. Lenin and the murder of the leader of the Petrograd Chekists M. S. Uritsky, the Council of People's Commissars announced the "Red Terror" against the opponents of Soviet power. The authorities began to take hostages en masse from among the "exploiting classes": the nobility, the bourgeoisie, officers, and priests.

By a resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in September 1918, the Soviet Republic was declared a "single military camp." All party, Soviet and public organizations focused on mobilizing human and material resources to defeat the enemy. In November 1918, the Workers 'and Peasants' Defense Council was created under the chairmanship of V.I. Lenin. In June 1919, all the then republics - Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia - entered into a military alliance, creating a single military command, uniting the management of finance, industry, and transport. In the fall of 1919, the Soviets in the front-line and front-line areas were subordinated to emergency bodies - revolutionary committees.

The policy of "war communism". After the revolution, the Bolsheviks did not allow free trade in grain, as this contradicted their ideas about a commodity-free, non-market economy. In the conditions of the outbreak of civil war, the economic ties between the city and the village were broken, the city could not provide the village with industrial goods. The peasants began to hold back the bread. In the spring of 1918, a catastrophic food situation arose in the cities. In response to this, the Soviet government during the civil war took a number of temporary, emergency, forced economic and administrative measures, which were later called "war communism".

The policy of "war communism" was aimed at concentrating in the hands of the state the necessary material, food and labor resources for the most expedient use in the interests of defense, to save the population from hunger.

The main elements of the "War Communism" policy were:

the method of assault in the fight against capitalist elements; almost complete displacement of them from the economy;

unification in the hands of the state of almost all industry, transport and other commanding heights in the economy;

an attempt to move quickly to the socialist foundations of production and distribution;

the strictest centralization of production and distribution management, deprivation of economic independence of enterprises;

surplus appropriation, partially compensated by industrial products, as the main method of meeting the state's needs for food and raw materials;

state monopoly on most industrial and agricultural products;

replacement of trade by state distribution according to class principle;

forced unification of the population into cooperatives;

curtailment of commodity-money relations, naturalization of economic ties and wages on an equalized basis;

universal labor obligation and labor mobilization as a form of attraction to work;

communist forms of distribution: free distribution of food rations to the population, industrial products, abolition of payments for apartments, fuel, etc.

The transition to the policy of "war communism" began with the rejection of the gradual nature of socialist transformations. The most important element of the new policy was the surplus appropriation system. The Soviet government tried to solve the food problem in a socialist way, which included three elements: the state monopoly on bread and on all food products; transfer of the supply business from private hands to the state; accounting and state distribution according to the class principle.

To solve the tasks set, the Bolsheviks put forward slogans: centralization of the food business, the unification of the proletariat, the organization of the rural poor. These slogans were expressed in such important measures as sending food detachments to the countryside to fight for grain, for the unification of the rural poor, and the creation of committees (kombeda).

With the introduction of "war communism", a number of directions emerged: the nationalization of industry, the naturalization of economic relations, and the expansion of the system of centralized distribution of foodstuffs. There was a process of strengthening the center and narrowing the powers of local authorities, the spread of directive management methods through economic, militarization and coercion through initiative and material interest. On this basis, the administrative-command system was created.

Lenin, speaking about the historical role of "war communism", noted that it made it possible to put all the country's resources at the service of the revolution, made it possible to feed the army, saved the workers from hunger, and preserved industry. But at the same time, he admitted that this policy failed as a plan for the transition to socialism.

Lenin noted the following among the reasons for this failure:

the transition to socialist distribution exceeded the available forces;

this policy did not lead to an alliance between workers and peasants, between socialist industry and individual peasant farming;

it rested on the revolutionary enthusiasm of the people, disregarding material interests;

“War communism did not take into account the internal laws governing the development of small-scale commodity production, which cannot develop without freedom of circulation.

Stage II of the Civil War (November 1918 - April 1919). At the end of 1918 - beginning of 1919. the white movement reached its peak. In Siberia, in November 1918, Admiral A. V. Kolchak came to power and was declared the "Supreme Ruler of Russia." In the Kuban and the North Caucasus, A. I. Denikin united the Don and Volunteer armies into the Armed Forces of the South of Russia. In the north, with the help of the Entente, General E.K. Miller formed his army. In the Baltic States, General N. N. Yudenich was preparing for a campaign against Petrograd. In November 1918, A. V. Kolchak launched an offensive in the Urals. On December 15, A. V. Kolchak's troops took the city of Perm, but already on December 31, the Kolchak offensive was halted by the Red Army. In the East, the front was temporarily stabilized.

III stage of the civil war (spring 1919 - April 1920). The most difficult and decisive during the civil war was 1919. Soviet Russia had no peaceful borders. She found herself in a continuous enemy environment. In 1919, the fate of Soviet power was decided.

In March 1919, a well-armed 300 thous. the army of A. V. Kolchak launched a powerful offensive from the East in order to link up with the troops of A. I. Denikin and launch a joint offensive against Moscow. The Kolchakites captured the city of Ufa and began to make their way to Simbirsk, Samara, Votkinsk.

The eastern front is once again becoming the main one. At the end of April, the troops of the Red Army under the command of S.S.Kamenev and M.V. Frunze went on the offensive, stopped the Kolchakites, and by summer drove them back to Siberia. A powerful peasant uprising and partisan movement against the government of A. V. Kolchak helped the Red Army establish Soviet power in Siberia. By the beginning of 1920, the Kolchakites were finally defeated, and the admiral himself was arrested. In February 1920, on the verdict of the Irkutsk Revolutionary Committee, Admiral A. V. Kolchak was shot.

In May 1919, when the Red Army was gaining victories over the troops of A. V. Kolchak, General N. N. Yudenich moved on Petrograd. In June he was stopped, then his troops were driven back to Estonia. In October N. N. Yudenich launched a new offensive against Petrograd, but it also ended in defeat. At this time, the bourgeoisie came to power in Estonia. The Soviet government invited Estonia to recognize its independence. The Estonian government, in order not to enter into conflict with Soviet Russia, disarmed and interned the troops of General N. N. Yudenich.

In the summer of 1919, the center of the armed struggle moved to the south of Russia. In June 1919, A. I. Denikin seized the Ukraine, mobilized there and launched an offensive against Moscow. By the middle of autumn, she captured Kursk, Oryol, Voronezh. There was a direct threat of the capture of Moscow by the White Guards.

The Soviet government concentrated all its forces on the fight against the troops of A.I. Denikin. The Southern Front was formed under the command of A.I. Yegorov. This time the Southern Front became the main one.

Already in October, the troops of the Southern Front went over to the offensive. She was supported by the rebel peasant movement led by N. I. Makhno, who deployed a "second front" in the rear of the Volunteer Army. In December 1919 - early 1920, A. I. Denikin's troops were defeated. Soviet power was restored in the south of Russia, Ukraine, and the North Caucasus. The remnants of the Volunteer Army took refuge on the Crimean Peninsula. Realizing that the White movement was defeated, General A. I. Denikin transferred the command of the Volunteer Army to General P. N. Wrangel and left Russia.

IV stage of the civil war (May - November 1920). In 1920, the main events were the Soviet-Polish war and the struggle against P.N. Wrangel. Having recognized the independence of Poland, the Soviet government began negotiations with her on territorial delimitation and the establishment of state borders. The negotiations reached a dead end, as the President of Poland Yu. Pilsudski, in order to restore "Greater Poland", put forward exorbitant territorial claims to Russia. In addition, the Polish authorities viewed Soviet Russia as a threat to their independence.

In 1919, the Polish army, equipped with funds from the Entente, began to move to the East. Yu Pilsudski assumed for 5 - 6 months. to reach Moscow, "drive the Bolsheviks out of there" and "write on the walls of the Kremlin:" It is forbidden to speak Russian. "

On April 25, 1920, the Polish army invaded the Soviet Ukraine and captured Kiev on May 5.

To repel the Polish invasion, the Western Front under the command of M.N. Tukhachevsky and the Southwestern Front under the command of A.I. Yegorov were created. 1.5 million soldiers were mobilized into the troops of the Western and Southwestern Fronts. A month later, the successful offensive of the Red Army began. In July, the Polish group in Belarus and Ukraine was defeated. The Red Army reached the border with Poland.

The Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) set a strategic task for the main military command: to enter the territory of Poland, take Warsaw and create all the necessary military-political conditions for the proclamation of Soviet power in Poland.

The offensive of the Red Army troops on Warsaw began. It was perceived by the Polish people as a military intervention. Poland was financially supported by Western countries. In August 1920, the troops of M.N. Tukhachevsky were defeated. In October 1920, an armistice was concluded with Poland. The results of the Soviet-Polish war were summed up in March 1921 by the Riga Peace Treaty. Under its terms, the lands of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus were transferred to Poland. Soviet power remained in Eastern Belarus.

Since April 1920, after the resignation of A. I. Denikin, the anti-Soviet struggle was led by General P. N. Wrangel. He was elected "the ruler of the south of Russia". From the remnants of the Volunteer Army, General PN Wrangel formed the "Russian Army". The new commander was able to restore discipline in the troops. These were the last defenders of White Russia.

At the height of the Soviet-Polish war in May 1920, P. N. Wrangel's troops struck at the rear of the Red Army. The Russian Army was able to break out of the Crimea and captured all of northern Tavria (Southern Ukraine).

To fight the troops of P.N. Wrangel, the Southern Front was created under the command of M.V. Frunze. In October 1920, after the conclusion of an armistice with Poland, powerful military forces were transferred to the Southern Front. On October 28, 1920, the troops of the Southern Front went over to the offensive. The "Green Army" of N. I. Makhno, who entered into a temporary alliance with the Soviet regime, spoke out against the Russian army under the anarchist banners. A few days later, the White Guards returned to the Crimea and took refuge behind the Perekop and Chongar fortifications, which were considered impregnable.

The Soviet command developed a plan to break through these fortifications. On the night of November 8, 1920, the assault on the fortifications of the Perekop Isthmus began. At the same time, the Red Army ford along the Sivash Bay moved to the rear of the White Guards. After fierce battles (the Red Army lost up to 70% of its personnel), the Red Army managed to break through to the Crimea.

The Russian army of General P.N. Wrangel was defeated. The civil war is over. Only isolated areas of resistance to Soviet power remained on the outskirts of Russia.

The remnants of the Russian army, as well as part of the civilian population, were evacuated to Turkey with the help of Western countries. 126 ships delivered about 146 thousand people to Istanbul. Part of the white officers did not want to leave their homeland. After the occupation of the Crimea by the Red Army, up to 50 thousand officers of the Russian army were shot.

Foreign intervention: causes, forms, scope. The peculiarity of the civil war in Russia was the intertwining of the internal political struggle with foreign intervention.

Reasons for foreign intervention:

the Western powers sought to prevent the spread of the socialist revolution throughout the world;

avoid multibillion-dollar losses from the nationalization of the property of foreign citizens, carried out by the Soviet government, and refusal to pay the debts of the tsarist and Provisional governments;

weaken Russia as its future political and economic rival in the post-war world.

The Entente countries signed an agreement on non-recognition of the Brest-Litovsk Peace and the future division of Russia into spheres of influence.

Foreign intervention began in the spring of 1918. German troops in the Brest-Litovsk Peace occupied Ukraine, Crimea, and part of the North Caucasus. Romania captured Bessarabia. At the beginning of March 1918, 2 thousand people landed in Murmansk. landing of British troops, and by the middle of the month French and American troops arrived there. This action was aimed at disrupting the proposed German offensive against Petrograd. In April, Japanese troops landed in Vladivostok. Japan pursued not so much anti-Bolshevik as expansionist goals. Fearing the strengthening of Japan in the Pacific region, military units of England, France, and the United States appeared here. Turkey, an ally of Germany, sent its troops to Armenia, Azerbaijan. England captured part of Turkmenistan, occupied Baku. The seizure of large territories by foreign invaders was accompanied by the destruction of the organs of Soviet power, the restoration of the previous order, and the plunder of material assets.

Against Soviet power, the Supreme Council of the Entente also decided to use 45 thousand. Czechoslovak corps, which was subordinate to it. The Czechoslovak corps consisted of captured soldiers - Slavs of the Austro-Hungarian army. The captured soldiers expressed a desire to participate in the war on the side of the Entente, so they were left with weapons. The Soviet government sent the Czechoslovak Corps along the Trans-Siberian Railway to the Far East. It was assumed that further he would be delivered to France. The advance of the foreign military corps by rail was fraught with great difficulties. In a number of places, armed conflicts between the Czechoslovakians and local authorities and the population arose. On May 14, 1918, an armed clash took place in Chelyabinsk between the Czechoslovakians and Austrian prisoners, as a result of which one Austrian was killed. The German embassy demanded that the guilty be punished. The Soviet government decided to disarm the corps. The Czechoslovakians feared that after disarmament they would be arrested and extradited to the Austro-Hungarian authorities. On May 25, the Czechoslovak corps began an armed uprising against Soviet power. It was supported by anti-Bolshevik forces. As a result, Soviet power was overthrown in the Volga region, Siberia, and the Far East. At the same time, peasants rebelled in the central provinces of Russia, dissatisfied with the policy of the Bolsheviks. The socialist parties (mainly the Right SRs), relying on the armed landings of the Czechoslovakians, formed a number of governments in Arkhangelsk, Ashgabat, Tomsk and other cities. A Socialist-Revolutionary Menshevik government - Komuch (Committee of the Constituent Assembly) - emerged in Samara. It includes the deputies of the Constituent Assembly, dispersed by the Bolsheviks. The purpose of their activity was the revival of the Constituent Assembly. These governments did not last long and were swept away in the civil war.

At the end of the summer of 1918, the nature of the intervention changed. The troops received orders to support anti-Bolshevik movements. In August, mixed parts of the British and Canadians entered the Transcaucasus, occupied Baku, where they overthrew Soviet power, then retreated under the onslaught of Turkey. The Anglo-French troops landed in Arkhangelsk in August, overthrew Soviet power there, and later supported the Omsk government of Admiral A. V. Kolchak. In Odessa, French troops were stationed, which provided rear services for the army of A.I. Denikin, which was fighting on the Don.

By the fall of 1918, serious changes had taken place in the international situation. The First World War is over. Germany and her allies were completely defeated. Revolutions took place in Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Soviet leadership annulled the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and the new German government was forced to withdraw its troops from Russia. In Poland, the Baltic states, in the Ukraine, bourgeois - nationalist governments arose, which immediately took the side of the Entente.

The defeat of Germany freed up significant military contingents of the Entente and at the same time opened for her a short and convenient road to Moscow from the south. In these conditions, the leadership of the Entente inclined to the idea of ​​defeating Soviet Russia with the forces of their own armies. At the end of November 1918, British troops landed in Batumi and Novorossiysk, and French troops landed in Odessa and Sevastopol. The total number of interventionist troops concentrated in the south was increased by February 1919 to 130 thousand people. The Entente contingents increased significantly in the Far East (up to 150 thousand people), in the north (up to 20 thousand people).

At the same time, public circles in European countries and the United States advocated the return of their soldiers home. In these countries, a democratic movement has developed under the slogan "Hands off Soviet Russia!"

In 1919, fermentation began in the occupation units of the Entente. Fearing the Bolshevization of their troops, the leadership of the Entente in the spring of 1919 began to withdraw its troops from the territory of Russia.

1919 was the most difficult year for the Bolsheviks. The fate of the Soviet state was being decided. The Entente command has developed a new plan to fight Russia. This time the struggle against the Bolsheviks was to be expressed in the combined military actions of the white armies and the armies of the states neighboring Russia. In this regard, the leading role was assigned to the white armies, and the auxiliary - by the troops of small states (Finland and Poland), as well as the armed formations of the bourgeois governments of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, which retained control over part of their territories.

England, France, the United States have stepped up military and economic assistance to all anti-Bolshevik forces. During the winter period 1918-1919. only the troops of A. V. Kolchak and A. I. Denikin received about a million rifles, several thousand machine guns, about 1200 guns, tanks, aircraft, ammunition, uniforms for hundreds of thousands of people.

At the end of 1919, the victory of the Bolsheviks became more and more evident. The Entente countries began to speed up the withdrawal of their troops from Russia.

The French began to evacuate their troops from Odessa at the beginning of April 1919. At the end of September, the British left Arkhangelsk. In the fall of 1919, the invaders were forced to leave the Caucasus (but they remained in Batumi until March 1921) and Siberia.

With the defeat of the remnants of the White Army of General P.N. Wrangel, the civil war in Russia ended.

The final approval of Soviet power throughout the country. In 1920, in Central Asia, with the support of the troops of the Turkestan Front under the command of M.V. Frunze, the power of the Khiva Khan and the Bukhara Emir was overthrown. The Bukhara and Khorezm Soviet republics were formed.

In Transcaucasia, local communists, with the support of the Red Army, established Soviet power. In April 1920, the Musavat government was overthrown and the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic was formed. In February 1921, Soviet troops captured Tiflis, after which the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed.

By the spring of 1920, the Red Army fought its way to Transbaikalia. The Far East was occupied by the Japanese. To avoid collision with them, the government of the RSFSR promoted the formation of a formally independent "buffer" state - the Far Eastern Republic (DRV) with its capital in Chita. In November 1920, the army of the DRV began military operations against the remnants of the white armies supported by the Japanese, and in October 1922 it occupied Vladivostok. The Far East was cleared of White Guards and interventionists. After that, the DRV was liquidated and became part of the RSFSR.

Thus, on the territory of the former Russian Empire, with the exception of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Finland, Soviet power won.

Results of the Civil War. The Civil War (May 1918 - November 1920) became one of the greatest tragedies in Russia. The damage to the national economy exceeded 50 billion gold rubles. Industrial production decreased in 1920 compared to 1913 by seven times, agricultural production - by 40%. The working class has almost halved. The population losses from the fall of 1917 to 1922 amounted to almost 13 million people.

But the Bolsheviks won, preserving the integrity and statehood of Russia.

There were 2 million people in emigration. representatives of the intellectual elite. Russian emigrants settled in different countries and continents. The main centers of emigration were Paris, Berlin, Prague and other European centers, as well as the city of Harbin in China. Part of the Russian emigrants moved to North and Latin America. In the large centers of the Russian diaspora, social life developed, political and cultural societies were created.

The reasons for the victory of the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks won, as they were supported by the majority of the country's population - the small and middle peasants. The peasants perceived the Bolsheviks as fighters "for a better life." The undoubted success of the Bolsheviks was that during the civil war they managed to create the people's Red Army (5.5 million people), more staunch and disciplined than the White armies. The Bolsheviks were able to mobilize all the country's resources and turn it into a single military camp. The leadership of the Bolsheviks was able to present themselves as defenders of the Fatherland and accuse their opponents of betraying national interests. The civil war showed that the new government has deep national roots. Socialist ideas found their supporters among the broad masses of the country's population.

International solidarity and assistance from the proletariat of Europe and the United States were of great importance.

Contemporary domestic and foreign historiography on the causes, content and consequences of the national crisis in Russia and the revolution in Russia in 1917. In domestic and foreign historiography, there are different points of view on the causes, content and consequences of the national crisis in Russia and the revolution of 1917.

Some researchers believe that by 1917 Russia had all the necessary socio-economic and political preconditions for the victory of the socialist revolution.

Attention is drawn to a number of factors that influenced the nature of the national crisis:

weakness of liberal political forces;

rapid radicalization of the masses in the absence of a firm government in the country;

the tactics of the Bolsheviks, who successfully used party discipline, political will, wide agitation and propaganda among the people under the conditions of the weakness of the Provisional Government.

Representatives of a different point of view believe that the October events are a coup d'etat committed by the Bolshevik party, which seized power during the First World War.

2.1. Lines of ideological and political confrontation.

In the mass perception, the civil war of 1918 - 1921 is portrayed as a military clash between "red" and "white". But the political spectrum during the war years was as wide as in 1917. In the course of events, parties and political forces adjusted their tactical attitudes, entered various blocs, experienced changes in the level of activity. All this caused the most varied combinations in the balance of opposing forces. The change in these combinations reflected the logic of the development of events in those years.

In the civil war, the Bolsheviks had to fight not only with the white movement, but also with the "democratic counter-revolution" (supporters of the Constituent Assembly), and with their former allies - the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and anarchists. Whites, Ostavilovites and anarchists had very little in common; fundamental disagreements between them did not leave any chances for creating a full-fledged coalition. It is also important that the inter-party struggle took place against the background of mass fermentation, not connected with the programs of specific parties.

The public atmosphere after October 1917 was characterized by a predominance of extreme political slogans. It arose under the influence of the war-fierce soldier masses and was intensified by the fatigue of the population from the political instability in the country during 1917. Radical sentiments prevailed over a sober and balanced approach to the situation. The party struggle, reaching its peak, grew into a qualitatively new state - the civil war.

After the seizure of power, the Bolsheviks began to persecute right-wing and liberal organizations. In November 1917, Lenin signed a decree "On the arrest of the leaders of the civil war against the revolution", where the Cadet party was declared "the party of the enemies of the people." Members of the Constitutional Democratic Party (KDP) were subject to arrest and trial by the revolutionary tribunals. The hostility of the Bolsheviks was experienced not only by those who adhered to other party orientations, but also by representatives of entire estates and social groups - nobles, merchants, priests, officers, Cossacks, and others. Executions of persons of non-proletarian origin were carried out.

In response, opposition to the Bolsheviks from various political forces intensified. By the beginning of 1918, several anti-Bolshevik organizations were operating: the Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution, the Committee for Public Salvation, the Central Council of Strike Committees, and others. The cadets played an active role in these organizations. The policy of the Bolsheviks aroused rejection among the main part of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. In a resolution of the Socialist Revolutionary Party (AKP) in December 1917, it was written: “The policy of the Bolsheviks is short-sighted and desperately adventurous. All power to the Constituent Assembly. " At the same time, the Left SRs and some of the anarchists supported the Bolsheviks.

After the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, the opponents of the Bolsheviks began to actively arm themselves. The civil war took on the features of extreme intolerance. Attempts on the part of the intelligentsia to restrain the country's slide into fratricidal carnage were unsuccessful. Of the politicians, the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionaries V.M. Chernov: "... we must not shed a single drop of the people's blood." “And the Bolsheviks,” they asked him, “is it possible to shed the blood of the Bolsheviks?” Chernov replied: "The Bolsheviks are the same people."

However, the obstacle to peace lay in the very nature of Bolshevism. Revolutionary enthusiasm, reaching the point of obsession, pushed the Bolsheviks into the "flame of the struggle for the triumph of the idea."

Until May 1918, armed uprisings against the Bolsheviks were not full-scale. The campaign of General P. Krasnov against Petrograd and the revolt of the cadets in Moscow in October 1917, the uprisings of atamans A. Kaledin on the Don and A. Dutov in the Southern Urals, L. Kornilov's offensive against Yekaterinodar in late 1917 - early 1918 did not have clear coordination, were scattered. The white movement was just beginning to form. The outbreak of a large-scale war in May 1918 was not associated with a White Guard uprising, but with an outburst of activity by the Social Revolutionaries, who organized the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps, whose leadership had serious friction with the Bolsheviks. Designed for transfer to Europe through the Far East, the corps stretched from the Urals to Vladivostok. On this territory (in Samara, Yekaterinburg, Tomsk), governments arose, acting under the slogan of the Constituent Assembly, the Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks played a decisive role in them. These governments declared the implementation of democratic measures, canceled the decrees of the Soviet government. The system of power created by the Social Revolutionaries (the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly in Samara, the West Siberian Commissariat in Nikolaevsk) was rather complex, based on collegiality. In a number of places the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks retained the initiative (Transcaspian region, Arkhangelsk), but in the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia they had to yield to the pressure of the Cadets and monarchists. Attempts by the Social Revolutionaries to act within the framework of "pure democracy", to find a "third line", fighting both the monarchists and the Bolsheviks, were unconvincing. The logic of military confrontation ruled out the chances of success for parliamentary methods.

The summer of 1918 was the time of a violent military clash between the Bolsheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. Only in 20 provinces of the country were registered 245 anti-Bolshevik peasant uprisings, which were ideologically and politically backed by the Social Revolutionaries.

From the Bolsheviks, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who had helped them before, were leaving (their party by July 1918 numbered about 80 thousand people, and a number of its activists occupied positions in the Council of People's Commissars and the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee). The Left Social Revolutionaries sharply opposed the Brest Peace, against the food dictatorship, and in July 1918 organized armed uprisings against the Bolsheviks in Moscow and the Volga region. Clashes between the Left SRs and the Bolsheviks took place in many cities. The Left Socialist-Revolutionary activists were arrested (some activists were shot). The Left SRs were expelled from the Soviets.

Their party then split. A. Kolegaev, G. Zaks, A. Bitsenko, G. Kotovsky, S. Lazo, P. Lazimir, Yu. Sablin joined the RCP (b) and occupied a prominent position in it. But the main nucleus of the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party, headed by M. Spiridonova, remained in anti-Bolshevik positions, went underground, focusing on the preparation of terrorist acts, uprisings in villages and units of the Red Army. Throughout 1919, the Bolsheviks had to fight against the Left SR underground, with the performances of the Left SRs in Petrograd, Moscow, Pskov, Tula, Kazan, Orel, Gomel, Astrakhan, etc.

By the summer of 1918, contradictions between the Bolsheviks and the anarchists appeared. In the first months after the October coup, their relationship was generally characterized by mutual loyalty. Anarchists acted legally, published a lot of literature. The Brest-Litovsk Peace split the anarchists. Supporters of Soviet power emerged, some of them fought in the Red Army - A. Zheleznyakov, A. Mokrousov, D. Furmanov, E. Berg. Anarchist groups headed by A. Karelin, A. Anikst, A. Ge collaborated with the Bolsheviks.

Another, more significant, part of the anarchists took an anti-Bolshevik position. Detachments of the "black guard" were created, their armed performances took place in Kursk, Voronezh, Yekaterinoslav. In Moscow, raids and expropriations sharply increased. Armed clashes between the anarchists and the Bolsheviks took place everywhere. The Cheka and the Red Army men had to put out with considerable effort the outburst of activity of the anarchists, who, as a rule, fiercely fought for their ideas. Anarchists took part in the revolt of the Left Social Revolutionaries, and after its suppression they switched to the position of "active terror" against the Bolsheviks. It peaked in the summer of 1919. Suppressing it by force, the Bolsheviks tried to conceal the fact of their disagreements with the anarchists.

So, after the explosion organized by the anarchists in September 1919 in the Moscow Committee of the RCP (b), N. Bukharin and L. Trotsky blamed for this act of terrorism on "princes, barons, dignitaries of tsarism, cadets."

The contradictory nature of relations between the anarchists and the Bolsheviks was most clearly manifested during the period of the Makhnovist movement. The insurgent peasant army under the leadership of the anarchist Nestor Makhno took shape in the Ukraine in battles against the Petliurists and White Guard detachments. Having grouped many anarchist activists around him, Makhno tried to put anarchist ideas into practice. He called himself a peasant leader.

Initially, the Makhnovists and Bolsheviks fought jointly with the formations of S. Petlyura. The Makhnovists in the Red Army retained the black banners and principles of internal organization. On the territory controlled by Makhno - in Gulyai-Pole - peasant self-government was carried out, the principle of equalizing land use was implemented. After the Bolsheviks tried to organize food appropriation in Eastern Ukraine and centralize agricultural production, Makhno broke off previous relations with them. Trotsky called for "using hot iron against the Makhnovshchina." The Makhnovists were severely persecuted by the Bolshevik punitive organs. At the same time, the joint actions of the Makhnovist and Red armies against the Whites continued. A situation arose when the Bolsheviks both used the rebels and subjected them to repressions.

In June 1919, the Bolsheviks captured and executed members of the Makhnovist headquarters. After that, Makhno struck the Reds for the first time. The undermining of the Makhnovist-Bolshevik alliance was one of the reasons for the failure of the Southern Front, which opposed Denikin. After the retreat of the Red Army from the Ukraine, Makhno's army was the only force that fought with Denikin's volunteers (using mainly partisan tactics).

After the return of the Red Army to Ukraine, the Makhnovist formations again had to wage a war on two fronts. The final of the Makhnovist movement was associated with a tactical combination of the Bolsheviks. At the expense of major political promises, they managed to attract the Makhnovist detachments to take part in the capture of Crimea, and after crossing the Sivash, they surrounded and disarmed them. Almost all of the Makhnovist commanders were shot. Makhno, who remained in Gulyai-Pole, continued the fight with significantly reduced forces until mid-1921. However, the balance of forces changed dramatically, and this struggle was doomed - all the more since it had sunk into bandit methods.

Throughout the war, the emphasis in the relationship between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks changed - from bans on Menshevik organizations to their legalization and vice versa, from mutual accusations to military cooperation. In the spring of 1919, part of the Menshevik leadership declared support for the Red Army against Kolchak and Denikin. Some Menshevik activists went over to the RCP (b) - S. Zhilinsky, G. Lindov, V. Volgin, S. Lozovsky, O. Schmidt, A. Vyshinsky. The leaders of the Mensheviks L. Martov and F. Dan declared their support for the Soviet regime, although soon disagreements with the Bolsheviks forced them to emigrate.

The Mensheviks, together with the Socialist-Revolutionaries, in the fall of 1918 found themselves in a state of ideological and organizational crisis. Their declarations about the "third way" were cut off from everyday practice. The Socialist-Revolutionaries opposed the Bolsheviks, but did not find sympathy among the Whites, who did not forget about the "contribution" of the Socialist-Revolutionaries to the collapse of the old statehood. Denikin's and Kolchak's officers openly despised the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks for their half-heartedness and inclination to political rhetoric. After the dispersal of the Socialist-Revolutionary Directory in November 1918, some of the "Constituents" were arrested and then shot by whites. The Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik governments could not stay in power, regardless of their will, they only prepared the ground for the establishment in Siberia and the Far East of the military dictatorship of Admiral A.V. Kolchak.

The White movement was the most consistent opponent of the Bolsheviks. Its origins go back to the coalition of monarchists, nationalists and cadets formed in mid-1917. The ideologists of the white matter, Prince G. Lvov, P. Struve, V. Shulgin strove to consolidate the movement on the basis of the national idea, which assumed the struggle for the revival of a strong Russian statehood, against the "dominance of the International." As a military force, the White movement began to take shape at the end of 1917, when generals M. Alekseev, L. Kornilov and A. Kaledin began to gather volunteer units in Novocherkassk. After the death of Kornilov, General A. Denikin headed the Volunteer Army. Denikin's main ideas were expressed in the words: “Bolshevism must be crushed ... the question of the forms of state power is the next stage and will be decided by the will of the Russian people. The main thing was "the early restoration of the Great, United, Indivisible Russia."

In the east of the country, the armed struggle against the Bolsheviks was led by the former commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral A.V. Kolchak. First, he became a member of the government of the half-Wheeler Directory as minister of war and naval, and as a result of the military coup on November 18, 1918 in Omsk, he was elected the Supreme Ruler of the Russian state. Kolchak managed to collect about 400 thousand troops. General N. Yudenich acted in the north-west of the country, A. Denikin in the south, and E. Miller in the north. A connection was established between them, but the connection of the fronts did not work out. The commanders of the anti-Bolshevik armies were united by a common understanding of the situation, which they described as turmoil caused by the "irresponsibility of political talkers." They saw its overcoming in tightening management with the help of the military and in the rise of patriotism.

The social base of the white movement was quite variegated. The split in society had a social connotation, but on the whole it was based on different views and ideas about the ways of Russia's future development. The choice of a position was not an easy task, it required moral firmness. People (officers, cadets, students, Cossacks, civil servants) who were patriotic and believed in the national idea left for the whites.

The outcome of the uncompromising battle between Red and White was decided at the junction of various factors. The preponderance of the Reds was far from absolute. In the summer and autumn of 1919, Denikin's army won major victories. In October, she had only 300 km to go to occupy Moscow. However, White did not manage to win the decisive battles.

The white armies stretched out along a wide front, the red ones managed to concentrate their forces to repel attacks that were poorly coordinated between the white command. The defeat of the whites was also caused by the fact that their movement absorbed variegated elements, when next to the officers who read the code of honor, there were random, unprincipled, selfish people or, on the contrary, politicians from among the "Constituents", whose outlook was often limited by party interests ... And most importantly, the whites were unable to provide themselves with the support of the peasantry, which throughout the war hesitated between them and the Bolsheviks.

The peasantry "nourished" both the Red and White armies, and often acted as a force hostile to both of them (uprisings in the Volga region, Siberia, Makhnovshchina). Having finished with the whites, the Bolsheviks did not end the civil war. They had to spend enormous efforts to fight the "Antonovschina" - the peasant movement in the Tambov province. The forces of Antonov's army numbered several thousand armed people, and he also had artillery pieces. Antonov established strict discipline, punished the soldiers for any self-righteousness in relation to the population. The scale of hostilities in the Tambov province is evidenced by the fact that they continued for a year and a half. Regular troops under the command of M. Tukhachevsky were sent against the rebels. They numbered 38,000 bayonets, 10,000 sabers, 500 machine guns, 63 guns, airplanes and armored vehicles. Tukhachevsky pointed out: "... we have to wage not battles and operations, but a whole war, which must end with the complete occupation of the insurgent region ... we have to fight not with the gangs, but with the entire local population."

The last chord of the civil war in Russia was the extremely brutal suppression of the Kronstadt mutiny in March 1921, which meant a polar change in the political sympathies of the Baltic sailors - the striking force of the Reds in the initial period of the civil war. Large-scale hostilities ended, but the echoes of social divisions and upheavals during the civil war for a long time made themselves felt in the political and socio-psychological spheres of the country's life.

2.2. The influence of the strategy and tactics of the Bolsheviks on the course of the civil war.

The development of events largely depended on the choice by the Bolsheviks of the ratio between strategic and tactical tasks. The strategic meaning of the actions of the Bolsheviks was recorded by Lenin in his words about the October coup: "We started our business solely with a view to a world revolution." At the same time, the slogans of the coup itself were not of a purely socialist character. The Bolsheviks (despite the fact that in February 1917 their party had less than 24 thousand members) managed to take power relatively easily. The liberalism of the Provisional Government was perceived by the masses as something inadequate to the realities of the moment. With the Peace Decree, the Bolsheviks secured themselves armed support from the capital's garrisons. Trotsky openly admitted that the reluctance of the rear units to switch from the barracks position to the trench position was used. The slogans “All power to the Soviets” and “Land to the peasants” were also tactical in nature, consistent with the mood of the peasantry, which constituted the overwhelming majority of the population. The decree on land was based on the orders of peasant voters, borrowed from the Socialist-Revolutionary program and provided for communal ownership of land with its redistribution according to the labor rate (the Bolshevik program was aimed at nationalizing land and large-scale agricultural production with the ousting of commodity relations from it). The slogan "All power to the Soviets" in the minds of the villagers meant the complete predominance of the communal world, rural gatherings and gatherings c. solving all local issues. Finally, an important role in the implementation of the October coup was played by the demand for the immediate convocation of the Constituent Assembly.

With the help of the Left SRs, who joined the Council of People's Commissars, the Bolsheviks tried to put the slogans of the October coup into practice. In an effort to attract peasants, they did not confine themselves to declarations, transferring them landlord, monastery and cabinet lands, supporting land redistribution on equalizing principles.

The tactics correctly "groped" by the time of the coup could also help to retain power. The disposition on the part of the peasantry provided the Bolsheviks with a relative advantage in the inter-party struggle, and did not allow the social conflict to develop into a mass slaughter for the time being. However, the October tactics of the Bolsheviks inevitably came into conflict with their own strategy - the course towards the world proletarian revolution. Guided by theoretical schemes, the Bolsheviks declared the inevitability of a revolutionary explosion, if not on a global, then on a European scale. In Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism and State and Revolution, Lenin spoke of socialism as a system that naturally follows from imperialism on the basis of the monopolization process: "Socialism is a general state monopoly, but aimed at the good of all." The second part of Lenin's formula implied a special role for the proletarian revolution, which is designed to deprive individuals of the right to own a monopoly. At the same time, it was considered quite obvious that the complete monopoly was outside the national-state framework, taking on a planetary scale. From such theoretical ideas, the conviction of the coming “revolutionary fire” in Europe followed, for which the October events in Russia served only as a kind of “fuse”.

The Bolsheviks' strategy reflected the thesis about the dictatorship of the proletariat as a stage of transition to the communist system (that is, one in which there will be no state structures, commodity-money mechanisms, and differences between people - in terms of social, professional, national and other characteristics - will be minimized). The dictatorship of the proletariat was identified with socialism as a short-lived stage of suppression of all anti-proletarian elements and the destruction of private property. The October tactics, therefore, had nothing to do with the thesis of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The consistent implementation of the tactical slogans "All power to the Soviets" and "Land to the peasants" in practice led to the removal of barriers to the "petty-bourgeois element", to the triumph of the Socialist-Revolutionary agrarian program, to the isolation of individual rural worlds, the dictatorship of the proletariat was out of the question. The implementation of the October tactics quickly collapsed.

In essence, the Bolsheviks did not raise the question of the priority of tactics to the detriment of strategy. They linked the task of retaining power not so much with the peasantry as with the revolution in the West that they had expected a hundredfold. Back in September 1917, in his article "The Russian Revolution and the Civil War," Lenin stated: "Having won power, the proletariat of Russia has every chance of retaining it and bringing Russia to a victorious revolution in the West."

It was the dictatorship of the proletariat that solved the problem of retaining power. The creation of its apparatus included the dispersal of old institutions or their organizational and personnel renewal, but the main thing was the emergence of organs that performed the function of suppression. Since October 1917, revolutionary tribunals functioned - volost, district, provincial. In December 1917, the Cheka was created.

In January 1918, the Bolsheviks openly rejected the October tactics. Having failed to obtain the desired majority in the Constituent Assembly, they dispersed him and reneged on the promise to transfer power to him.

The emotional and psychological "lining" of Bolshevism was the indisputable conviction of the correctness of the theory adopted, that its embodiment guarantees "universal happiness." This conviction forced them to reject compromises with those who were “historically doomed”. Lenin wrote in his work "The Military Program of the Proletarian Revolution": "To deny civil wars or to forget about them would mean falling into extreme opportunism and renouncing the socialist revolution."

The course of suppressing entire estates could not fail to generate resistance. In "a considerable part of society, in addition, elements of Russophobia in the Bolshevik ideology aroused rejection. People with a developed patriotic consciousness opposed the open denial of Russian statehood. Anti-Bolshevik sentiments exploded in society after the" obscene "Brest Peace. However, the tension escalated into a phase of active hostilities in throughout the country, when the fundamental interests of the bulk of the population - the peasantry - were affected.

The inertia of the October tactics of the Bolsheviks in relation to the peasantry manifested itself approximately until May 1918, when the surplus appropriation system was introduced. Its implementation was accompanied by an ideological attack on the peasantry, criticizing it for its "inertia", "unwillingness" to understand Marxist schemes, to "fit" into revolutionary progress. Lenin declared the peasantry as the bearer of the "petty-bourgeois element" as the "main danger" for the socialist revolution. Trotsky "practically" assigned the Russian peasantry the role of "fertilizer for the world revolution."

A decree of June 11, 1918 introduced committees of the poor (kombeds), created as a counterbalance to the village councils. Lenin linked the beginning of the class struggle in the countryside with this decree (the cry "Death to the kulak" was thrown), emphasizing that from October 1917 until the decree on military commissaries was issued, the Bolsheviks "marched with the entire peasantry. In this sense ... the revolution was then bourgeois. " The kombeds took part in the confiscation of grain stocks, in the seizure of land plots from wealthy peasants. Peasant state farms and communes were forcefully created, the high degree of socialization in which often deprived the villagers of even personal property. Increased pressure on the Cossacks of the Don, Kuban, Terek, Orenburg region. Peasant and Cossack uprisings began to flare up.

Despite the fierce resistance of the peasants and the beginning of full-scale hostilities, the Bolsheviks during 1918 managed to gain a foothold in power. They pursued a policy of strict centralization. Their opponents were expelled from the councils. The Bolshevik Party was built on a paramilitary model. At the same time, she faced difficulties: many ordinary party members did not like the militarization of party members. From March to July 1918, the number of the RCP (b) decreased from 300 thousand to 150 thousand members. The fluctuations in the quantitative composition were influenced by the changes in the political line of the Bolshevik Party and the aggravation of social confrontation. (These fluctuations continued throughout the civil war. In the spring of 1919, the RCP (b) numbered 113 thousand people, and by the fall of the same year - almost 2 times less; in March 1920, there were about 600 thousand communists in the party, and after re-registration , in November of the same year, 30% of this composition was lost). Half of all communists were in the Red Army. During the civil war, 4 large party mobilizations were carried out to the Red Army, not counting partial and constant personal conscriptions. Labor mobilizations were also organized. The centralization of management was also ensured by the creation of bodies that were state in form, but party in essence - the Council of Workers 'and Peasants' Defense, the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, the institution of military commissars and political departments in the Red Army, etc. The country was declared a "single military camp."

Ultimately, their military policy turned out to be successful for the Bolsheviks. In May 1918, without renouncing the idea of ​​the Red Army as an "armed vanguard of class-conscious workers," the Bolshevik leaders announced the transition from volunteerism to regular military service, obligatory for the workers and, most importantly, for the peasants, who began to predominate in the Red Army. Its leader, Trotsky, put into practice the thesis of the Russian peasantry as "fertilizer for the world revolution." Questions of the internal organization of the Red Army received special attention. A whole system of political education of the Red Army was created (in the anti-Bolshevik formations such a system was not available anywhere). The Red Army men were fully supported by the state, and their families received material and legal benefits from the authorities. Military experts were also supported completely at the expense of the state.

The mobilization of peasant conscripts and the involvement of military experts reflected the flexible tactics of the Bolsheviks. But she submitted to strategic aspirations - the victory of the world revolution. Military operations on the territory of Russia were considered as its initial stage. Internationalist ideology was carried out in everyday practice. In April 1918, all foreigners and prisoners of war who were in Russia were given the right to take Soviet citizenship, and the formation of inter-units of the Red Army began. By the summer of 1918, international detachments, companies, battalions, and regiments were formed in about 90 cities of Russia. The Chinese, Hungarians, Germans, Koreans, Poles, etc. became armed. Many foreigners came from Europe and America to support the Bolsheviks. The striking force of the Red Army was made up of Latvian riflemen. In total, about 300 thousand volunteers - internationalists - took part in the civil war on the side of the Reds. In letters to A. Lunacharsky, the writer V.G. Korolenko complained that these people were used as the main executors of punitive actions against the local population.

The fighting in 1918 went on with varying success. In the summer, the Reds managed to achieve an advantage in the Volga region, in the North Caucasus and in the North. But already in November, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) stated "an almost complete suspension of military successes on the Eastern Front and, at the same time, a number of failures on the Southern Front." The implementation of the military policy in 1918, the construction of the Red Army was significantly complicated by the general policy of the Bolsheviks in relation to the peasantry. A sharp increase in peasants' dissatisfaction with food appropriation and kombedi led to a massive evasion of rural youth from service in the Red Army. The first mobilization gave the Reds less than 20% of recruits from the countryside, led to an increase in peasant uprisings. Moreover, some of the peasants reacted to the calls to the Red Army by joining the "People's Army" under the command of Komuch (and later - into Kolchak's army). Resistance to conscriptions to the Red Army led to the creation of armed peasant detachments by deserters. In an effort to turn the tide, the Bolsheviks at the end of 1918 abolished the kombeds.

The liquidation of the commissars was viewed by them as a purely tactical move. This also applied to the decisions of the VIII Congress of the RCP (b), which adopted a resolution on an agreement with the middle peasantry. Bukharin ("This is a deliberate political maneuver") and Lenin ("... the matter will change depending on the numerous incidental moments of the revolution") openly expressed their views on this matter.

At the same time, attempts to approach the solution of strategic tasks did not stop. Trotsky declared the need for decossackization. In January 1919, Sverdlov signed a circular on mass terror against the Cossacks. On the Don, Kuban, Terek, large-scale repressions against the Cossacks began, which took the form of genocide. Concentration camps were created for the Cossacks. Yakir directly demanded the "percent destruction of the male population" of the Cossack villages. The answer was the uprising of the Upper Don Cossacks, which broke out in March 1919. At the same time, an anti-Bolshevik movement unfolded in the Volga region, drawing in up to 180 thousand peasants. There were 328 uprisings in Ukraine in April - July. Peasant uprisings in the Tver, Yaroslavl, and Kostroma provinces did not die out.

The mood of the peasant masses quickly affected the frontline situation. In 1919 and 1920, in terms of the severity and tension of the military-political confrontation, they were not inferior to 1918. In March 1919, Kolchak launched an offensive, in May - Yudenich near St. Petersburg, and in June - Denikin in the south. The Bolsheviks managed to survive. In addition to the over-concentration of funds and efforts, they were saved by the gradual calming down of the peasantry after the decisions of the VIII Congress of the RCP (b) - arbitrariness on the ground decreased, in proportion to this, the bitterness of the peasants against the Bolsheviks also decreased. As a result, in the fall of 1919, the size of the Red Army was brought to 5 million and inflicted decisive defeats on the whites, which were finally defeated by the end of 1920.

However, it was 1920 that became the peak of the confrontation in the country. Although there were no longer whites or interventionists in the main territory, martial law remained in 36 provinces - there was a new surge of peasant uprisings. The peasants, not receiving the promised and desired political and economic freedom, clearly felt behind the "tactical" declarations of the Bolsheviks their "strategic" hostility. The struggle of the Cossacks with the Reds continued, the West Siberian mutiny reached a wide scale. Huge forces of the Red Army were thrown against the armies of Makhno and Antonov. There was no end in sight to the peasant unrest.

It became clear that the peasants were unable to accept the communist model of organizing their economic and social life. Despite the severe wounds inflicted on the Russian countryside, the imposition of Marxism on it as "the pinnacle of Western progress" was unsuccessful. Speaking about the adoption of Western values, Lenin wrote that one should "... not spare dictatorial methods in order to accelerate this adoption even more than Peter accelerated the adoption of Westernism by Russia, without stopping at barbaric means of struggle against barbarism." The history of the civil war in Russia is the history of various attempts to implement the above Leninist formula.

But even the superhuman stubbornness of such people as V. Lenin, L. Trotsky and their associates was not enough to break the psychological makeup of millions of Russian peasants that had been forming for centuries. The civil war ended only when the Bolsheviks lost their previously fanatical faith in the world revolution, when it became obvious that they would have to "get along" with the peasantry. The Kronstadt mutiny showed that even the Baltic sailors loyal to the Bolsheviks turned away from their policies. The rejection of extreme extremism in relation to the peasantry, recorded at the X Congress of the RCP (b), meant a radical revision by the Bolsheviks of the strategy and practice of the civil war.

2.3. Socio-psychological cut of the social split.

The split of the people during the years of the civil war was not limited to the division on different sides of the barricades of the tsarist officers, the bourgeoisie, the Cossacks, the kulaks and, accordingly, the soldiers, workers, peasants and farm laborers. Although the war reflected the acuteness of real social-class conflicts, the split was not limited to them, it was deeper and more painful, dividing entire classes and social groups into hostile parts. Many people, like the hero of Sholokhov's "Quiet Don", rushed from one warring camp to another.

After October 1917, having proclaimed themselves the bearers of the proletarian revolution, the Bolsheviks naturally counted on the support of the working class. From his midst cadres were selected for government agencies, food detachments, the Cheka, and the Red Guards. It was assumed that the workers without a shadow of a doubt will support all the initiatives of the party, which proclaimed itself to be proletarian. However, the facts do not give grounds to speak of the general support of the Reds from the workers. Researcher S.I. Konstantinov cites data that whole divisions of workers from Izhevsk and Votkinsk fought in Kolchak's army. He also points out that the anti-Bolshevik factory uprisings in the summer of 1918 literally shook the Urals - they covered Polevskoy, Nizhny Tagil, Yekaterinburg, Nevyansk, Bakal, Satka, Irbit, Zlatoust, Shadrinsk, Perm, Nadezhdinsk, etc. In Nevyansk, for example, workers formed a combat squad, numbering up to 5 thousand people. In their report to the Central Committee of the party, I. Stalin and F. Dzerzhinsky stated that the population of the Perm and Vyatka provinces was completely counter-revolutionary. The policy of war communism provoked repeated strikes by workers in St. Petersburg, Moscow and other cities of Russia.

A vivid illustration of the severity and depth of the social split was the situation among the officers of the former Russian army: only 40% of former generals and officers opposed the Bolsheviks with weapons in their hands. Approximately 30% chose not to participate in the war, considering it unacceptable for themselves to shed the blood of their compatriots, no matter what views they hold. About 30% of the officers joined the Red Army. At the same time, the qualitative composition of the officers, which turned out to be among the Whites and the Reds, was almost the same: during the years of the First World War, the officer corps was renewed by 7/8, and primarily at the expense of the peasants, commoners, and the intelligentsia. For the overwhelming majority of white officers, when choosing a political position, class and property motives could not play a decisive role - much was determined by moral and psychological motives. The split went through the officers' families - for example, M. Frunze’s headquarters was headed by General Nikolai Semenovich Makhrov, and P. Wrangel’s headquarters was headed by his brother Pyotr Semyonovich Makhrov; General Nikolai Vladimirovich Sollogub worked at the headquarters of M. Tukhachevsky, and his cousin Vladimir Alexandrovich Sollogub worked at the headquarters of Yu. Pilsudsky. And such examples were not isolated.

The civil war caused a tremendous split in the multimillion-dollar Russian peasantry. The modern researcher T. Osipova speaks of the White Army as 77% of peasants. It is interesting that the same figure is called by P. Golub, but in relation to the share of peasants already in the Red Army.

Many peasants, being subject to the psychology of communal localism, did not want to fight for either the Reds or the Whites. Peasant rebel armies, known as "green" (the name reflected their predominantly forest deployment), arose. The peasant armies were the most numerous and most disorganized force, lacking a clear strategy and coordination between formations.

When speaking about the peasantry, one must take into account a certain influence of the geographic factor. For example, Central Russia - despite the difficulties of mobilization, as elsewhere (evasion from it in the Vladimir and Kursk provinces reached 90%) - still gave the Red Army in the second half of 1918, almost 600 thousand people. Here, the historically determined differences between the peasantry of different regions affected: the October slogans of the Bolsheviks about the "black redistribution" found the greatest resonance precisely in Central Russia, and in the North and in the regions east of the Volga, which never knew landowners' land ownership, these slogans were not only of little relevance, but also directly threatened the peasants who had their own land as a result of the Stolypin reforms.

In 1918, the peasant consciousness itself split. It was difficult for a peasant who was inexperienced in theoretical wisdom to "decipher" the background of the events that were taking place. During peasant uprisings, slogans were often sounded: "For the Bolsheviks, but against the Communists." Knowing that the Bolsheviks gave peace, land, Soviet power, the peasants did not understand how these same people could show open hostility to them, planting communes and seizing grain by force.

It was not easy for the mass consciousness to "digest" the numerous contradictions of that time. This became a convenient breeding ground for ideological manipulation. The Bolshevik propaganda apparatus, having the means and powers, being powerful, flexible and offensive, provided the Reds with an advantage over their opponents. The slogans of the class struggle had a certain appeal, which especially affected the background of a sharp drop in the standard of living of the population. The ideas of socialism at the time of the events were not new to Russia. The Narodniks, and then the Socialist-Revolutionaries, tried to introduce the peasants to them. Thoughts about social justice could not fail to find a favorable response among the peasantry, for centuries associated with the communal and Orthodox worldview. The slogans of the priority of public interests over personal ones were not something new for the peasants. In the minds of the peasants, the ideas of equality and justice were associated with "a breakthrough into another world", with "the kingdom of God on earth." The overwhelming majority of the country's population did not understand either the nuances and details of the political struggle in the capitals, or the essence of theoretical disputes between the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, anarchists and Socialist-Revolutionaries. Few of ordinary people knew about the extreme narrowing of the idea of ​​socialism in the Bolshevik schemes.

The traditions of Russian Orthodoxy carried a charge of anti-acquisitiveness and labor morality. The Christian postulate: "It is easier for a camel to crawl through a needle hole than for a rich man to get to heaven" - could easily be linked to the class slogans of the Bolsheviks. Although the Bolsheviks were "militant materialists," their propaganda apparatus "did not hesitate" to appeal to Christian motives. I.A. Bunin in "Cursed Days" cites an excerpt from the appeal of the Odessa Military Revolutionary Council, where revolutionary appeals are "sanctified" in the name of Christ, "who ... being the Savior, rebelled against the rich." And the use of atheistic propaganda could not immediately destroy the religiosity of the consciousness of the Russian people, it still acted as a form into which only new content was poured, and favored the fact that many communism began to be perceived as a new religion (although the overwhelming majority of the population at that time did not intend to break with the Orthodox faith).

The slogans of the class struggle attracted not only ideological supporters, but also those who mechanically perceived the opposition “friends and foes”, striving to fall into the category of “friends”, close to the authorities, i.e. “Chosen ones”, endowed with special rights. The motives of "chosenness" were strongly instilled in the workers and the poor. The refrain of that time "Who was nothing, he will become everything" reflected the attractiveness of shocks for the representatives of the social bottom, including the criminal Lumpen elements.

There were quite a few of those, especially among the youth, who were carried away by the novelty and the global, planetary scale of slogans about the world revolution, imbued with the romance of a special revolutionary mission.

The Bolsheviks were sympathetic to elements that reflected the concept of "freedom" as a rejection of traditional moral norms and enthusiastically embraced the slogan "Rob the loot". At the same time - paradoxically - in the eyes of a part of the population, the Bolsheviks were seen as a force capable of restoring a stable statehood, and the power was perceived as completely legitimate (legitimate). The pressure in the struggle for power was interpreted as evidence of a special historical role, and the Bolsheviks themselves seemed to be carriers of a certain truth. This was facilitated by the complete discrediting of the previous forms of state power, caused by the abdication of the monarch, the failure of the liberal initiatives of the Provisional Government, and the national crisis on the eve of October 1917.

The strengthening of the Bolsheviks was facilitated not only by the conformist inertia of many citizens. There were also many patriotic people in the Bolshevik camp. When foreign powers intervened in the course of Russian events, this led to a rise in patriotic sentiments in the country - in particular, it played an important role in attracting officers of the tsarist army to the Red Army: a situation arose when it was impossible to defend the independence of the country without defending the Bolshevik power. The slogan of the Bolsheviks "The socialist fatherland is in danger!" found a response among many Russians (few of the common people guessed that Marxism generally denied national statehood and the very concept of "Fatherland" as a category of "purely bourgeois"). Bolshevik propaganda presented the white movement as a puppet in the hands of the Entente, thereby damaging its social base. If during the signing of the Brest Peace Treaty the Bolsheviks were the culprits of national humiliation in the eyes of patriotic people, then after the British, Japanese and Americans entered Russian soil, the Bolsheviks' call to fight the invaders immediately raised them in public opinion. In many places, organizing a partisan movement against foreign troops, the Bolsheviks relied on wealthy villages. Then, after the end of hostilities against the invaders, the partisan formations became the base for the regular units, where the Bolsheviks continued to set the tone. Foreign intervention put the defense of independence at the forefront in Siberia, the North, and the Far East. Later, regarding the events of a similar plan, Lenin wrote: "... The war with Poland aroused patriotic feelings even among the petty-bourgeois elements, not at all proletarian, not at all sympathetic to communism ..."

2.4. Terror.

The civil war in Russia was a time when unbridled passions were seething, and millions of passionate people were ready to sacrifice their lives for the triumph of their ideas and principles. This was typical for the Reds, and for the Whites, and for the peasant rebels. All of them, violently at odds with each other, paradoxically brought together an emotional impulse, an excess of biological energy, irreconcilability. Such a time caused not only the greatest feats, but also the greatest crimes.

The growing mutual bitterness of the parties led to the rapid disintegration of traditional popular morality: the logic of war devalued democratic principles, led to the rule of emergency, to unauthorized actions, indemnities, obtaining trophies, devalued family and sexual morality, introduced the cult of strength and cruelty.

One of the most difficult and pernicious manifestations of the civil war was terror, the sources of which were both the cruelty of the lower classes and the directed initiative of the leadership of the opposing sides. This initiative was especially evident among the Bolsheviks. The newspaper Red Terror of November 1, 1918 openly admitted: “We are not waging war against individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. which you have to offer him - what class he belongs to, what kind of origin, education or profession he is. These questions should determine the fate of the accused. This is the meaning and essence of the Red Terror. "

The Bolsheviks toughly and energetically put their theoretical ideas into practice. In addition to various sanctions against direct participants in anti-Bolshevik movements, they made extensive use of the hostage system. For example, after the murder of M. Uritsky, 900 hostages were shot in Petrograd, and in response to the murder (in Berlin!) Of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the Tsaritsyn Council ordered the execution of all hostages under arrest. After the attempt on Lenin's life, several thousand people were executed in different cities. The terrorist attack of the anarchists in Moscow's Leontievsky Lane (September 1919) resulted in the execution of a large number of those arrested, the overwhelming majority of whom had nothing to do with the anarchists. The number of such examples is great.

The executions were associated not only with hostages. In St. Petersburg, Odessa, Sevastopol, Kiev in 1918 there were mass executions of officers, after the strike of workers in Astrakhan in 1919 - according to official data alone - over 4 thousand people were shot. "Merciless mass terror" was declared against the Cossacks.

The repressions affected both entire sections of the population and individuals. On the night of July 16-17, 1918, Nicholas II and his family were shot in the basement of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. Even earlier, on the night of June 12-13, on the outskirts of Perm, the last of the Romanovs, who bore the title of Emperor, Mikhail, was shot.

Repressive actions were initiated by the central and local bodies of the Bolshevik government, but no less often they were manifestations of the cruelty of ordinary participants in the war. The "Special Commission to Investigate the Atrocities of the Bolsheviks", which worked in 1919 under the leadership of Baron P. Wrangel, revealed numerous cases of cruel - on the verge of sadism - treatment of the population and prisoners by the Red Army. On the Don, in the Kuban, in the Crimea, the commission received materials testifying to the mutilation and murder of the wounded in hospitals, about the arrests and executions of everyone who was pointed out as opponents of the Bolshevik regime - often together with their families. All executions, as a rule, were accompanied by property requisitions. The materials of the commission also showed that in some places under the Bolsheviks, positions in local bodies were occupied by people with a criminal past. So, in Taganrog, the military commissar of the city and his assistant were people who had served a sentence for robbery, the commissar for naval affairs was a man who had served hard labor for murder, the head of counterintelligence was a well-known thief in the district, etc. In Odessa, a young woman, Dora Yevlinskaya, became famous as a cruel sadist, who executed 400 officers in the local Cheka with her own hands.

Whites were also brutal. Admiral Kolchak signed orders for the surrender of prisoners from among those who voluntarily entered the Red Army to the court-martial. The reprisals against the villages rebelling against the Kolchakites were arranged in 1919 by General Markovsky. Several concentration camps were created in Siberia for sympathizers with the Bolsheviks. In the Makeyevsky district of Donbass, in November 1918, the commandant of General Krasnov's close associates published an order with the words "... to hang all the arrested workers on the main street and not shoot for three days." At the same time, the whites did not have organizations like the Cheka, revolutionary tribunals and revolutionary military councils. The top leadership of the White movement did not come out with calls for terror, hostage taking, and executions. At first, whites - for all the anti-humanity of civil strife - tried to stick to the rule of law. But the defeats of the whites on the fronts "opened up an abyss of despair for them" - they could not count on the mercy of the Bolsheviks.

Many figures of Russian culture - V. Korolenko, I. Bunin, M. Voloshin and others - spoke out against the senseless cruelty of the civil war. "Russian cruelty" was branded by M. Gorky. At the same time, it is characteristic that before the revolution it was he and those like him who came out with endless calls "Let the storm break out stronger!"

The total losses in the fratricidal civil war amounted to about 10% of the country's population (more than 12 million people). Such a price was paid by the people in the clash of political interests and ideological versions.

35. Political struggle in Russia in 1917-1920

In the 1920s. in the USSR, the monoparty system was finally established.

The leading center of the country, the Political Bureau (Politburo) of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) included as its main members in 1921:

1) V.I. Lenin;

2) G. E. Zinovieva;

3) A. B. Kameneva;

4) I. V. Stalin;

5) L. D. Trotsky, I. I. Bukharin, M. I. Kalinin and V. M. Molotov as candidates.

During the Civil War, the RCP (b) turned into a closed organization with a rigid linear management structure. The main and most responsible posts both in the party and in the state apparatus were held by representatives of the so-called old Bolshevik guard. It included about 10 thousand people who joined the party before the revolution. V 1921 g. purges of ranks began, and in 1924 a split in the "old guard" began. The dominant figure already in 1924 became the General Secretary of the Central Committee (since 1922) I. V. Stalin, who pursued a tough policy of apparatus. The first episode of the internal party struggle for power was L. D. Trotsky's rejection of the economic and political course of G. E. Zinoviev, L. B. Kamenev and I. V. Stalin. V January 1924 LD Trotsky's group was accused of a petty-bourgeois deviation and attempts to split.

The "new opposition" consisting of G. Ye. Zinoviev, L. B. Kamenev, G. Ya. Sokolnikov and N. K. Krupskaya spoke out at the XIV Party Congress against the course of I. V. Stalin and N. I. Bukharin. V 1926-1927 formed a "united opposition" of L. D. Trotsky, L. B. Kamenev and G. E. Zinoviev. V early 1928 I.V. Stalin's main opponent L.D. Trotsky was exiled to Alma-Ata, and in 1929 g.- abroad. Thus, pursuing a policy of removing oppositionists and the "old guard" from power, JV Stalin by the end of the 1920s. got rid of all the most dangerous rivals in the struggle for power, laying the foundations of a personal dictatorship.