Introduction

Foreign military intervention in Russia (1918-1921) - the military intervention of the Entente and the Quadruple Alliance in the Civil War in Russia (1917-1922). A total of 14 states took part in the intervention.

1. Background

Immediately after the October Revolution, during which the Bolsheviks came to power, the "Decree on Peace" was announced - Soviet Russia signed a truce on December 2, 1917 and withdrew from the First World War.

On December 3, 1917, a special conference was held with the participation of the United States, England, France and their allied countries, at which a decision was made to delimit zones of interest in the territories of the former Russian Empire and establish contacts with national democratic governments. The Caucasus and the Cossack regions were assigned as the zone of influence of England, Ukraine and Crimea were assigned to France. On January 1, 1918, Japan brought its warships into the port of Vladivostok under the pretext of protecting its subjects. On January 8, 1918, US President Wilson, in his message to Congress, announced the need for the withdrawal of German troops from Russian territories, the recognition of the independence of the Baltic states and Ukraine with the possibility of their further unification with Great Russia on a federal basis.

On March 1, 1918, the Murmansk Soviet sent a request to the Council of People's Commissars, asking in what form it would be possible to accept military assistance from the allies, proposed by the British Rear Admiral Kemp. Kemp suggested landing British troops in Murmansk to protect the city and the railway from possible attacks by the Germans and White Finns from Finland. In response to this, Trotsky, who held the post of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, sent a telegram:

You are obliged to immediately accept any assistance from the allied missions.

On March 6, 1918, in Murmansk, a detachment of 150 British marines with two guns landed from the English battleship Glory. The next day, the British cruiser Cochran appeared on the Murmansk roadstead, on March 18 - the French cruiser Admiral Ob, and on May 27 - the American cruiser Olympia.

2. Entente intervention

On March 15-16, 1918, a military conference of the Entente was held in London, at which the question of intervention was discussed. In the conditions of the beginning of the German offensive on the western front, it was decided not to send large forces to Russia. In June, another 1,500 British and 100 American soldiers landed in Murmansk. On June 30, the Murmansk Soviet, with the support of the interventionists, decided to break off relations with Moscow.

August 1, 1918 British troops landed in Vladivostok. On August 2, 1918, with the help of a squadron of 17 warships, a 9,000-strong Entente detachment landed in Arkhangelsk. Already on August 2, the interventionists, with the help of white forces, captured Arkhangelsk. In fact, the invaders were the masters. They established a colonial regime; declared martial law, introduced courts-martial, during the occupation they took out 2686 thousand pounds of various cargoes to total amount over 950 million rubles in gold. The entire military, commercial and fishing fleet of the North became the prey of the interventionists. American troops performed the functions of punishers. Over 50 thousand Soviet citizens (more than 10% of the total controlled population) were thrown into the prisons of Arkhangelsk, Murmansk, Pechenga, Yokangi. Only in the Arkhangelsk provincial prison, 8 thousand people were shot, 1020 died of hunger, cold and epidemics.

Due to the lack of prison space, the battleship Chesma, plundered by the British, was turned into a floating prison. All interventionist forces in the North were under British command. The commander from May to November 1918 was Major General F. Pull (Pool, eng. pull), and from 11/17/1918 to 11/14/1919 Brigadier General Ironside.

On August 3, the US War Department orders General Graves to intervene in Russia and send the 27th and 31st Infantry Regiments to Vladivostok, as well as volunteers from the 13th and 62nd Graves Regiments in California. In total, the United States landed about 7,950 soldiers in the East and about 5,000 in northern Russia. According to incomplete data, the United States spent more than $25 million just on the maintenance of its troops - without a fleet and help to the whites.

After the defeat of Germany in the First World War, the interest of the allies in internal Russian strife quickly faded away. In January 1919, at the Paris Peace Conference, the Allies decided to abandon their plans for intervention (and concentrate their efforts on supplying weapons to the white armies). A major role in this was played by the fact that the Soviet representative Litvinov, at a meeting with the American diplomat Bucket, held in January 1919 in Stockholm, announced the readiness of the Soviet government to pay pre-revolutionary debts, provide the Entente countries with concessions in Soviet Russia, and grant independence to Finland, Poland and the countries Transcaucasia in the event of termination of the intervention. Lenin and Chicherin conveyed the same proposal to the American representative Bullitt when he arrived in Moscow.

In March 1919, faced with the 6th Ukrainian Soviet division of Grigoriev, the French troops left Kherson and Nikolaev. In April 1919, the French command was forced to leave Odessa and Sevastopol due to discontent among the sailors (who, after the victory over Germany, were expecting a quick demobilization). In the summer of 1919, 12 thousand British, American and French troops stationed in Arkhangelsk and Murmansk were evacuated from there. By 1920 most of interventionists left the territory of the RSFSR. They held out in the Far East until 1922. The last regions of the USSR liberated from the interventionists were Wrangel Island (1924) and Northern Sakhalin (1925).

The interventionists practically did not engage in battles with the Red Army. The most violent clashes took place in the Baltic Sea, where the British squadron tried to destroy the Red Baltic Fleet. At the end of 1918, the British captured two of the newest Novik-class destroyers, Avtroil and Spartak. British torpedo boats twice attacked the main base of the Baltic Fleet - Kronstadt. As a result of the first attack, the cruiser Oleg was sunk. During the second attack on August 18, 1919, 7 British torpedo boats torpedoed the battleship "Andrew the First-Called" and the submarine mother ship "Memory of Azov", losing three boats during the attack. On August 31, 1919, the Panther submarine sank the newest British destroyer Vittoria. On October 21, 1919, three Novik-class destroyers - Gavriil, Svoboda, Konstantin - were killed by British mines. The British submarine L-55, the cruisers Cassandra and Verulam, and several smaller boats were blown up by mines.

2.1. List of Entente powers that took part in the intervention

Great Britain - SPSR (Support Forces Northern Russia) numbering up to 28 thousand people (evacuated in June-October 1919), a military mission, the South Russian Tank Detachment and the 47th squadron under the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, also - intervention in the Transcaucasus (Georgia).

• from March 1918 Arkhangelsk

  from October 1918 Murmansk

  from the end of 1918 the Baltic Sea - the 6th British light cruising squadron of Edwin Alexander-Sinclair (Eng. en:Edwyn Alexander-Sinclair), replaced in January 1919 by Rear Admiral Kovan's 1st Light Cruiser Squadron

  from July to November 1919 - Revel, Narva (Volunteer Training Tank Detachment)

  Sevastopol (from December 1919), Novorossiysk (March 12-26, 1920) - British military mission to the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (AFSUR), South Russian Tank Detachment (from April 12, 1919 in Batum, then Ekaterinograd, Tsaritsyn, Novorossiysk, Crimea; withdrawn 28 June 1920), 47 Squadron (Tsaritsyn, Crimea, March 1919 - March 1920).

  Black Sea - 6 battleships, 1 hydrocruiser and 13 destroyers (1920)

  Caspian Sea - 11 warships and 12 coastal fighter boats (1920)

  Transcaucasia (from August 1918 Baku, from December 1918 Batumi, then Krasnovodsk, Petrovsk, Shusha, Julfa, Erivan, Kars and Gagra). Withdrawn in July 1920.

  Vladivostok - from April 1918 (25th battalion of the Own Duke of Cambridge Middlesex Regiment in 829 people, and other units)

British colonies and dominions:

• Canada - from October 1918 Arkhangelsk, Murmansk 500 artillerymen (withdrawn June 11, 1919), Siberia 3500-4000 soldiers (withdrawn April 1919).

  India - battalions of the Mesopotamian expeditionary forces, Transcaucasia 1919-1920.

USA - since August 1918 participation in the SPSR, Arkhangelsk, Murmansk (withdrawn June-October 1919). By agreement between the interventionists, the Trans-Siberian was guarded in the sections from Mysovsk to Verkhneudinsk and from Iman to Vladivostok (withdrawn in January-March 1920). The total number of American troops in the North of Russia is up to 6 thousand people, in Siberia up to 9 thousand people;

France - since March 1918 the north of Russia (cruiser "Admiral Ob"), the participation of French gunners in the team of the armored train of the Murmansk-Petrograd railway.

• Siberia - Siberian Colonial Infantry Battalion and Siberian Colonial Artillery Battery

Colonial French troops (Odessa, November 1918 - April 1919) - 4th African Cavalry Chasseurs Regiment, 21st Regiment of Native Riflemen, 10th Regiment of Algerian Riflemen, 9th Battalion of the 8th Regiment of Algerian Riflemen, 1st marching Indochinese battalion; Sevastopol - 129th battalion of Senegalese riflemen.

• Black Sea November 1918 - March 1920 2 battleships, 1 battlecruiser, 8 destroyers, 1 hospital ship and 1 transport

Romania - occupation of Bessarabia in early 1918

Poland - a contingent in the SPSR (1918-1919), the Soviet-Polish war of 1920 (Greater Poland Army, the remnants of the illegal "Polish military organization")

Japan - Vladivostok, section of the Trans-Siberian Railway from Verkhneudinsk to Khabarovsk and Iman, Sakhalin since April 1918. Withdrawn in 1921. Two divisions of approximately 28,000 bayonets.

China - did not take an active part in the intervention

• Far East - armored cruiser II rank "Haizhong" (海容) under the command of Commodore Lin Jianzhang (林建章), part of the 33rd Infantry Regiment of the 9th Infantry Division under the command of Song Huanzhang (宋焕章), security units and border guard detachments

  Arkhangelsk and Murmansk 1918-1919 - Chinese battalion

Also in the composition of the SPSR were: the Serbian battalion, the Finnish Karelian Legion (Karelian Regiment) and the Finnish Murmansk Legion (corresponding to the brigade).

3. Intervention of the Central Powers

In February-May 1918, Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine and Transcaucasia were occupied by the troops of the Quadruple Union. Kiev was occupied by the Germans on March 1, Taganrog on May 1, and Rostov on May 8. Ataman of the Great Don Army Krasnov P.N. made an alliance with the Germans. The project of uniting the Ukrainian State, the All-Great Don Army and the Kuban People's Republic on a federal basis was discussed.

The German occupation troops on the eastern front numbered about 1.045 million people. , which accounted for more than 20% of all German forces, Turkish - about 30 thousand people. Leaving significant occupying forces in the east after the conclusion of the Brest Peace is considered a strategic mistake of the German command, which became one of the reasons for Germany's defeat in the First World War.

After the defeat of Germany in the First World War, in accordance with the secret protocol to the Compiègne armistice of November 11, 1918, the German troops were to remain on the territory of Russia until the arrival of the Entente troops, however, by agreement with the German command of the territory from which the German troops were withdrawn, the Red Army began to occupy and only in some points (Sevastopol, Odessa) the German troops were replaced by the troops of the Entente.

3.1. List of Central Powers that took part in the intervention

German Empire - Ukraine, part of European Russia 1918 - early 1919. Baltic states - until the end of 1919.

Austro-Hungarian Empire - ibid.;

Ottoman Empire - Transcaucasia since February 1918;

Finland - the territory of Russian Karelia 1918 - 1920.

4. The role of foreign intervention in the civil war

There are various assessments of the role of foreign intervention in the civil war in Russia. Their main common feature is the recognition of the fact that the interventionists pursued their own interests, and not the interests of Russia. Both the Entente and the Central Powers sought to remove from the jurisdiction of the central Russian government the national outskirts under the rule of puppet governments (which was contrary to the interests of both the Reds and the Whites), while their interests often clashed. So, for example, before the end of the First World War, France and Germany simultaneously claimed Ukraine and Crimea, respectively, Britain and the Ottoman Empire - the Caucasus (the United States opposed Japan's attempts to annex the Russian Far East).

Both warring blocs continued to view Russia as one of the theaters of the ongoing world war (in which Russia was a member of the Entente, and from March 1918 was at peace with Germany), which was the reason for both the continued significant military presence of German troops in Russia, and and the creation of a military presence of the Entente troops.

Colonel Stolzenberg, representative of the high command at the headquarters of the Kiev group of German troops, wrote:

The available troops are insufficient both in terms of their personnel and weapons. Additional parts are needed to continue the operation.

Hindenburg wrote in his memoirs:

Even now, of course, we could not withdraw all our combat-ready forces from the East ... The very desire to establish a barrier between the Bolshevik authorities and the lands liberated by us required the leaving of strong German military units in the East.

The very beginning of the civil war is often explained by the uprising of the Czechoslovak corps - former soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army, who went over to the side of Russia and were evacuated to France through Vladivostok. In addition, the presence of interventionists in the rear of the White armies and their control over the internal political situation there (when considering foreign intervention is often reduced to the intervention of the Entente) is considered the reason why the civil war continued for quite a long time.

The commander of the First Division of the Czechoslovak Corps, Stanislav Chechek, issued an order in which he especially emphasized the following:

Our detachment is defined as the forerunner of the allied forces, and the instructions received from headquarters have the sole purpose of building an anti-German front in Russia in alliance with the entire Russian people and our allies.

A subject of the British crown, Minister of War Winston Churchill was more categorical:

It would be a mistake to think that throughout this year we fought on the fronts for the cause of Russians hostile to the Bolsheviks. On the contrary, the Russian White Guards fought for our cause. This truth will become unpleasantly sensitive from the moment the White armies are destroyed and the Bolsheviks establish their dominance throughout the vast Russian Empire.

5. Intervention in eyewitness accounts

6. Photo gallery

Soviet propaganda poster

Japanese propaganda poster depicting the capture of Blagoveshchensk by Japanese forces

Japanese propaganda poster depicting the capture of Khabarovsk by Japanese forces

American troops in Vladivostok

POWs of the Red Army guarded by US troops in Arkhangelsk, 1918

Merchants at the train with invaders

Russian-language poster of the British interventionists.

English squadron on the Murmansk raid, 1918

Atrocities of the Japanese troops in Primorye

Bibliography:

RUSSIA AND THE USSR IN THE WARS OF THE XX CENTURY

Kozlov I. A., Shlomin V. S. Red Banner Northern Fleet. - M.: Military Publishing House, 1983.

Loans to Foreign Governments, 67 congress, 2 sess. US Senate. Doc.86, Wash., 1921, p.92)

[N]either in the closing year of World War I nor following the Armistance, were attempts made to rid Russia of the Bolsheviks. Until November 1918 the great powers were too busy fighting each other to worry about developments in remote Russia. Here and there, voices were raised that Bolshevism represented a mortal threat to Western civilization: these were especially loud in the German army… But even the Germans in the end subordinated concern with the possible long-term threat to considerations of immediate interest. Lenin was absolutely convinced that after making peace the belligerants would join forces and launch an international crusade against his regime. His fears proved groundless. Only the British intervened actively on the side of the anti-Bolshevik forces, and they did so in a half-hearted manner, largely at the initiative of one man, Winston Churchill. ( Richard Pipes.The Russian Revolution)

Midget submarines 1914-2004

Krasnov Petr. Great Don Army

Kuhl and G. Delbrück. The collapse of the German offensive operations 1918 M., 1935, p. 24

Strokov A. A. History of military art. v.5. "Omega-polygon", St. Petersburg, 1994

History of Russia from antiquity to the present day: A guide for applicants to universities / Gorinov M. M., Gorsky A. A., Daines V. O. and others; Ed. M. N. Zueva. - M.: Vyssh.shk. - 1994 (recommended for publication by the State Committee Russian Federation on higher education; under the auspices of the Federal Target Program for Book Publishing in Russia)

E. Gorodetsky. Eastern Front in 1918. Questions of History, 1947, No. 9.

Moser. A Brief Strategic Review of the World War 1914-1918

Churchill V. World crisis M.; L .: State military publishing house, 1932. - 328 p.

Vertinsky A.N. Dear long ... M., 1991. S. 115-116.

Civil War (1917-1922)- armed confrontation that engulfed various political, ethnic, social groups and state formations, which began as a result of the October Revolution of 1917 and the coming to power of the Bolshevik Party. The main events unfolded in the European part of the former Russian Empire, as well as in the Urals and Siberia.

Reasons for the war. The civil war was the result of a protracted revolutionary crisis, the beginning of which was laid by the revolution of 1905-1907. The First World War was a catalyst for the growth of tension in society and led to the fall of royal power as a result of February Revolution. However, this only deepened the socio-economic crisis, national, political and ideological contradictions in Russian society, which was especially dangerous against the background of an extremely low political culture and the absence of democratic traditions in society.

After the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, who began to pursue a tough, repressive policy towards their opponents, these contradictions resulted in a fierce struggle throughout the country between supporters of Soviet power and anti-Bolshevik forces, who sought to regain lost wealth and political influence.

foreign intervention

The civil war was accompanied by foreign military intervention (December 1917-October 1922) by both the armed forces of the states of the Quadruple Union and the Entente. Intervention- interference of foreign states in the internal affairs of another state, encroaching on its sovereignty. May be military, political or economic in nature.

The intervention was caused by the need to fight Germany in the framework of the First World War, and after its defeat, the protection by England and France of their economic and political interests, which were threatened after the October Revolution, came to the fore, the desire to prevent the spread of revolutionary ideas outside of Russia. In this regard, the intervention of the Entente was aimed at helping the White movement in its fight against the Bolsheviks.

Main stages of the war

October 1917-November 1918— initial period Civil War. It was characterized by the establishment of the Bolshevik dictatorship, active intervention in the course of the Civil War by foreign interventionists (France, Great Britain), the emergence national movements on the outskirts of the former Russian Empire.

Almost immediately with the establishment of the Bolshevik dictatorship in Petrograd, the Volunteer Army began to form in the southern regions of Russia. Generals M. Alekseev, A. Kaledin, L. Kornilov took an active part in its creation. From April 1918, A. Denikin became the commander-in-chief of the Volunteer Army. At the same time, the Provisional Don Government headed by General P. Krasnov appeared on the Don. Having received support from Germany, the Cossacks of P. Krasnov managed to capture most of the Donbass in the summer - autumn of 1918 and go to Tsaritsyn. After the defeat of Germany in the World War, the detachments of P. Krasnov merged with the Volunteer Army.

On the formation of anti-Bolshevik opposition in the Volga region big influence had the events associated with the uprising in May 1918 of the Czechoslovak Corps, numbering over 40 thousand people. Together with representatives of the white movement, they managed to drive the Bolsheviks out of many provinces of Siberia, the Urals, the Volga region and the Far East. In the conditions of the offensive of the Whites, the Bolsheviks decide to shoot on the night of July 16-17, 1918. royal family, who was under their arrest in Yekaterinburg.

The Bolsheviks tried to seize the initiative. The Eastern Front was created, headed by S. Kamenev. During the battles for Ufa, the red commander V. Chapaev became famous. The counteroffensive of the Red Army forced their opponents to consolidate, and on November 18, 1918, Admiral A. Kolchak was declared the Supreme Ruler of Russia in Omsk. His army, which had the support of the Entente countries, became the main driving force in the struggle against Soviet Russia.

November 1918-March 1920- the main battles between the Bolshevik Red Army and supporters of the White movement, culminating in a radical change in favor of the Soviet government, reducing the scale of intervention.

Having united significant anti-Bolshevik forces under his banners in the spring and summer of 1919, A. Denikin succeeded in a large-scale offensive against the positions of the Reds, as a result of which Kursk, Orel, Voronezh came under the control of the Volunteer Army. However, the attack on Moscow ended unsuccessfully, which forced A. Denikin to turn to Ukraine. Twice during 1919 the troops of the White General N. Yudenich made unsuccessful attempts to attack Petrograd.

The army of A. Kolchak initially managed to reach the banks of the Volga, but the repressive policy of the whites, built on exceptional laws, turned most of the population against them. This helped the Bolsheviks, who were able to push the armed forces of A. Kolchak to Siberia, to Baikal, by the end of 1919.

At the beginning of 1920, the Red Army managed to take Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. Entente troops had to hastily leave Russia.

March 1920 - autumn 1922- the end of the Soviet-Polish war, the elimination of the last pockets of resistance to Soviet power on the outskirts of the country. In particular, in November 1920, the Southern Front under the command of M. Frunze defeated the army of General P. Wrangel in the Crimea, and in November 1922 the Far Eastern Republic was liquidated, the remnants of the White armies went to China. This marked the end of the Civil War.

The key event of the final stage of the Civil War was the Soviet-Polish confrontation. The Entente countries wanted to create a kind of buffer zone from Poland, which would protect Europe from the influence of Bolshevism. Due to these circumstances, the Polish dictator J. Pilsudski found encouragement in the West for his territorial claims in Eastern Europe. On April 25, 1920, having concluded an agreement with the representative of the Directory of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) S. Petliura, the Polish dictator ordered the start of an offensive on the territory of Ukraine, which was under the control of the Bolsheviks. Although the Poles managed to briefly capture Kiev, the counter-offensive of the Western (M. Tukhachevsky) and South-Western (A. Egorov) fronts of the Red Army, supported by detachments of the Makhnovists, forced them to retreat to Polish territory. It was stopped only in August 1920 on the outskirts of Warsaw. In March 1921, the Peace of Riga was concluded between Soviet Russia and Poland, which left the Poles western regions Ukraine and Belarus, but Warsaw recognized Soviet power in the rest of Ukraine.

Results of the Civil War. As a result of the Civil War, most of the territory of the former Russian Empire came under the control of the Bolsheviks, who succeeded in successively defeating the armies of Kolchak, Denikin, Yudenich, Wrangel, and the armed forces of the Entente countries. The new government initiated the creation of Soviet republics on the territory of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Transcaucasia. Poland, Finland and the Baltic states gained independence. Almost 2 million people who did not accept Soviet power were forced to emigrate.

The civil war took a huge toll national economy. Industrial production in 1920 fell to 14% of the 1913 level, agricultural production was almost halved. The demographic losses were enormous. According to various estimates, they ranged from 12 to 15 million people.

Political programs of the parties involved

The main opposing sides in the Civil War in Russia were the Bolsheviks - "Reds" and supporters of the White movement - "Whites". During the war years, both sides sought to exercise their power by dictatorial methods.

The Bolsheviks considered the armed massacre of their opponents as the only acceptable option, not only to maintain their power in a predominantly peasant country. The suppression of any dissent on the way to the establishment of a political dictatorship could allow them to turn the country into the base of the world socialist revolution, a kind of model of a classless communist society, which was planned to be exported to Europe. From their point of view, this goal justified a set of punitive measures that were applied to opponents of Soviet power, as well as to “wavering” elements in the face of the middle strata of the city and countryside, in the first place, the peasants. Separate categories of the population were deprived of political and civil rights - the former privileged classes, officers of the tsarist army, the clergy, and wide circles of the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia.

Only having seized power in October 1917, the Bolsheviks banned the activities of all bourgeois parties, arresting their leaders. The pre-revolutionary political institutions— The Senate, the Synod, the State Duma, control over the press, trade unions, and other public organizations has been established. In July 1918, the rebellion of the Left SRs, who had previously been in a coalition with the Bolsheviks, was severely suppressed. In the spring of 1921, the Mensheviks were massacred, which led to the actual establishment of a one-party regime.

On September 5, 1918, the decree of the Council of People's Commissars "On the Red Terror", which was carried out by the Cheka, came into force. The reason for its appearance was the assassination attempt on V. Lenin on August 30, 1918 and the murder of the head of the Petrograd Cheka, M. Uritsky. The forms of the Red Terror were different: executions based on class, the hostage system, the creation of a network of concentration camps to contain class-hostile elements.

In addition to V. Lenin, one of the main ideologists of the Bolshevik movement was L. Trotsky(1879-1940) - revolutionary figure of the 20th century. One of the organizers of the October Revolution of 1917. He stood at the origins of the creation of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA), which he headed during the Civil War.

The basis of the White movement was the officers, the Cossacks, the intelligentsia, the landowners, the bourgeoisie, the clergy. The ideologists of the White movement A. Guchkov, V. Shulgin, N. Lvov, P. Struve saw in the Civil War an opportunity to preserve the Russian Empire, return power to their own hands and restore lost rights and privileges. In the territories conquered from the Bolsheviks, the Whites tried to recreate the army and the civil administration apparatus. The basis of their political program was the demand for the restoration of private property and freedom of enterprise. After the overthrow of the power of the Bolsheviks, the Constituent Assembly was supposed to legitimize all changes in society, the competence of which would be to decide on the future political structure Russian state.

During the Civil War, the White movement largely discredited itself by striving to restore the monarchy on an autocratic basis, terror against peasants and workers, carrying out Jewish pogroms, significant dependence on the interests of foreign invaders, and a sharply negative attitude towards the problems of national outskirts. former empire. Not the last role was played by the lack of unity in the White leadership.

Among the leaders of the White movement, the figures of A. Kolchak and A. Denikin stood out. A. Kolchak(1874-1920) - military and political figure, Admiral of the Fleet. During the Civil War, he was an iconic figure of the White movement. He held the positions of the Supreme Ruler of Russia (1918-1920) and the Supreme Commander of the Russian Army. After the betrayal of the Czechoslovaks, he was handed over to the Bolsheviks and shot in January 1920.

A. Denikin(1872-1947) - military leader, political and public figure. During the Civil War he was one of the main leaders of the White movement. Commanded the Volunteer Army (1918-1919), and then armed forces South of Russia (1919-1920). Later he emigrated to France.

Various peasant movements had a huge impact on the course of the Civil War. Many of them were close to the ideas of anarchism - the rebel army of N. Makhno (1888-1934) - the leader of the revolutionary masses of the peasantry in the southern regions of Ukraine during the Civil War. Their political platform was based on the demand for an end to the terror against the peasantry and the real, gratuitous allocation of land to it. The fluctuations of the peasantry between the Reds and the Whites repeatedly changed the balance of power during the war and, ultimately, predetermined its outcome.

Representatives of the national outskirts of the former Russian Empire also participated in the Civil War, fighting for their independence from Russia (Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic States, Transcaucasia). This struggle met with resistance both from the White movement, who wanted the restoration of a "united and indivisible Russia", and from the Bolsheviks, who saw in it an undermining of the international unity of the working people.

Politics of war communism

The elimination of private property in any form was the program position of the Bolshevik Party and constituted its main task. practical activities. This was reflected for the first time in the Decree on Land. But the most complete Bolshevik policy during the years of the Civil War was embodied in war communism. war communism- a temporary system of emergency measures carried out by the Soviet authorities during the Civil War. All measures were aimed at concentrating the maximum resources of the country in the hands of the Bolshevik government.

Among its components: the nationalization of industry (Decree of June 24, 1918); the introduction of universal labor service; the introduction of payment in kind, the equalization of wages; provision of free public services; the creation of food detachments and surplus allocation for basic agricultural products (since May 1918); the prohibition of private trade, the card system for the distribution of goods according to the class principle; prohibition of the lease of land and the use of hired labor.

In pursuing the policy of war communism in the countryside, the Bolsheviks relied on the so-called Committees of the Poor (combeds), created by the Decree of June 11, 1918. Their competence included the distribution of bread and essentials, agricultural implements, assisting local food authorities in the seizure of "surpluses" the wealthy peasants.

War communism had major consequences for the organization of labor. It soon became apparent that coercion would be applied not only to members of the "exploiting classes". Practice has shown that not only in politics, but also in the economic sphere, the new government relied on methods of violence and coercion. The policy of war communism soon aroused mass indignation and rejection of the new methods of leadership by the majority of the population. The state, in fact, stopped market relations by its actions. If in the conditions of the Civil War such a policy could still somehow justify itself, then in the conditions of the transition to peacetime it was doomed to failure.

31. Civil war and military intervention in Russia (1918-1920)

A civil war is an armed struggle for power between citizens of one country, between different social groups, political currents. Civil war in Russia (1918-1920), and on the outskirts the war continued until 1922. Its consequences, material damage, human losses were terrible. Two points of view on the beginning and periodization of the civil war in Russia: 1) Western historians believe that the civil war in Russia began in October 1917, immediately after the October Revolution. 2) Soviet historians (most) believe that the civil war began in the spring and summer of 1918. And before that, military operations on the territory of Russia proper (without national regions) were mainly local in nature: in the Petrograd region - General Krasnov, in the Southern Urals - General Dutov, on the Don - General Kaledin, etc. Against Soviet power in the first months of its existence only 3% of the entire officer corps spoke, while the rest were waiting for the elections and their results to the Constituent Assembly. The war begins to unfold after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly. Causes of the Civil War in Russia:

Internal policy of the Bolshevik leadership. Nationalization of all land; nationalization of industry. Dispersal of the Constituent Assembly. All this set the democratic intelligentsia, the Cossacks, the kulaks and the middle peasants against the Bolshevik government. The creation of a one-party political system and the "dictatorship of the proletariat" set the parties against the Bolsheviks: the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks, and others. The desire of the overthrown classes to return the lands, factories and plants. maintain their privileged position. Thus, the landlords and the bourgeoisie are against the Bolshevik government. Confrontation in the countryside between the wealthy and the poor.

Main opposing forces:

The supporters of the Soviet power are the workers, in many respects the poorest and partly the middle peasantry. Their main strength is the Red Army and Navy. The anti-Soviet White movement, the overthrown landowners and the bourgeoisie, some of the officers and soldiers of the tsarist army are opponents of Soviet power. Their forces are a white army, relying on the material, military-technical support of the capitalist countries. The composition of the red and white armies was not so different from each other. The backbone of the command staff of the Red Army was the former officer corps, and the overwhelming majority of the White armies consisted of peasants, Cossacks, and workers. Personal position did not always coincide with social origin (it is no coincidence that members of many families ended up on opposite sides of the war). What mattered was the position of the authorities in relation to the person, his family; on whose side they fought or from whose hand they suffered, his relatives and friends died. Thus, for the majority of the population, the civil war was a bloody meat grinder, into which people were drawn, most often, without their desire, and even despite their resistance.

The civil war in Russia was accompanied by foreign military intervention. In international law under intervention refers to the forcible intervention of one or more states in the internal affairs of another state or in its relations with third states. Intervention can be military, economic, diplomatic, ideological. Military intervention in Russia began in March 1918 and ended in October 1922. Target interventions: "Destruction of Bolshevism", support for anti-Soviet forces. It was assumed that Russia would break up into three or four weak states: Siberia, the Caucasus, Ukraine, and the Far East. The beginning of the intervention was the occupation of Russia by German troops, who captured Ukraine, Crimea and part of North Caucasus. Romania began to lay claim to Bessarabia. The Entente countries signed an agreement on the non-recognition of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the future division of Russia into spheres of influence. In March 1918 British, American, Canadian, Serbian and Italian troops landed in Murmansk and then in Arkhangelsk. In April, Vladivostok was occupied by Japanese troops. Then detachments of the British, French and Americans appeared in the Far East.

In May 1918, the soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps rebelled, sent by the Soviet government along the Trans-Siberian Railway to the Far East. The uprising led to the overthrow of Soviet power in the Volga region and Siberia. White Czechs occupied a vast territory from Samara to Chita. Here, in June 1918, the Committee of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) was created. He declared himself the only legitimate authority in the country. By August 1918, the entire territory of modern Tatarstan was also occupied by the troops of the White Czechs and the White Guards. The interventionists were concentrated mainly in ports, far from the centers where the fate of the country was decided, they did not take part in active hostilities on the territory of Russia. The Red Army did not conduct combat operations against the interventionists. The interventionists supported the anti-Soviet forces, rather, by the fact of their presence. However, in the areas of deployment, the interventionists brutally suppressed the partisan movement, exterminated the Bolsheviks. Foreign powers provided the main assistance to the anti-Soviet forces with weapons, finances, and material support. England, for example, fully provided with uniforms (from shoes to hats) and armed the army of A. Kolchak - 200 thousand people. By March 1919, Kolchak received 394 thousand rifles and 15.6 million rounds of ammunition from the USA. A. Denikin from Romania received 300 thousand rifles. Foreign states supplied the anti-Soviet forces with airplanes, armored cars, tanks, and cars. The ships carried rails, steel, tools, and sanitary equipment. Thus, the material basis of the anti-Soviet forces was largely created with the help of foreign states. The civil war was accompanied by active political and military intervention of foreign states. There are 4 stages of the civil war: Stage 1 (summer-autumn 1918). At this stage, the struggle against the Bolsheviks was carried out primarily by the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, who did not formally declare war on the Bolsheviks, but supported the Socialist-Revolutionaries locally.

In July 1918, there were uprisings of the Social Revolutionaries: (left) - in Moscow, (right) - in Yaroslavl, Murom, Rybinsk. The main centers of this movement were: in the Volga region - Samara, in Western Siberia - Tomsk and Novonikolaevsk. The Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom, headed by Savinkov, actively participated in this movement. The resolution of the Central Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party opened terror against the Bolshevik leaders. In August 1918, Uritsky, the chairman of the Cheka, was killed, and Lenin was seriously wounded. In response to this, the Council of People's Commissars, by a Decree of September 5, 1918, officially legalized the Red Terror. In the same period there was a rebellion of the Czechoslovak corps (since May 1918). By August 1918, the entire territory of modern Tatarstan was occupied by the troops of the White Czechs and the White Guards. The attack on Moscow through Kazan began. Through Kazan, it was possible to control the railway lines to Siberia and the center of Russia. The city was also a major river port. From here it was possible to get the way to the Izhevsk military factories. But the main reason for the attack on Kazan was that the bank of Kazan contained almost half of the gold reserves of the empire. In August 1918, Kazan became the most important frontier, where the fate of Soviet Russia was decided. The eastern front became the main one. sent here best shelves and commanders. September 10, 1918 Kazan was liberated. Stage 2 (late 1918 - early 1919). The end of World War I and the end of the German intervention, the landing of the Entente troops in the ports of Russia. Foreign powers wanted to protect their interests in Russia and prevent the revolutionary fire from spreading to their territories. They attacked from the north and east of the country, but the main blow was inflicted in the southern regions. Were captured: Novorossiysk, Sevastopol, Odessa, Kherson, Nikolaev. In the same period, Kolchak's dictatorship was established in Omsk. Kolchak represented the main danger. Stage 3 (spring 1919 - spring 1920). Departure of the interventionists, the victory of the Red Army over the armies of Kolchak in the East, Denikin in the South, Yudenich in the North-West. Stage 4 (spring-autumn 1920). Soviet-Polish war, the defeat of Wrangel's troops in the Crimea. V 1921-1922 the liquidation of local centers of civil war, Makhno's detachments, the revolts of the White Cossacks in the Kuban, the liberation of the Far East from the Japanese, the fight against the Basmachi in Central Asia was carried out.

The result of the war: the victory of the Soviet power.

The "White Movement" was defeated for the following reasons:

There was no unity in the white movement, personal ambitions were divided and there were disagreements with the interventionists who wanted to increase their territories at the expense of Russia, and the white guards advocated a united and indivisible Russia. The forces of the whites were significantly inferior to the Red Army. The socio-economic politics. Unpopular was the program of the whites with their desire to restore the old order, landlordism. The "whites" were against the right of peoples to self-determination. The arbitrariness of the whites, the punitive policy and the return of the old order, the pogroms of the Jews deprived the "white movement" of social support. The victory in the war of the "Reds" was ensured by a number of factors: On the side of the Bolsheviks there was an important advantage - the central position of Russia. This allowed them not only to have a powerful economic potential (basic human resources and the vast majority of the metalworking industry), which the whites did not have, but also to quickly maneuver forces. Successes in the organization of the rear. A special role was played by the system of "war communism", which turned the country into a single military camp. A system of emergency organs of supply, control, struggle against counter-revolution, and so on, was created. In the republic and the party there were generally recognized leaders in the person of V.I. Lenin and L.D. Trotsky, a close-knit Bolshevik elite, which provided the military-political leadership of the regions and armies. With the broad participation of old military specialists, a five millionth regular army(on the basis of universal military service). Consequences of the civil war. The civil war was a terrible disaster for Russia. It led to a further deterioration of the economic situation in the country, to complete economic ruin. Material damage amounted to more than 50 billion rubles. gold. There was a reduction in industrial production and a stop to the transport system. 15 million people died, another 2 million emigrated from Russia. Among them were many representatives of the intellectual elite - the pride of the nation. The political opposition was destroyed. The dictatorship of Bolshevism was established.

(1918 -1920)

The period of civil war and intervention is quite clearly divided into four stages. The first of them covers the time from the end of March to November 1918.

The delay in the intervention of the Entente in Russian affairs was explained not only by hopes for the imminent fall of the Bolsheviks, but also by attempts to restore the Eastern Front against the Germans, even under the Soviet flag. Only on March 15, 1918, the decision was made to intervene in Russia.

In March-April 1918, Entente troops began to appear on the outskirts of Russia. The British, French, and Americans landed in Murmansk, and the British, French, Americans, and Japanese landed in Vladivostok. Later, British troops appeared in Turkestan and Transcaucasia. Romania occupied Bessarabia. However, foreign expeditionary corps were small and could not significantly influence the military and political situation in the country.

At the same time, the enemy of the Entente - Germany - occupied the Baltic states, part of Belarus, Transcaucasia and the North Caucasus. The Germans also actually dominated Ukraine: here they overthrew the bourgeois-democratic Central Rada, placing Hetman P.P. Skoropadsky in power.

Under these conditions, the Supreme Council of the Entente decided to use the 45,000-strong Czechoslovak Corps, which was under its command. It consisted of captured Slavic soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army and followed railway to Vladivostok for subsequent transfer to France. On May 25, 1918, his armed uprising began, immediately supported by all anti-Bolshevik forces. As a result, in the Volga region, in the Urals, in Siberia and in the Far East, Soviet power was overthrown everywhere. At the same time, in many central provinces of Russia, the peasants, dissatisfied with the food policy of the Bolsheviks, raised anti-Soviet uprisings.

Socialist parties (mainly right SRs), relying on interventionist landings, the Czechoslovak corps and insurgent peasant detachments, formed a number of governments: in Arkhangelsk, Tomsk, in the Urals, etc. A Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik government arose in Samara - Komuch (Committee of the Constituent Assembly) . It included members of the Constituent Assembly, dispersed by the Bolsheviks.

In their activities, the socialist governments tried to provide a "democratic alternative" to both the Bolshevik dictatorship and the bourgeois-monarchist counter-revolution. Their programs included demands for the convening of a Constituent Assembly, the restoration of the political rights of all citizens without exception, freedom of trade and the rejection of strict state regulation. economic activity peasants (with the preservation of some provisions of the Soviet Decree on Land), the establishment of a "social partnership" between workers and capitalists during the denationalization of industrial enterprises, etc.

The Bolsheviks were also opposed by their recent allies, the Left SRs. At the Fifth Congress of Soviets (July 1918), they demanded the abolition of the food dictatorship, the termination of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and the liquidation of the committees.

On July 6, the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Ya.G. Blyumkin killed the German Count Mirbach. The Left SRs captured a number of buildings in Moscow and began shelling the Kremlin. There were performances in Yaroslavl, Murom, Rybinsk and other cities. The Bolsheviks, however, were able to quickly suppress these uprisings.

The right bourgeois-monarchist wing of the anti-Bolshevik camp at that time had not yet recovered from the defeat of its first post-October armed onslaught on Soviet power. The White Volunteer Army, which, after the death of L.G. Kornilov in March 1918, was headed by A.I. Denikin, operated in the limited territory of the Don and Kuban. Only the Cossack army of Ataman P.N. Krasnov managed to advance to Tsaritsin, and the Ural Cossacks of Ataman A.I.

By the end of the summer of 1918, the position of Soviet power had become critical. Under its control was only a quarter of the territory of the former Russian Empire.

The response actions of the Bolsheviks are resolute and purposeful. The loose and small Red Army, created in January 1918 on a volunteer basis, after the regular draft age of workers, peasants, military specialists that began in May-June, turns into a personnel army, strictly disciplined (up to 1 million people by the end of 1918 .).

Following the proven tactics of concentrating the maximum strength of their supporters at the decisive moment and in the decisive direction, the Bolsheviks carried out a special communist and trade union mobilization on the Eastern Front, having achieved a numerical advantage over the enemy, the armies of the Eastern Front in September 1918 went on the offensive. Kazan fell first, followed by Simbirsk, and in October Samara. By winter, the Red Army approached the Urals. Repeated attempts by General P.N. Krasnov to capture Tsaritsyn were repulsed.

Big changes are also taking place in the Soviet rear. The Bolsheviks at the end of February 1918 restored death penalty, canceled by the II Congress of Soviets, significantly expanded the powers of the punitive body of the Cheka. In September 1918, after the assassination attempt on V.I. Lenin and the assassination of the head of the Petrograd Chekists, M.S. The authorities began to take hostages en masse from among the nobles, the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia. Many of them were then shot. In the same year, a network of concentration camps began to unfold in the republic.

By a decree 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 Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense was created under the chairmanship of V.I. Lenin. In the autumn of 1919, the Soviets in the front-line and front-line areas were subordinated to emergency bodies - revolutionary committees. In June 1919, all the then existing Soviet republics - Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia - entered into a military alliance, creating a single military command, uniting the management of finance, industry, and transport.

From November 1918, a new, second stage of the civil war and intervention began. By this time, the international situation had seriously changed. Germany and her allies suffered a complete defeat in the world war and laid down their arms before the Entente. Revolutions took place in Germany and Austria-Hungary. The leadership of the RSFSR annulled the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and the new German government was forced to evacuate its troops from Russia. Bourgeois-national governments arose in Poland, the Baltic States, Belarus, and the Ukraine, 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 convenient and short road to Moscow from the south. Under these conditions, the leadership of the Entente was inclined to the idea of ​​defeating Soviet Russia with the forces of its own armies. At the end of November 1918, the Anglo-French squadron appeared off the Black Sea coast of Russia. British troops landed in Batum and Novorossiysk, French troops landed in Odessa and Sevastopol. The total number of interventionist troops concentrated in the south of Russia was increased by February 1919 to 130 thousand people. Entente contingents in the Far East (up to 150,000) and in the North (up to 20,000) increased significantly.

Not without pressure from the Entente, a regrouping of forces in the Russian anti-Bolshevik camp is also taking place at the same time. By the end of the autumn of 1918, the inability of the moderate socialists to carry out the democratic reforms they proclaimed in the face of the most acute civil confrontation was fully revealed. In practice, their governments found themselves increasingly under the control of conservative, right-wing forces, lost the support of the working people, and were eventually forced to give way - sometimes peacefully, and sometimes after a military coup - to an open military dictatorship.

In Siberia, on November 18, 1918, Admiral A.V. Kolchak came to power, proclaiming himself the Supreme Ruler of Russia. In the North, since January 1919, General E.K. Miller played the leading role, in the north-west - General N.N. Yudenich. In the South, the dictatorship of the commander of the Volunteer Army, General A.L. Denikin, who in January 1919 subjugated the Don Army, General P.N. Krasnov, was strengthening and created the united armed forces of the South of Russia.

The course of events showed, however, the complete hopelessness of the plans of the Entente strategists to rely in Russia mainly on their own bayonets. Encountering stubborn resistance from the local population and the Red Army units, experiencing intense Bolshevik propaganda, the soldiers of the Entente began to refuse to participate in the struggle against Soviet power, it came to open uprisings in the Entente troops. Fearing the complete Bolshevization of the expeditionary corps, the Supreme Council of the Entente in April 1919 began their urgent evacuation. A year later, only the Japanese interventionists remained on the territory of our country - and then on its distant outskirts.

The Red Army successfully repulsed the offensives undertaken at the same time on the Eastern and Southern fronts. At the beginning of 1919, Soviet power re-established itself in a large part of the Baltic states and Ukraine.

In the spring of 1919, Russia enters the third and most difficult stage of the civil war. The Entente command developed a plan for the next military campaign. This time, as noted in one of his secret documents, the anti-Bolshevik struggle was to be expressed in the combined military actions of the Russian anti-Bolshevik forces and the armies of the neighboring allied states.

The leading role in the forthcoming offensive was assigned to the White armies, and the auxiliary role to the troops of the small border states (Finland and Poland), as well as the armed formations of the bourgeois governments of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which retained control over part of their territories. All of them received generous economic and military assistance from England, France and the United States. Only the Kalchakians and Denikinists were handed over during the winter of 1918-1919. about a million rifles, several thousand machine guns, about 1200 guns, tanks and planes, ammunition and uniforms for several hundred thousand people.

The military-strategic situation noticeably worsened on all fronts. The bourgeois governments of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania quickly reorganized their armies and went on the offensive. During 1919, Soviet power in the Baltics was abolished. The 18,000-strong army of N.N. Yudenich found a reliable rear for the operation against Petrograd. But this did not help the general, N.N. Yudenich twice (in spring and autumn) tried to capture the city, but each time failed.

In March 1919, the well-armed 300,000-strong army of A.V. Kolchak launched an offensive from the East, intending to unite with Denikin's forces for a joint attack on Moscow. Having captured Ufa, the Kolchakites fought their way to Simbirsk, Votkinsk, but were soon stopped by the Red Army. At the end of April, Soviet troops under the command of S.S. Kamenev advanced deep into Siberia. By the beginning of 1920, the Kolchakites were finally defeated, and the admiral himself was arrested and on January 15 was taken to Irkutsk. On the night of February 7, Kolchak, together with the chairman of his government, V.N. Pepelyaev, was shot.

In the summer of 1919, the center of the armed struggle moved to the southern front. On July 3, the army of A.I. Denikin in 100 thousand bayonets and sabers began to move towards Moscow. By mid-autumn, she captured Kursk and Orel. But by the end of October, the troops of the Southern Front (commander A.I. Egorov) defeated the white regiments, and then began to push them along the entire front line. The remnants of Denikin's army, headed by General P.V. Wrangel in April 1920, fortified themselves in the Crimea. In February-March 1920, the Red Army occupied Murmansk and Arkhangelsk.

Foreign intervention in Russia. Few will say exactly what these words mean. Only historians know that this is a few years in the life of our country, when at the beginning of the 20th century foreign troops were based in cities such as Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Vladivostok, Novorossiysk, Saratov and Volgograd. British, Japanese, French, Americans. According to the official version, they all landed in Russia under a plausible pretext - to protect Russia from the Bolsheviks and help the White Guards restore the Provisional Government. However, if you look through archival documents, you will find out a curious thing: neither American, nor British, nor French troops took part in major battles ... So what were they doing then? The intervention pursued only one goal - the dismemberment of Russia ...

Immediately after the October armed uprising, as a result of which the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia, the Soviet government issued the "Decree on Peace", which invited all countries participating in the First World War to immediately begin peace negotiations. Only the opponents of Russia in the war, the countries of the Quadruple Alliance, responded to this call. As a result of the truce concluded between the Soviet government and Germany on the Eastern Front, Soviet Russia actually withdrew from the war.

On December 23, 1917, at the Anglo-French negotiations in Paris, a decision was made to delimit zones of interest in the territories of the former Russian Empire and establish contacts with national democratic governments. The zone of interests of Great Britain was defined as "Cossack and Caucasian regions", Armenia, Georgia and Kurdistan, France - Ukraine, Bessarabia and Crimea. It was stated that the agreement was directed exclusively against the Central Powers (Germany and its allies); it was supposed to avoid direct clashes with the Bolsheviks.

Despite their hostile attitude towards the Bolshevik revolution, the governments of England and France were at first forced to refrain from openly proclaiming the slogan of combating the Soviet power and to adhere to an indefinite, half-hearted and contradictory position. As for the United States, in the initial period of the existence of Soviet power, they remained neutral in the Russian question until the situation was clarified. In February-March 1918, the offensive of the Austro-German troops that began along the entire front and the subsequent signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk revived the interventionist aspirations of the Entente; as an argument, a provision was put forward on the need to create an anti-German front on the territory of Russia, regardless of the participation of the Soviet government in it. In particular, Japan suggested that the United States and its allies begin joint military operations in Siberia in order to rescue the significant military stockpiles concentrated in Vladivostok. Japan's proposal, which implied a claim for complete freedom of action in Siberia and the capture of the Siberian Railway, ran into energetic opposition from the United States, which followed with hostility Japan's desire to consolidate its influence on the Asian continent. US President Woodrow Wilson stubbornly adhered to this point of view for the next six months, and when, under the pressure of Entente diplomacy and public opinion of his country, he was forced to agree to intervention, he allowed the participation of American troops in it, mainly to covertly counterbalance Japan, France and England.

A sharp turn in the relationship between the Entente and the Soviet government was outlined in the second half of May. main role the French ambassador Noulens played in this. Together with the Social Revolutionaries, the French mission by this time had developed a plan for the creation of the Volga counter-revolutionary front, one of the links of which was the capture of Yaroslavl. The allied troops were supposed to capture Vologda and, relying on Yaroslavl, could threaten Moscow. It was assumed that in Rybinsk, Yaroslavl, Vladimir and Murom, secret officer organizations would simultaneously act and the Czechoslovak Corps would act.

The Czechoslovak Corps raised an open uprising against Soviet power at the end of May. On June 4, the Allied representatives issued an ultimatum that they would consider attempts to disarm the Czechoslovak Corps as a hostile act against the Allies. During June - July, the French government continued to work on the other powers of the Entente in favor of the widest possible intervention. This idea was especially stubbornly resisted by US President Woodrow Wilson, who gave his consent only after the diplomacy of England and France decided to negotiate directly with Japan. The US could not allow Japan to pursue an independent policy in Siberia.

On July 6, Czechoslovak detachments captured Vladivostok as a result of street battles with Soviet detachments. Allied detachments landed from the ships also came out on their side, so that this day can be considered the beginning of an open and active intervention. Legally, the intervention was formalized after the departure of the Entente missions from Vologda and their arrival on the Murmansk coast. The US government's declaration of 5 August stated that their intervention was only intended to help the Czechoslovaks, who were allegedly in danger of being attacked by armed Austro-German prisoners of war. In the corresponding declarations of the English and French governments of August 22 and September 19, 1918, the main goal of the intervention was the desire to help save Russia from division and death, threatening her at the hands of Germany, which seeks to enslave the Russian people and use for itself its incalculable wealth.

Intervention of the Central Powers

In February-May 1918, the troops of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire Finland, the Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine, part of the adjacent Russian territories, Crimea, Georgia and Armenia were occupied. As a result of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, a territory of 780,000 square meters was taken away from Russia. km. with a population of 56 million people (a third of the population of the Russian Empire), on which they were (before the revolution): 27% of cultivated agricultural land, 26% of the entire railway network, 33% of the textile industry, 73% of iron and steel were smelted, 89% of coal was mined and 90% of sugar was produced, 918 textile factories, 574 breweries, 133 tobacco factories, 1685 distilleries, 244 chemical plants, 615 pulp mills, 1073 machine-building plants and lived 40% of industrial workers.

The occupation of Ukraine enormously expanded the economic base of the Central Powers, especially Germany, and provided them with advantageous strategic flank positions in the event of a revival under the influence of the efforts of the Entente of a new anti-German Eastern Front. Germany, while recognizing the Soviet government, at the same time provided support to counter-revolutionary organizations and groups, which made the position of Soviet Russia very difficult. The Germans eliminated Soviet power in the Baltics and Ukraine, provided assistance to the "White Finns" and contributed to the formation of the center of the White movement on the Don. Pro-German positions were held by the ataman of the All-Great Don Army Krasnov. The project of unification on a federal basis of the Ukrainian State of Hetman Skoropadsky, the All-Great Don Army and the Kuban People's Republic was discussed.

The German occupation troops on the Eastern Front numbered about 1.045 million people. , which accounted for more than 20% of all German forces, Turkish - about 30 thousand people. Leaving significant occupying forces in the east after the conclusion of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk is considered a strategic mistake of the German command, which became one of the reasons for Germany's defeat in the First World War.

After the defeat of Germany in the war, in accordance with the secret protocol to the Compiègne truce of November 11, 1918, the German troops were supposed to remain on the territory of Russia until the arrival of the Entente troops, however, due to the complete decomposition, they were forced to leave the occupied territories as a matter of urgency, while the liberated territories the Red Army began to occupy, and only in some points (Sevastopol, Odessa) the German troops were replaced by the troops of the Entente.

Since the autumn of 1918, Germany has ceased to play any significant role in the external environment of Soviet Russia. Her support for counter-revolutionary organizations in the form of von der Goltz's volunteer corps had the limited goal of maintaining its influence in the Baltics and securing its borders against the oncoming wave of Bolshevism. However, already in the summer of 1919, Germany offered the Entente to join its struggle against Russia in exchange for reviewing and softening the terms of the Versailles Peace Treaty. These proposals were, however, rejected, and in the autumn of that year Germany refused to participate in the blockade of Soviet Russia declared by the Entente.

In 1920, Germany maintained complete neutrality in the Polish-Soviet War. Subsequently, Germany and the RSFSR came to the restoration of normal relations, enshrined in the Rapallo Treaty on April 16, 1922.

Central Powers and their allies who took part in the intervention

The results of the intervention of the Entente and its allies

In the summer of 1919, 12,000 British, American and French troops stationed in Arkhangelsk and Murmansk were evacuated. By 1920, most of the interventionists left the territory of the RSFSR. In the Far East, they held out until 1922. The last regions of the USSR liberated from the invaders were Wrangel Island (1924) and Northern Sakhalin (1925).

Western governments were able to suppress revolutionary uprisings in their own countries, but they could not prevent indirect support for Bolshevism, which was expressed in the mass actions of foreign workers under the slogan "Hands off Soviet Russia." International support for the Bolsheviks became a significant factor that undermined the unity of action of the Entente countries and weakened the force of the military onslaught on Soviet Russia. An important factor was the economic one: to lead the countries of Europe out of the economic crisis that followed the First World War and social tension It was possible only if traditional economic ties with Russia were restored, otherwise Europe would be threatened by financial and raw material dependence on the United States. In such a situation, in January 1920, at the initiative of Great Britain and Italy, the Supreme Council of the Entente decided to lift the blockade and resume trade with the “population of Russia”.

The Bolsheviks, using to their advantage the contradictions that existed in the Entente bloc, managed to prevent the anti-Soviet forces from organizing an offensive on a common front. And with the recognition by the countries of the Entente of the RSFSR, the White Guard state formations lost serious political and military support, which affected the overall outcome of the Civil War in Russia.

The leaders of the White movement were in fact in a hopeless situation regarding the question of accepting or not accepting the help of the "allies": the ruined economy, which required huge financial costs; basing all, without exception, the White Guard state formations on the outskirts of the empire, without fail, with a rear at sea, which did not have an industrial and material base - in contrast to the position of the Bolsheviks, who were based in the center of the country with its factories and military warehouses during the First World War. Not being able to get by on your own, they were forced to put themselves in strategic dependence on the interventionists, who, as Ph.D. N. S. Kirmel, in solidarity with Doctor of Historical Sciences on this issue. N. A. Narochnitskaya, at a difficult moment, betrayed the White movement.

An important factor skillfully used by the Bolsheviks against the White movement in the propaganda struggle was the very presence on the territory of Russia of limited contingents of foreign troops, who, among other things, did not want to fight the Red Army, and therefore brought the fact of their presence to the White movement not so much good, how much harm, since they only discredited the anti-Soviet governments among the masses and gave the Soviets a powerful propaganda trump card. Bolshevik agitators presented the Whites as proteges of the world bourgeoisie, trading in national interests and natural resources, and their struggle as patriotic and fair.