The fighting began when Russia was taken out of the First World War and the Czech Legion, who had been fighting with the Russian army, wanted safe passage to fight on the Western Front. The Soviet Authorities arranged for them to travel on the Trans-Siberian railway to Vladivostok, they would then travel by ship to Western Europe. However, the Czechs didn’t trust the Bolsheviks and there were clashes with them along the railway. The Bolsheviks tried to disarm the Czechs, but they resisted and ended up taking control of large sections of the railway. White armies came to their aid. After this incident the Bolsheviks introduced conscription into the Red Army. By the summer the Civil War was in full swing.
The map above shows the positions and advances of the armies in the Civil War. The Red Army was central, based in and around Moscow and Petrograd, the major cities of Russia. This meant they were near to the railways for transport of troops and munitions. The bulk of the factories were in the area, so the Bolsheviks didn’t have to worry about artillery and other military equipment. Cities were heavily populated which was good for conscription. The White armies were thousands of miles apart, Generals Yudenich and Deniken attacked from the west and Admiral Kolchak from the east. So communications and moving men was difficult. Trotsky was the founder and leader of the Red Guards and Red Army. Due to the White armies being so far apart, he could co-ordinate his forces much better and fight his enemies one at a time. Trotsky was a good war leader and strategist, so the Red Army had good tactics. Both of these factors contributed to the victory for the Bolsheviks. Another reason for the success of the Red army was belief. The Bolshevik soldiers were very enthusiastic, many of them were communists who believed they were fighting for a better world, some just fought because they hated the foreign armies invading Russia. Most of their enemies were fighting because they were being paid to. Although the White armies made substantial gains in late 1918 and 1919, the Bolsheviks came up with determined counter-attacks and pushed them back. By autumn 1918 Kolchak’s army were forced into a long retreat. Deniken’s army was much more successful, coming within 320km of Moscow, but yet another fierce counter-attack pushed them back. They held out until November of 1920, then had to be evacuated by British and French ships. The Greens didn’t really seem to have that much effect on the Civil War. The most dangerous was the army of Makhno, they were supported by the peasants and Ukraine and fought against both the Whites and the Reds.
The Reds had a good leader in Trotsky, good communications and they had a clear line of command. The Whites lacked good leadership and organisation, they were divided which meant poor communications between the armies and internal squabbles hindered their attacks on the Bolsheviks. There was no clear leader of the Whites and the Generals didn’t trust each other, so they wouldn’t work together. The Whites had no chance of coming up with a good military strategy. Trotsky made sure that discipline was harsh in the Red Army, conscripts were often put to death for deserting. The soldiers and particularly the leaders were driven to win and only to win, this was achieved by taking their families hostage etc. The soldiers in the White armies were very much against their leaders and the desertion rate was high.
You would have thought that the Whites would have had more support, but it turned out to be the opposite. They lost the support of the nationalist groups and the peasants seemed to favour the Reds because Lenin had promised that they would keep their land. Whereas the Whites wanted the land to be restored to it’s previous owners. Workers and soldiers wanted to hold onto the gains that they had made in 1917, the Bolsheviks were more likely to let them.
Lastly, foreign armies, such as the British and French, were brought in to help in the fight against Bolshevism. Although they did provide supplies for the White armies, they weren’t very effective against the Bolsheviks. The soldiers were sick of war and didn’t have much support. The Bolsheviks used the situation to their advantage and claimed that they were fighting for Russia, against foreign armies.
So even though at the start of the Civil War, you would have expected the Bolsheviks to be defeated and their time in power short, they came through victorious. They were simply more organised, in a better position, had a better overall leader, were more motivated, were better disciplined, were well supported and their opponents weren’t any of the above, they were divided. That’s why the Bolsheviks won the war.
