Why Did The Whites Lose The Russian Civil War

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Why Did The Whites Lose The Russian Civil War?

There are many factors that contribute to the overall defeat of the Whites in the Russian Civil War.

Firstly, the army itself was weak; troops were exhausted due to the war effort during WWI. Troops were removed from combat in WWI and conscripted in the civil war, this led to a decrease of motivation present in the troops which eventually led to drug and alcohol abuse within the army. The soldiers were out of control and hostile towards officers, resulting in the whites being an ineffective fighting force.

   

A lot of foreign intervention was present in the white side of the war. Countries such as Britain, America, Japan and France were all involved in fighting against the communist regime; however each was motivated by their own individual reason for involvement, for example France has invested money into Russian businesses and was determined to claim back their money after the nationalization of private industry. This made working together really difficult and in Japan and America’s case, some countries actually worked against each other. These countries brought little resources with them and the little resources they did bring were difficult to dispatch as troops were spread over a large area of Russia. This resulted in Bolshevik forces being better equipped.

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As well as all this the main driving force behind the Whites crusade was to put an end to communism and restore Russia back to its Tsarist regime of previous, this involved restoring all land back to the previous land owners. Obviously this lost the Whites a great amount of peasant support, forcing them to side with the Reds who had already promised the peasants the land and the workers the factories in the April Thesis of 1917. Again, this caused the already unorganised army of the Whites to decrease in size even further.

Lastly the leaders of ...

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