One reason however why the reds won, was down to the good leadership and moral boosting Trotsky showed, he traveled up and down the front line in his famous train speaking to the soldiers, providing them with uniforms and ammunition, this really helped the soldiers as he really speared them on and gave them hope of victory. The white leaders on the other hand were disunited, spaced out and by many accounts from white soldiers we are aware that several leaders were cruel and treated the soldiers with contempt which reminded them of the Tsarist rule, due to this many of them deserted the war. The level of corruption in the white armies was extraordinary. Denikin a white leader stated, ‘I cannot do anything with my army. I am glad when it carries out my combat orders’. But with hindsight we realize this was for a reason.
Due to the whites being associated with the old system of the tsarist government, who treated the public badly the whites lost the support of the nationalist groups and the peasants. Although the peasants did not have a strong support for either side, Lenin had legitimized their right to the land while the whites made it clear that land would be restored to its former owners. The support of the peasants was crucial since they supplied the main body of soldiers for both sides, so for the whites to loose their support was a large explanation for them eventually loosing the civil war.
Another reason why the whites lost was because Denikin, one of the main white leaders did not see how valuable good propaganda was. The Bolsheviks however did, and used propaganda considerably well; they used imaginative and powerful images and played on the weaknesses of the whites that large majorities of the Russian population could identify with. For example as I mentioned earlier the peasants were concerned about having their land taken away from them and in the reds propaganda there were drawings of the whites aggressively taking the peasants homes and land, not stopping to hurt women and young children, this really got to the peasants and this is how the Bolsheviks managed to gain a lot of support. The whites did try the same sort of tactic but the peasants were aware that the whites were of a lot bigger threat to them than the reds as it was in the whites manifesto that the peasants would not be able to keep their land.
The Bolshevik army were extremely well organized and held the central area of Russia, which included Petrograd and Moscow. They moved their capital into Moscow, and this made it easier to transport men and ammo to the front lines as it was the hub of the railway network, it also contained the main armament factories in Russia so the reds could constantly keep providing their men with ammo. Petrograd and Moscow were heavily populated so the reds kept conscripting more men to fight and sent them straight to the front lines. The Bolsheviks obviously had the upper hand as the whites were scattered round the edges of this large area and found it hard to communicate with each other as they didn’t have the up to date equipment the reds did. And even if they did often the white generals would not work together as they didn’t trust each other or purely didn’t like each other, many white generals were suspicious of Kolchak’s motives and intentions. I believe this point shows how well organized the reds were in comparison to the whites and this is a good point to show why the reds beat them.
I have tried to identify whether it was in fact the whites failures that made them loose the civil war or whether it was in fact purely down to the reds being an extremely good and well organized army. But I have found it impossible to pinpoint exactly which it was, as I believe it was down to many factors on both sides that led to the Bolsheviks gaining power, the geographical factors, unity and organization, leadership skills, and support all played a part into the Bolshevik victory of 1920.