One of his promises in the April Theses was that he would remove Russia from the First World War, in the hope that this would give the Bolsheviks some support. However, the treaty, signed on the 20 February 1918, was extremely harsh on Russia; they lost control of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Kars, Ardahan, and Baturn, as well as paying a huge sum of 6,000 million marks to the Germans. Although this gained a little support, the Russian economy was now very weak, and all of Russia’s former allies were deeply angered. This removal of Russia from WW1 was a main reason of why the Civil War started between the Reds and Whites.
Again, in the short term it had been a popular policy that helped Lenin retain power and in the long term proved to be very damaging.
Between February 1917 and October 1917, both the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet were in power. This Petrograd Soviet had smaller soviets running off it, and these had even smaller ones below themselves; they were all intertwined. When the Bolsheviks got full control of Russia, the tiny Soviets in little villages still remained, as a miniature government for that specific place. All these soviets kept to the Bolshevik rule in Petrograd, but was able to rule its village, so everything was under control. If these small committees were not used, then there would be complete anarchy around the country, just like the first month of when the Bolsheviks came into power. This was the method that Lenin used to retain support and power around the country, where the peasants lived.
Lenin’s form of government evolved into what was basically a dictatorship, where the army and the Cheka kept control of everything going on. The Cheka’s sole job was to kill anyone who defied Lenin and the Bolsheviks. As I have said, they killed on average 1,000 people every month. All through this time, Russia was ruled through terror, and the thought of what would happen to you if you tried to revolt. Also, the Bolshevik government nationalized every possible thing; houses, land, factories. Even private businesses were banned. They had complete control with the excellent army, led by Trotsky, and the gruesome Cheka, who everyone feared.
As the months went by, the anti-Bolshevik protestors got more and more angry with the Red Army and the Cheka, and the dictatorship that had been formed. As a group called the Whites, they decided to rebel against the Bolsheviks. This started in the middle of 1918, and finished in January 1921. The whites consisted of the SRs, the Mensheviks, the Tsarists, the capitalists, and the Czechs. At one time the Bolsheviks were fighting on 17 different fronts, but had destroyed any threat by 1921. There were many reasons why, and how, they did it.
The first reason was that the Bolsheviks had the huge advantage of the Trans-Siberian railway. It is believed that Trotsky’s base was an armored train, continuously going along this track. This meant that Bolshevik troops could get around quicker. Also, this meant that the Whites lacked co-ordination, because they had to move longer distances than the Bolsheviks. There were different countries fighting, and so they couldn’t be organized as one army; there were too many different leaders. AS I have said already, Trotsky was a great leader and a great thinker for the Reds. He used ex-Tsarist generals to run the Red Army, because they had so much experience. He advised his army not to attack, but just to hold their position and not let anything through. The last point was that the Whites did not know what type of government they would install if the Bolsheviks were defeated. The Tsar, the Mensheviks; who was going to lead Russia after the Bolsheviks? Who would decide? This meant that they didn’t really want to win as much as the Bolsheviks did.
During this Civil War, Lenin adopted a new economic policy, called War Communism. This had two main aims, which were very harsh. The first was to help the Civil War by keeping the supply of food and weapons at a high rate coming into the towns for the Red Army. This meant that in any village that did not give most of its farmed grain to the Bolsheviks, the Red Army would come in and requisition it. This was another form of the Red Terror that kept the Bolsheviks in power. They would then burn down all the houses, and kill all the people living there. By 1919, slave labourers were being used, and concentration camps had been set up, mainly used by the Cheka. All through the war, the Cheka had been hard at work, killing any White supporters, and assisting in the requisitions. In the short term, the Bolsheviks had enough food and weaponry to win the Civil War, but in the long term though, most of the peasants who survived died of hunger, because these gangs would have taken so much that there was not enough to live on any more. The result was huge famines, the killing of innocent peasants, in some extreme cases, cannibalism.
Its second aim was to put the Communist theories into action by doing six very strict things. These were that all large factories were nationalized, that the government controlled production of goods in factories, workers were disciplined, and strikers were shot. Also food was rationed in the towns, and free enterprising was illegal, so all trade was controlled by the state. As well as all this, we already know what terrible things the Requisition Gangs did to the peasants. This War Communism was good for winning the Civil War, but Lenin failed to realise what long-term affects it would have on the Bolsheviks and their government. It made them win the war, but now hardly any of the peasants liked him any more, and the workers were very upset with the force of the discipline.
The severity of this War Communism even led to the Kronstadt mutiny in February 1921, just after the Civil War had been won. These sailors were once very keen Bolshevik supporters, and so their mutinying was a big surprise.
After carrying out the October Revolution, the working classes hoped for freedom. But the result has been greater slavery. The bayonets, bullets and harsh commands of the Cheka – these are what the working man of Soviet Russia has won…Here in Kronstadt we are making a third revolution which will free the workers and the Soviets from the Commnuists.
Although the Red Army soon saw to this revolt, Lenin immediately changed his polices from War Communism to NEP.
As one can see from the way in which the country was being run, the main reason why the Bolsheviks retained power was because of their armed forces; the Cheka and the Red Army. The terror that both of them struck into the hearts of the Russians was astounding.