Smith, S. The Russian Revolution. Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2002.
- Unlike the Whites, the Reds had greater binding ideology and recognition for their leader; therefore the conflict between Stalin and Trotsky proved to be much less damaging.
- The Reds proved to be widely superior in the organizational area as they had a center of command in the “Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic” which was responsible for uniting the civilian and defence sectors in addition to creating an underground network of forces in the White occupied areas.
POV#2 – The strategic stationing of the Reds in the central part of Russia was much more advantageous than the widely spreading of the Whites throughout the borders, as the Reds were able to use the railway and communication networks to their advantage.
Williams, Beryl. The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921. Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1987.
- By moving the capital to Moscow, the Reds controlled all the important railway and communication networks.
Smith, S. The Russian Revolution. Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2002.
- The most important and effected advantage benefited by the Reds was their superior strategic location.
- They were located in a compact central region of Russia, and they were able to distribute their forces evenly and easily transfer their forces from one front to another with the help of their vast railway networks which branched out of Moscow. In contrast, the Whites were made weakened by their location because they were stretched out along the European Russian border.
- According to Smith the strategic position of the Red Armies was advantageous because the majority of resources and population were located in the Central part of Russia. Therefore he Reds had full control of the tsarist army’s stocks and key industrial centers of the country.
Mandel, David. The Petrograd Workers and the Fall of the Old Regime. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983.
- The Allies’ support for the Whites against the Reds had very little influence because at the end of the First World War they withdrew completely from Russian and left the White Armies to fight on their own with indecisive armies.
- Initially the Allies joined the Whites with the intention of stopping the spread of communism throughout Russia and to retain their War materials from the Bolshevik reach.
- After the war, the Allies were angered by the Bolsheviks as they felt betrayed because of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as this Treaty enabled the Germans to seize fighting on their east front and concentrate their forces on the west against the French and British armies.
- When the Allies wanted to cut support to the Whites, they based their reasons on the many atrocities that the Whites committed against the civilians. On the Allies’ part this was the right thing to do as they did not want to be directly involved with the Whites’ doings.
- Mandel states that the loss of support from the Allies was a key setback for the Whites as this loss resulted in the imprisonment and execution of Kolchak because the Red Armies were able to force Kolchak and his army into Siberia.
- The Reds were able to recruit more men as they were located in the center of Russia.
- By 1920 the Whites were outnumbered by a factor of 1 to 10 by the Reds, and because of this staggering difference in the number of soldiers the Red armies totally dominated the Whites armies.
POV#3 – The Soviets consisted of three groups: those who were patriotic for defending their country, others who wanted to encourage a “classless society”, and finally the peasants who feared losing the advantages they had gained during the Revolution. This is the main reason why the Reds had much more supporters than the Whites and why the peasants mainly sided with the Reds and not the Whites.
Smith, S. The Russian Revolution. Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2002.
- Until 1919 the White leaders had overlooked the problematic issues such as labour policy, national independence, local government and most importantly land reform. However, by 1919 they were forced to take action by inventing new policies that regarded these issues.
- But Smith argues that these policies were “offered too little and too late” and resulted in staggering division in the White ranks.
- Regarding land reform, the majority of Whites acknowledged the fact that the “status quo ante” could not be returned to.
- However, the peasants still feared a White victory because they believed that it would bring back the landlords because many white officers had helped ex-landowners to return their estates.
- This fear resulted in greater support for the Reds from the peasant population.
- Regarding national autonomy, the Whites in contrast to the Reds failed to grant self-government to places such as Finland, the Baltic States, Poland, and the separatist Ukrainian state.
- Smith believes that the Whites failed to make a connection with the majority of the population consisting of peasants and workers.
- The Bolsheviks took advantage of this by portraying the Whites as the toy of foreign capital.
- The Reds were at an advantage to the Whites because of their occupation of central Russia. This allowed the Reds to take full control of the railway networks that branched out from Moscow and made the transformation of soldiers and supplies much simpler.
- This advantage alone provided the Reds with better coordination of their Armies and enabled them to fully equip their troops for battles. The Whites were not as organized as the Reds and lacked the proper coordination which disabled them from properly equipping their troops with needed resources.
- The White lack of organization and coordination is partly due to their geographic positioning. The White armies were widely spread on the boarders of Russia and this stopped the armies from attacking simultaneously.
- However, even the positioning of the Reds in the Central part of Russia can be considered as a disadvantage as they were cut off from foreign support because of the Whites.
- The Bolsheviks had firm control over central Russia from the beginning of the Civil War and it was almost impossible for the Whites to break the Reds control without simultaneous attacks.
- According to Smith, the Reds certainly had the military advantages over the Whites:
- The Red Army was much larger than the White army.
- By the autumn of 1920 the Red army had grown to more than 5 million Red troops.
- By the spring of 1920 the White Army consisted of no more than 2 million White Troops.
- Both armies were evenly marched, but the Reds were the superiors as far as leadership were concerned. Both armies experienced staggering levels of desertion; however, Trotsky was able control the level of desertion by implementing the old-school death penalty to desertion.
- The White armies were always better nourished than the Red armies because of their abundant food sources in places such as Siberia and the Kuban region.
- The normal rations of the Red troops were lower than the tsarist army.
Wade, Rex. The Bolshevik Revolution and Russian Civil War. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001.
- According to Wade, the peasants considered the Whites as a greater evil compared to the Reds and tended to support the Reds.
- The peasants feared that the White’s supported the “return to legality”. This meant that the peasants would be forced to relinquish all the land that they had taken away from the noble landowners and to undo other changes that had been made to the countryside.
Williams, Beryl. The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921. Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1987.
- The White forces relied deeply on foreign supplies and this was a in a way a disadvantage, because the Whites kept their armies tied to the edge of the empire.
- Williams believes that “it is not easy to argue that foreign intervention was fundamental to the White cause, although it probably prolonged the war”.
Kirchner, Walther. Russian History. New York: HarperPerennial/HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.David. Stalin's Russia. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2005.
- “The only objective common to all Whites was the overthrow of the Bolsheviks; and until November, 1918, the chief aim of the foreign powers consisted in the reopening of the second front against Germany. In November, 1918, after the end of the First World War, the allied aim, because of the growing appeal of Bolshevism, became identified with that of the Whites. But very little was effectively done to make their cause triumphant, and at no time was concerted action carried on.”
- The main reason for the White defeat in the Russian Civil War was due to their lack of organization and coordination between the White Armies and that this was because the armies were not united.
- Throughout the war the Whites were at a disadvantage as they lacked a military leader who had the same ability or influence as Trotsky.
- The most important cause of Whites failure is their lack of determination as the Red army’s had.
- “On the side of the Soviets were patriotism, enthusiasm, and fear – patriotism to defend the country against foreign invaders, enthusiasm to promote a “classless society”, fear on the part of the mass, and particularly of the peasants of losing the economic advantages gained through the Revolution.”
- The emergence of Kolchak as the military leader of the Whites further justified the actions of those patriotic and enthusiasm Soviets as Kolchak was greatly disliked and the peasants also feared him as he threatened the economic advantages they had gained.
- “[The Whites] fought in separate groups over interrupted lines of communication, and there were many unreliable subordinates lacking in discipline. The Bolsheviks, on the other hand, had the strategic advantage of easily defensible interior lines, unified command, and a devoted Red Army, capably organized and led by men like Trotsky.”
POV#4 – Even though, the White side consisted of expert military men, who were passionate for a constitutional freedom, they lacked a common purpose and failed to coordinate their attacks with each other.
- The White armies consisted of no structure since they were all independent of one another.
- The White leaders had very little involvement with politics while they were involved extensively in military strategies.
- Since the White leaders were politically inactive they spent most of their effort on military aspects of the war.
- This resulted in a lack of organization in the civil administration.
- Peasants initially did not take any sides, but gradually they came to favour the Reds because they called for the redistribution of land.
- In contrast, the Whites did not approve of land redistribution and lost countless supporters.
Williams, Beryl. The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921. Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1987.
- According to Williams, “the White movement was deeply split – between socialists and liberals, politicians and soldiers, centralists and local separatists. Some groups looked to Germany; others remained loyal to the Allies”. Frequently, conflicts among different White armies were as fierce as the fight between them and the Reds.
- In contrast to the Reds’ numerous networks of communication, Kolchak and Denikin mostly relied “on a man on horseback or the telegraph line via Paris or London”.
- The White Military advances were not properly coordinated, and this aided the Reds to defeat their enemies with greater ease.
Smith, S. The Russian Revolution. Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2002.
- The Whites had a Volunteer Army which initially consisted of a core of four thousand qualified officers. However, later on in the civil war this was no longer considered an advantage for the Whites because Trotsky forced “military specialists to enlist in the Red Army.
- Similar to Williams, Smith also indicates that the Whites were caught up by personal hostility between Denikin and Wrangel and Denikin and Kolchak.
- According to Smith the Reds were much more advanced in the organization, unlike the whites who proved to totally lack coordination among their armies.
- Unlike the Reds, the Whites were at a strategic disadvantage since their forces were spread out along the border of Russia. Therefore, any advancement towards the center of the soviet power was futile because of the communication difficulties and the problem of long supply lines.
- The base of the Volunteer Army was over one thousand kilometres away from Moscow.
- In addition, Kolchak’s base was located in Omsk which was about three thousand kilometres away from Petrograd.
- The Whites were at a disadvantage since the Reds had full control of the tsarist army’s stocks and key industrial centers of the country, while the Whites only had control of secondary centers of industries such as Urals and Donbas.
- Note: the Whites had a better supply of coal.
- Smith argues against historians who declare the military advantages enjoyed by the Reds as overwhelming, and argues that a White-military-victory was not impossibility.
- According to him if Denikin and Kolchak had worked together and advanced upon Moscow at the same time in 1919, instead of five month apart, the Red army would have no chance of defeating them.
- In addition, Kolchak had the opportunity of making a deal with the General Mannerheim (a Finish General).
- In addition to strategic and military reasons that clarify the Red victory, there are socio-political factors that cannot be ignored because they are as important.
- Until 1919 the White leaders had overlooked the problematic issues such as labour policy, national independence, local government and most importantly land reform. However, by 1919 they were forced to take action by inventing new policies that regarded these issues.
- But Smith argues that these policies were “offered too little and too late” and resulted in staggering division in the White ranks.
- Regarding land reform, the majority of Whites acknowledged the fact that the “status quo ante” could not be returned to.
- However, the peasants still feared a White victory because they believed that it would bring back the landlords because many white officers had helped ex-landowners to return their estates.
- This fear resulted in greater support for the Reds from the peasant population.
- Regarding national autonomy, the Whites in contrast to the Reds failed to grant self-government to places such as Finland, the Baltic States, Poland, and the separatist Ukrainian state.
- Smith believes that the Whites failed to make a connection with the majority of the population consisting of peasants and workers.
- The Bolsheviks took advantage of this by portraying the Whites as the toy of foreign capital.
Conclusion: The Red Army was lead by a much more decisive leader and War Communism provided the army with appropriate weapons and food. The Reds were also at an advantage geographically because of their positioning and were able to enlist much more volunteers into their armies than the Whites. However, the main reason for the White’s failure during the Civil war was because of their lack of coordination and common purpose as they failed to attack the Reds simultaneously.
