In 1918, the country of the Soviets found itself in the ring of civil war fronts. Three political forces were clearly identified: the first - the majority of the working class and the poorest peasantry, on whose behalf the Bolsheviks spoke; the second - representatives of the overthrown classes and the groups of the population who supported them (officers, most of the Cossacks, the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie and other "former"); the third - the most numerous part of the population, the so-called "petty bourgeoisie" of the city and countryside (middle peasantry, merchants, artisans, etc.). If the first two forces were immediately determined to be hostile and irreconcilable, then the third wavered and its position (“on which side”) often depended on the preponderance of the Reds or Whites, because on both sides of the front the bulk of the soldiers were the same peasants, who often rear and "red" and "white" revolts. Of course, such a balance of social forces that came together in a fierce battle is largely conditional, since the composition of each of the warring parties was heterogeneous and mobile. In the ranks of the "Reds" there were many former officers, representatives of the intelligentsia, people from the middle and even upper strata of Russian society. Under the banner of the White movement, both workers, in particular the Ural factories, and poor peasants fought - those who are usually attributed to the social ranks. Having fallen into the cataclysms of the revolutionary era, hundreds of thousands of people were looking for their place in a catastrophically changing life, often rushing like Sholokhov's Grigory Melekhov from one camp to another or living depending on bizarrely intertwined circumstances that pulled them out of their usual life and made them forget about the origin and interests of their social environment.
At the first stage of the civil war, the grain monopoly, requisitions, excesses of food detachments and commanders alienated the masses of peasants from the Bolsheviks and strengthened the position of the Socialist-Revolutionaries.
The socialist parties that did not accept the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and condemned Bolshevik quasi-socialism and violence against the peasants called for the fight against the communists under the flag of the Constituent Assembly. In the summer of 1918, socialist coalition governments were formed in several regions, trying to avoid the extremes of revolutionary radicalism and rabid counter-revolution, trying to choose, according to liberal socialists, the path of the "golden mean" - the democratic renewal of Russia. The term “democratic counter-revolution”, which appeared later in Soviet historiography, meant that from May to November 1918, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries fought against the Bolsheviks under the democratic flag.
To the ideologists of the moderate socialist parties, the Bolsheviks seemed to be no less dangerous force than the adherents of the old system. The future, they believed, belongs to "democracy and socialism", and Bolshevism is a "vulgar parody" of Marxism, which causes no less serious harm to socialism than open reaction.
The catalyst for the unification of the forces of the "democratic counter-revolution" for some time was the rebellion of the Czechoslovak corps. In 1918, about 200 thousand Czechoslovaks were in captivity in Russia. Even under the tsarist government, a 50,000-strong legion was formed from these prisoners of war to participate in hostilities on the Eastern Front. According to the Brest Treaty, the legion should have been disarmed. Therefore, the legionnaires considered the Bolsheviks traitors, although some of them sympathized with the Soviets. When the corps was ousted from Ukraine by the Germans. The Soviet government agreed to transfer it to Vladivostok, and then from there by sea to France. Those who did not surrender their weapons were threatened with execution. But, according to the decision of the congress, representatives from the parts of the corps did not hand over their weapons, deciding to force their way to Vladivostok.
The rebellion of the Czechoslovak Corps (May 1918) was supported by the Entente. The French Ambassador to Russia, J. Noulens, on behalf of the Allies, stated that they had decided "to start an intervention ... and consider the Czech army as the vanguard of the allied army." The rebels quickly captured important railway junctions on the Siberian railway, took control of the territory from Chelyabinsk to Samara. As a result, an anti-Bolshevik front arose in the Volga region and Siberia, where Soviet power was overthrown. Two new SR governments immediately formed - Samara, which declared itself the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (KOMUCH), and the coalition Siberian government in Omsk. Moreover, both KOMUCH and the Siberian government claimed all-Russian power. They did not agree on political issues either. The essence of the differences was formulated at one time by Cadet L. Krol: "Samara wanted to keep the revolution at the level of the Socialist-Revolutionary requirements, and Omsk strove back from the revolution, even flaunting a return to the old external forms."
However, in the summer and autumn of 1918, the troops of both governments, using the support of the Czechoslovaks, the sympathetic attitude of a part of the population who believed in democratic slogans, dealt serious blows to the Bolshevik forces. August 6, 1918 "People's Army" Komuch took Kazan. It remained to cross the Volga - then the way to Moscow opened. The troops of the Red Army were also defeated in other regions.
The Soviet government is taking urgent action. An armored train with a select combat team and a military tribunal arrives on the Eastern Front, headed by Trotsky. The emissaries of the center prevent the fall of Sviyazhsk with draconian measures. Twenty-seven Red Army soldiers of the Petrograd Regiment, including the commander and commissar, are shot for fleeing the battlefield on the basis of the decimation principle. Concentration camps are being created in Murom, Arzamas, Sviyazhsk. Trotsky signs an order for a merciless reprisal against alarmists, deserters, disorganizers, including the command of the units. Barrage detachments are introduced, destroying the fighters and commanders who have turned to flight.
On September 2, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee declares the Soviet Republic a "military camp". The Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, headed by L. Trotsky, is being created from the military-party workers. The commander of the Eastern Front, I. Vatsetis, is appointed commander-in-chief of the Red Army. Mass terror begins against the "enemies of the revolution." Tough measures at the front and in the rear gave their results: already at the beginning of September 1918, in bloody and stubborn battles, the troops of the Eastern Front stopped the enemy and launched a counteroffensive. On September 10, Kazan was taken. The Bolsheviks successfully advanced from the middle Volga to the Urals. The fate of the SR-Menshevik governments was sealed. The fact is that the inter-wise policy of KOMUCH, the Siberian and other regional anti-Bolshevik governments, as well as the one created on September 23, 1918 at the Ufa state meeting of the Provisional All-Russian Government - the Directory - repelled the Cadets, entrepreneurs, officers - on the one hand, and adherents of the Bolsheviks - with another. Conflicts took place over labor and peasant issues, especially sharp disagreements were caused by the future state structure and the country's foreign policy orientation. Under blows both from the right and from the left, KOMUCH, the Siberian, Ural and other governments, and then the coalition Ufa Directory, had to give way to the military dictatorship of the Supreme Ruler - Kolchak.
§ 5. "Democratic counter-revolution" and "white movement"
The spring and summer of 1918 was a time of sharp intensification of the petty-bourgeois counter-revolution and the scope of the Civil War. In June 1918, in Samara, after the capture of the city by the White Czechs, the largest of the right-wing Socialist-Revolutionary governments was created - Komuch (Committee of members of the Constituent Assembly), whose chairman was V.K. Volsky. Komuch in the Middle Volga region and the Siberian Regional Duma in Western Siberia were the central authorities of the parliamentary type under the conditions of the counter-revolution. The Socialist-Revolutionary governments tried to put their electoral system on the rails of a democratic revolution. But out of a good wish, nothing came of it. Komuch remained a one-party right-wing Socialist-Revolutionary government. In the bodies of local self-government, the overwhelming stratum was made up of the local bourgeoisie. All Socialist-Revolutionary governments followed the path of restoring bourgeois power. But the Socialist-Revolutionary organs of local self-government did not become more efficient than the Soviets in economic terms; in the social aspect, they transferred to the bourgeoisie part of the enterprises, land, housing stock, etc.
At the same time, the measures taken by the Soviet government were larger, more fundamental against the general background of socio-economic transformations: there were no more landlords, the economic basis of the kulaks was undermined, the peasantry received land, a significant part of agricultural implements.
The middle peasant became the central figure in the countryside, and the peasantry, mostly raised from the poor, began to make up the majority of the country's population. Under these conditions, in the autumn of 1918, the middle peasants turned towards Soviet power, and the Bolsheviks defined their line as follows: to be able to reach an agreement with the middle peasantry without renouncing the fight against the kulak and firmly relying on the poor. This was of great political importance, primarily because the political and military outcome of the Civil War depended on the correctness of this line.
To a large extent, this line predetermined the position of the "democratic counter-revolution". As early as the autumn of 1918, the "democratic counter-revolution" was approaching its collapse. At the State Conference held in Ufa in September 1918, representatives of various "revolutionary governments", parties and organizations (Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Cadets, etc.) in the amount of 170 people (of which 108 Socialist-Revolutionaries) resolved the main issues: the structure of power, about the personnel of the government, about the Constituent Assembly. The meeting was attended by delegations of Komuch, the "Provisional Siberian Government", the "Provisional Regional Government of the Urals", the Yenisei, Astrakhan, Irkutsk Cossacks, the Government of Bashkiria and Alash Orda, the "National Administration of the Turko-Tatars of Inner Russia and Siberia", representatives of the Central Committee of political parties and organizations. But the lack of unity among them led to the complete collapse of the activities of petty-bourgeois democracy.
As a result, the so-called Ufa directory was created, and under it - the Council of Ministers. Under the political pressure of the command of the White Czechs, the power of the Ufa directory of 5 people was proclaimed under the leadership of the Social Revolutionary N. D. Avksentiev, elected from the Union of the Liberation of Russia. In October 1918, the directory moved to Omsk, announced the preservation of all decrees and decisions of the Provisional Government, the fight against the Bolsheviks, the reunification of Russia, the continuation of the war with the countries of the Austro-German bloc and the restoration of treaties with the Entente. All regional, national, Cossack governments were abolished. But the existence of the directory was short-lived. On November 18, 1918, Kolchak, with the support of the monarchists, carried out a coup, as a result of which the directory was abolished, and its leaders were sent abroad.
But the lessons of Kolchakism did not go unnoticed. As early as February 1919, at its conference, the Right SR party noted the inadmissibility of fighting the Soviet regime, adopting the so-called third path. The Socialist-Revolutionaries viewed the "third way" as a democracy that must necessarily fight on two fronts: not to stand in solidarity with the Bolsheviks against the Kolchakists and Kolchak against the Bolsheviks. The Right SRs hoped that by adopting the "third way" they would thereby strengthen their positions by "democratizing" the White Guard armies and increasing their party ranks quantitatively at the expense of the petty bourgeoisie.
Meanwhile, Denikin quite frankly wrote that the problem of the Civil War boiled down to one question: "Are the masses tired of Bolshevism, Will the people go with us?" And he was forced to state with bewilderment that after the liberation of the vast territory by his troops, "the expected uprising of all elements hostile to Soviet power did not occur" (Denikin A.I. Essays on Russian Troubles. Berlin, 1926, vol. 5, p. 118).
Mensheviks also represented a serious political force during the Civil War. They had many supporters and acted exclusively in the working environment. In practice, they did not participate in the armed struggle against the Soviet government and the Bolsheviks, although politically they continued to fight against the RCP (b).
One of the leading Menshevik leaders, Yu. O. Martov, not without reason, believed that in the political nature of Russia there was no place at all for intermediate groups between Bolshevism and Menshevism. If they did arise, they were quickly drawn to one or the other pole (Martov Yu. History of the Russian Socialist Party. 2nd ed. 1923). Not everyone was guided by fundamental political aspirations, careerist considerations prevailed. For example, A. Ya. Vyshinsky, following the political winds, followed the path of a right-wing Menshevik-defensist, joined the Menshevik-internationalists, became extremely left-wing, and under Stalin made a dizzying career as a Bolshevik: prosecutor of the USSR.
On the left flank of the Menshevik movement stood Menshevik Internationalists. For all their disagreements, the Mensheviks were united by common tendencies, such as the desire for political freedom, antagonism towards all attempts to restore the pre-revolutionary order, and the preservation of an integral and independent Russia.
One of the sharp points of disagreement between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks during the years of the Civil War was the political question of the attitude towards the Soviets. In the Menshevik environment, the idea arose to create a network of "Meetings of authorized factories and factories" parallel to the Soviets, in the image and likeness of the Soviets. However, the Mensheviks' attempts to "take over" the Soviets failed.
On the whole, the ideology and policy of Menshevism during the years of the Civil War are practically still being evaluated through the prism of Bolshevik ideas about the Civil War, which is far from adequate to Menshevik interpretations. Yu. O. Martov, whose point of view was not always of a general party nature, considered one of the political causes of the Civil War to be a split in democratic forces interested "in the radical destruction of the old autocracy - the bureaucratic and noble system."
On the whole, around the autumn of 1918, a certain shift in emphasis began in inter-party relations between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks. A period of concluding a number of agreements between parties in various fields, including political ones, begins. In the context of the unfolding offensives of the troops of Kolchak and Denikin, in the spring of 1919, part of the Menshevik leaders declared their readiness to defend Soviet power and assist the Red Army. She issued an appeal to the workers of the whole world to intensify their struggle to end the intervention in the Soviet Republic. And in August 1919, the Menshevik Party Conference further decided that the tasks of the Party in the areas of the country occupied by the White Guards were "the revolutionary overthrow of the regimes of Denikin and Kolchak and reunification with Soviet Russia." During Denikin's campaign against Moscow (summer-autumn 1919), the Menshevik leadership announced the mobilization of its members into the Red Army (following the example of the Bolsheviks). The Mensheviks were given the opportunity to send delegates to the 7th All-Russian Congress of Soviets and participate in the elections of local Soviets (Martov was a deputy of the Moscow Soviet in 1919–1920).
The main forces of the Menshevik-Internationalists also began to turn towards cooperation with the Soviet government in the fall. Many of them joined the RCP(b), worked in the center and in the field in military, economic and trade union work.
The year 1918 was also difficult for the national non-Bolshevik parties, as well as for the all-Russian parties of the “democratic counter-revolution”. For the national non-Bolshevik parties, a characteristic feature of the activity was a political crisis, one of the signs of which was the strengthening of the left opposition and the formation, as a result of the split of the parties, of groups and movements of the left direction, focused on fighting the united forces of the counter-revolutionary movement.
The combat successes of the Soviet Armed Forces at the end of 1918 and at the beginning of 1919 strengthened Soviet power, but were not decisive. In the spring of 1919, the Entente launched a new invasion of Soviet Russia. Convinced that the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and Cadets had lost the confidence of the masses of the people, the imperialists dropped the "democratic" cover for their aggressive actions in Soviet Russia. On their instructions, "democratic governments" were dispersed in the regions occupied by the Whites and a military dictatorship of the generals was established. Not relying on their soldiers, the imperialists this time made their main bet on the army of Kolchak, who by that time had captured the food-rich Siberia and the Urals with its factories. According to the plan of the Entente, the troops of Denikin, pan Poland and Petliurists in the west, the White Finns and White Guards of Yudenich in the north-west were to participate in the offensive simultaneously with Kolchak. In the north, the interventionists and the troops of the White Guard General Miller were operating. By the beginning of 1919, the total number of interventionists and White Guards exceeded one million soldiers and officers. They were opposed by almost three million Red Army. In addition, numerous parties and movements with their powerful ideological, agitational and propaganda apparatus operated in the camp of counterrevolution. Among them, after the collapse of the "democratic counter-revolution", political blocs united by the "white movement" came to the fore. It was attended by the Black Hundreds and the former "Octobrists", "Progressives" and right-wing Cadets, various intermediate movements.
The first document that promulgated a platform for uniting the "white movement" was the political program of General Kornilov. It was developed back in December 1917 by members of the "Don Civil Council", located in Novocherkassk. The visit of the delegation of the "Don Civil Council" to Siberia (March 1918 - January 1919) contributed to the consolidation of the monarchists, the establishment of ties with the command of the interventionist troops. Moreover, the "democratic counter-revolution" was gradually pushed aside even by the physical destruction of objectionable Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik leaders. The monarchists gradually became the leading political and military force.
Since the spring of 1918, Moscow has become the center of the monarchists, where the "Right Center" was created. In the spring and summer of 1918 Kyiv was also the center of the monarchists. Here there were unions "Our Motherland", "Monarchist bloc", etc. The monarchists nominated Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich for the role of "ruler of the state", however, to officially resolve the issue, they waited for the moment when all the main forces - Kolchak, Denikin, Yudenich and Miller - would approach to Moscow.
But already in the autumn of 1918, the monarchists began to create in the south a prototype of the future Russian state. In August 1918, under General M. V. Alekseev, a Special Conference was created as the "supreme body of civil administration." After the bet on Germany turned out to be fragile, the monarchists created the "Council of the State Unification of Russia" (SGOR), stationed in Kyiv. This body played a huge role in consolidating the "white movement". It included representatives of the State Duma, the Church Council, zemstvos, commercial, industrial and academic circles, financiers, members of the Union of Land Owners. This political organization expressed the interests of landowners and partly financial and industrial capital. The leaders of the SGOR were monarchists, but mostly not of the Black Hundred, but of the nationalist, "Octobrist" type. Their main political goal was to recreate a "united indivisible Russia".
In 1918, few members of the exploiting classes left the country. The big bourgeoisie and landlords mostly fled south; middle bourgeois - to the Volga and Siberia. In the context of the intervention, they tried to revive the activities of their political organizations.
The Cadets, for example, were in contact with various political organizations, but as a party during the years of the Civil War they did not represent a single political force, although they took an active part in the work of the Kolchak government and the Denikin regime.
In May 1919, Denikin published an order recognizing Kolchak as the Supreme Ruler and Supreme Commander-in-Chief. However, after the military defeats in November-December 1919, the political line of the landlord-bourgeois parties changed significantly. Denikin, for example, was recommended to urgently create a government body, "not deviating either to the right or to the left," capable of decisive action. Instead of a Special Meeting, Denikin was asked to create a Council under the Commander-in-Chief. Moreover, it was proposed to appeal to the population with a promise that "the new government will eliminate the mistakes made earlier and, mercilessly punishing violators of civil peace, robbers and rapists, will take the entire population under protection" (Ioffe G. 3. The collapse of the monarchist counter-revolution. M., 1978. S. 255).
A similar turn was made by the Cadets in Siberia after the defeat of Kolchak. The Omsk Council of Ministers fled to Irkutsk, and its new prime minister began to form a government, inviting the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Zemstvo members, and others to develop a program of "rapprochement with the opposition of the government," which was aware of and corrected its mistakes.
In 1920, the main stake was already placed on the Crimea, where the remnants of the White Army under the command of Wrangel were concentrated. However, the White Guard regime established by Wrangel in the Crimea and southern Ukraine was short-lived.
Considering the history of the Civil War in Russia, it should be noted that the bourgeois-landlord political organizations sought to arm the "white movement" with a political program based primarily on the "patriotic idea" of "state national revival." This "universal" idea, as conceived by the ideologists and politicians of the counter-revolution, was to successfully compete with the internationalist ideology of Bolshevism, which was declared "anti-patriotic." However, in fact, "white patriotism" very often turned into the egoism of the overthrown classes and meant the restoration of the landowner-bourgeois power in Russia with only a few modifications dictated by historical development and irreversible revolutionary shifts. That is why all attempts to consolidate the counter-revolutionary camp have not led to success.
Summing up the results of the Civil War in Russia, the following points can be noted.
1. Consolidated two counter-revolutionary movements: "democratic counter-revolution" with the slogans of the Constituent Assembly on the return to the gains of the February Revolution (1917) and "white cause (movement)" with the slogans "non-decision of the state system and the elimination of Soviet power", which in turn threatened not only the October, but also the February conquests. Part of this camp (anti-Soviet, anti-Bolshevik) operated under a single SR-White Guard flag; some - only under the White Guard.
2. On the other side of the counter-revolutionary camp stood the Soviet camp, led by the Bolsheviks. Up to a certain point, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and anarchists of various trends acted as "wavering fellow travelers".
3. In both camps, destructive tendencies to seize and hold on to power sharply intensified. Soviet power passed over to "war communism", to which the counter-revolution tried to oppose the "all-Russian power" of the Kadet-Socialist-Revolutionary directory.
4. If the real alternative to the political struggle in 1917 was expressed as "Lenin and Kornilov", then during the Civil War it was already expressed as "Lenin and Kolchak" (Agelov E. Kolchak or Lenin? To you, soldiers, peasants and workers! Rostov n / a, 1919). By the way, this is how the question was posed in the right-wing Socialist-Revolutionary leaflets.
5. Finally, the fighting parties clearly understood that the struggle could only have a fatal outcome for one of them. That is why the Civil War in Russia became a great tragedy for all its sides, camps, parties and movements. The victory of Soviet power did not become the final victory of the revolutionary forces of Russia in its Civil War. The final consolidation of Russian society has not been achieved even now, almost 80 years after the outbreak of the Civil War in Russia.
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In May 1918, the famous uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps began, which put an end to Soviet power in the vast expanses of the Far East, Siberia, the Urals and the Volga region for a long time. Almost simultaneously, in April 1918, the Japanese landed troops in Vladivostok, which dramatically changed the military-strategic, political situation in the eastern part of Russia. The British and French governments decided to use the Czechoslovaks as a fighting nucleus for organizing a counter-revolutionary Eastern Front. The soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps were provoked by malicious agitation about the alleged extradition of them to Germany and Austria-Hungary as former prisoners of war. There were clashes between former Austro-German prisoners who were being taken to the west and Czechoslovak legionnaires moving to the east.
Leon Trotsky again acted as a provocateur, ordering the disarmament and arrest of the legionnaires. On May 25, People's Commissar for Military Affairs Trotsky sent a telegram "to all Soviet deputies along the line from Penza to Omsk": "All railway councils are obliged, under pain of heavy responsibility, to disarm the Czechoslovaks. Every Czechoslovak who is found armed on the railway lines must be shot on the spot; each echelon in which there is at least one armed person must be unloaded from the wagons and imprisoned in a prisoner of war camp. Local military commissariats undertake to immediately carry out this order, any delay will be tantamount to treason and will bring down severe punishment on the guilty. At the same time, I am sending reliable forces to the rear of the Czechoslovak echelons, who are instructed to teach the disobedient a lesson. With honest Czechoslovaks who will surrender and submit to Soviet power, do as with brothers and give them all possible support. All railroad workers are informed that not a single wagon with Czechoslovaks should move east.
For their part, the leaders of the corps in the person of Chechek, Gaida and Woitsekhovsky quite consciously played their game, acting on the orders of the French mission, to which they telegraphed in advance that they were ready to march. Having worked out their plan of action and coordinated it in time, the Czechoslovaks began the operation. Thus, the provocation was well prepared and it was a success. The conflict, which could have been resolved through negotiations, escalated into a large-scale armed confrontation. And the Czechoslovak Corps for that time was a serious force (30-40 thousand fighters), whites and reds fought in small detachments and "echelons" - several hundred and thousands of fighters.
On May 25, Gaida and his troops mutinied in Siberia, capturing Novonikolaevsk. On May 26, Voitsekhovsky captured Chelyabinsk, and on May 28, after a battle with local Soviet garrisons, Chechek's echelons occupied Penza and Syzran. The Penza (8,000 fighters) and Chelyabinsk (8,750 fighters) groups of Czechs initially showed a desire to continue moving east. On June 7, Voitsekhovsky's group, after a series of clashes with the Reds, occupied Omsk. On June 10, she connected with the echelons of the Gaida. The Penza group headed for Samara, which they captured on June 8 after a minor battle. By the beginning of June 1918, all the forces of the Czechoslovaks, including the local White Guards, were concentrated in four groups: 1) under the command of Chechek (the former Penza group), consisting of 5,000 soldiers, in the Syzran-Samara region; 2) under the command of Voitsekhovsky, consisting of 8000 people - in the Chelyabinsk region; 3) under the command of Gaida (Sibirskaya) consisting of 4000 people - in the Omsk - Novonikolaevsk region; under the command of Diterikhs (Vladivostokskaya), consisting of 14,000 people, was scattered in space east of Lake Baikal, heading for Vladivostok. The headquarters of the corps and the Czech National Council were in Omsk.
Czechoslovak machine gunners
The eastern group of Czechoslovaks under General Dieterichs at first remained passive. All her efforts were aimed at successfully concentrating in the Vladivostok region, for which she negotiated with local authorities with a request for assistance in moving the trains. On July 6, legionnaires concentrated in Vladivostok and captured the city. On July 7, the Czechs occupied Nikolsk-Ussuriysky. Immediately after the uprising of the Czechs, by decision of the supreme meeting of the allies, the 12th Japanese division landed in Vladivostok, followed by the Americans, the British and the French (with the participation of small units of other countries). The Allies took over the protection of the Vladivostok region, and with their actions to the north and towards Harbin, they provided the rear of the Czechoslovaks, who moved back west to join the Siberian group of Gaida. On the way, in Manchuria, the Diterichs group joined up with the detachments of Horvath and Kalmykov, and in the area of st. Tin in August established contact with the Gaida detachment and Semenov. The Red detachments in the Far East were partially disarmed and taken prisoner, but some went into the taiga and mountains, blowing up bridges and waging a partisan struggle.
At the same time, the process of creating white "governments" and troops begins. On June 8, the first such “government” was created in Samara - the Committee of Members of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly (Komuch). It included five Social Revolutionaries who did not recognize the January decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and ended up in Samara at that time: Vladimir Volsky, who became chairman of the committee, Ivan Brushvit, Prokopy Klimushkin, Boris Fortunatov and Ivan Nesterov. The Committee, on behalf of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, proclaimed itself the temporary supreme power in the country until a new assembly was convened. The former head of the Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky, also tried to join the activities of the government, Komuch, but the Central Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party opposed it, and Kerensky left Russia forever. To fight the Bolsheviks, the formation of its own army, called the "People's", began. Already on June 9, the 1st Samara volunteer squad of 350 people was formed. The commander of the squad was Lieutenant Colonel of the General Staff Vladimir Kappel. On June 11, Kappel's detachment captured the city of Syzran, on June 12 they took Stavropol-on-Volga (now Togliatti).
Komuch of the first composition - I. M. Brushvit, P. D. Klimushkin, B. K. Fortunatov, V. K. Volsky (chairman) and I. P. Nesterov
On June 10, in Omsk, after the connection of the Chelyabinsk and Siberian Czech groups, a meeting of the Czech command with representatives of the new Siberian white government was held. The meeting adopted a plan to fight the Bolsheviks. The overall leadership of the Czechoslovak troops was entrusted to the corps commander, Russian General Vladimir Shokorov. All forces were divided into three groups. The first - Western, under the command of Colonel Voitsekhovsky, was supposed to advance through the Urals to Zlatoust - Ufa - Samara and connect with the Penza Chechek group, which remained in the Volga region. Then they were to develop their operations against Yekaterinburg from the southwest. The second group, under the command of Syrovoy, was to advance along the Tyumen railway in the direction of Yekaterinburg, in order to divert as many Soviet troops as possible and facilitate the advance of the Western group (merged with the Penza group of Chechek), and then take Yekaterinburg together with it.
On June 19, the Czechoslovaks captured Krasnoyarsk. In this they were actively assisted by local anti-Bolshevik forces, which were formed from volunteers (mostly officers). By mid-June, local White Guard volunteers managed to form in the cities occupied by the Czechoslovaks an entire so-called West Siberian army under the command of Colonel Alexei Grishin-Almazov. By June 20, there were already 2,800 fighters of this "army" in Krasnoyarsk. On June 22, in the area of the Tulun station, the Red detachments from Transbaikalia attacked the Whites and Czechs. The Czechoslovaks and the Whites retreated to the Nizhneudinsk region, where they managed to fortify themselves in the city. On June 25, the Reds launched an attack on Nizhneudinsk early in the morning. The Whites and the Czechs repelled this attack and put the Reds to flight. On June 26, the Whites managed to break into the red rear and destroy 400 inexperienced Red Guard miners there, who were sleeping without guards posted. By July 1, the Whites and Czechoslovaks pushed the Reds back to the Zima station. The Reds retreated towards Irkutsk, which was still one of their few strongholds in Siberia.
On June 23, in Omsk, occupied by the Czechs, the creation of a new Provisional Siberian Government was announced to replace the “Socialist-Revolutionary”, which was formed in Tomsk in underground conditions back in February, but had no real power anywhere and was saved in Chinese Harbin. The well-known lawyer and journalist Pyotr Vologodsky became the chairman of the new Siberian government. The "Socialist-Revolutionary" government of Peter Derber refused to recognize this "coup" and still considered only itself as a legitimate power in Siberia. Komuch announced the mobilization of citizens born in 1897-1898 to serve in his People's Army. In a short time, the Komuch army increased to five regiments. Its most combat-ready core was the volunteer Separate Rifle Brigade under the command of Colonel Kappel ("Kappel").
On July 3, the Orenburg Cossacks entered the city of Orenburg. The power of the Bolsheviks was eliminated throughout the Orenburg province. On July 5, the Czechs of Chechek and the Whites captured Ufa. Having completed the initial task of capturing the Siberian railway, the Czechs continued operations to capture the entire Ural region, advancing with the main forces on Yekaterinburg, and less significant - to the south, towards Troitsk and Orenburg. On July 15, 1918, the second meeting of the Czechoslovak command with the white governments took place in the city of Chelyabinsk. At this meeting, an agreement was reached on joint military operations of the forces of these governments with the corps. Thus, the Soviet republic found itself in the ring of fronts.
Red Eastern Front
The performance of the Czechoslovaks found Soviet Russia at the moment of the formation of its armed forces. In addition, the main forces were connected on the Don Front and the Caucasus and on the line with the Austro-German troops. Therefore, Moscow could not immediately allocate large forces to fight the Czechoslovak Corps. In addition, a number of factors contributed to the rapid success and spread of the Czechoslovaks. Thus, the influence of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks was strong in the region. The advanced activists of the Bolsheviks were weakened by the allocation of personnel to fight the counter-revolution on other fronts. Often the policy of the Bolsheviks contributed to the growth of popular discontent, and people supported the Whites and Czechs, as they approached, or remained neutral. The approach of the Czechs gave rise to a series of unrest and uprisings prepared by the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. So, on June 11, Barnaul rebelled. The Reds managed to suppress the uprising, but this diverted their forces from opposing the Czechoslovaks and the Whites, who were advancing towards Barnaul from the northwest, from Novonikolaevsk (now Novosibirsk). By June 14, the Whites and Czechoslovaks surrounded the city and began to enter it from all directions. The Reds were partly captured and executed, partly fled. On June 13, 1918, an uprising broke out among the workers of the Upper Nevyansk and Rudyansk factories. On June 13-14, there were battles between the Red Army and local anti-Bolshevik forces that raised an uprising in Irkutsk. There was an uprising in Tyumen. During the offensive of the Czechoslovaks on Kyshtym, the workers of the Polevsky and Seversky factories arrested their councils. Uprisings also took place at Kusinsky, Votkinsky, Izhevsk and other factories.
The Soviet government realized that a large and strong army could not be created on a voluntary basis. By the end of April 1918, the size of the army could only be brought up to 196 thousand people, after which the flow of volunteers began to decline. Almost until the summer of 1918, the Red Army was in its infancy. The performance of the Czechoslovak Corps showed that only a regular army could resist a strong enemy. The Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee “On forced recruitment into the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army” dated May 29, 1918 announced the general mobilization of workers and the poorest peasants in 51 districts of the Volga, Ural and West Siberian military districts, as well as workers of Petrograd and Moscow. The mobilization of communists to the front began. On June 26, 1918, the military people's commissar Trotsky sent a proposal to the Council of People's Commissars on the establishment of universal conscription of the working people. In Soviet Russia, a course has been taken to build an army on traditional principles: unity of command, the restoration of the death penalty, mobilization, the restoration of insignia, uniform uniforms and military parades.
The Red Army in the east of the country during the first period of confrontation consisted of detachments and squads, often numbering 10-20 fighters. For example, on June 1, 1918, there were 13 such detachments in positions near Mias, the total number of which did not exceed 1105 bayonets, 22 sabers with 9 machine guns. Some detachments consisted of conscious and selfless workers, but with little combat experience. Others were pure "guerrilla". As a result, the Reds initially could not successfully resist the Czechoslovak Corps (a regular formation with experience in the World War) and the Whites, who had experienced officer cadres. The Czechs and Whites, even with strong resistance, quickly found the "weak link" and broke the enemy's defense.
On June 13, 1918, Reingold Berzin formed the North Ural-Siberian Front. In June, the "front" was in the Yekaterinburg-Chelyabinsk region, and consisted of about 2,500 people with 36 machine guns and 3 artillery platoons. The northern Ural-Siberian front lasted only one day. The central command also took steps to stabilize the situation in the east of the country. An order was issued to organize a unified control of the red Eastern Front, headed by Mikhail Muravyov, who had previously commanded Soviet troops in Ukraine and tried to stop the Romanian intervention, with the rank of commander-in-chief.
By the time of its transformation into the 3rd Army, the Northern Ural-Siberian Front provided: Yekaterinburg - Chelyabinsk direction with forces of 1800 bayonets, 11 machine guns, 3 guns, 30 sabers and 3 armored cars. In the Shadrinsk direction, he had forces in 1382 bayonets, 28 machine guns, 10 sabers and 1 armored car. In the Tyumen region (Omsk direction) there were 1400 bayonets, 21 machine guns, 107 sabers. The reserve of these forces could be 2,000 workers in Tyumen. The total command reserve did not exceed 380 bayonets, 150 cavalry and 2 batteries. Thus, the formation of four red armies has been outlined: the 1st - on the Simbirsk, Syzran and Samara directions (in the Simbirsk - Syzran - Samara - Penza region), the 2nd - on the Orenburg-Ufa front, the 3rd - on the Chelyabinsk-Yekaterinburg direction (in the region of Perm - Yekaterinburg - Chelyabinsk) and the Special Army in the Saratov-Ural direction (in the region of Saratov-Urbakh). The front headquarters is located in Kazan.
As a result, the Reds managed to detain the enemy near Yekaterinburg. The formation of the red Eastern Front took place. And the performance of the Czechoslovaks allowed the enemies of Russia (internal and external) to tear away from the Soviet republic the vast territories of the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East. It helped whites form their governments and armies. Having seized the strategic initiative, the Czechs and Whites put the Soviet government in an extremely difficult position. Soviet Russia found itself in the ring of fronts. The second stage of the Civil War began, more large-scale and bloody.
In the summer of 1918, members of the Constituent Assembly dispersed by the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and Right Socialist-Revolutionaries in Samara created a Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly, which formed Komuch government.
In Yekaterinburg was created Ural Regional Government. In Tomsk was formed Provisional Siberian Government. These governments were headed by the Mensheviks and Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, who proclaimed themselves "democratic counter-revolution." Under the slogans "Power not to the Soviets, but to the Constituent Assembly", "Liquidation of the Brest Peace", the Social Revolutionary-Menshevik governments fought the Bolsheviks. With the support of the White Czechs, on August 6, 1918, the Komuch army took Kazan, hoping to cross the Volga and go to Moscow.
In June 1918, the Soviet government created Eastern front commanded by I.I. Vatsetis, and since 1919 S.S. Kamenev. The front included 5 armies urgently formed by the Bolsheviks.
The first concentration camps were set up in Murom, Arzamas, and Sviyazhsk. On September 2, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee declared the Soviet Republic a military camp.
Fighting began in early September. The offensive of the Komuch government troops was stopped. By October, Kazan, Simbirsk, Syzran, and Samara were liberated. The Czechs retreated to the Urals.
In September 1918, a meeting of representatives of all anti-Bolshevik governments was held in Ufa, where it was decided to create a single government, Ufa directory. The offensive of the Red Army forced the directory to move to Omsk in October 1918, where Admiral A.V. Kolchak was appointed Minister of War (fought in Port Arthur, commanded a mine division, from July 1916 commander of the Black Sea Fleet.)
On the night of November 17-18, 1918, Kolchak staged a coup, arrested members of the directory and accepted the title of Supreme Ruler of Russia. Having come to power, the Kolchak government declared illegal all the decrees of the Soviet government. The solution of the agrarian question was postponed until the end of the Civil War. The lands that the peasantry received during the years of the revolution were not legally assigned to them. The peasantry faced a choice between bad and very bad. Having received the land from the hands of the Soviet power, the peasantry, despite the food dictatorship established by the Bolsheviks, eventually supported the Soviet power. The break with the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries also weakened the White movement. As the Socialist-Revolutionary B.V. Savinkov later wrote: “The valiant generals did not understand that an idea cannot be defeated with bayonets, that an idea must also be opposed to an idea ...”. Kolchak decided to resolve all issues with the help of bayonets.
In the spring of 1919, Kolchak carried out a general mobilization, putting 400 thousand people under arms. March - April 1919 having captured the cities of Sarapul, Izhevsk, Ufa, Bugulma, Belebey, Sterlitamak, Kolchak's troops approached Kazan and Simbirsk. A real threat to the existence of the Soviet state was created.
Chairman "Council of Labor and Defense" V.I. Lenin demanded that decisive measures be taken to fight Kolchak. The slogan "Everything to fight against Kolchak" was put forward. Reinforcements were sent to the eastern front. was appointed commander of the front M.V. Frunze.
The counteroffensive of the Red Army began on April 28, 1919. M.V. Frunze defeated the Kolchakites near Samara and in June took Ufa. Yekaterinburg was liberated on July 14, and Omsk, the capital of Kolchak, was liberated in November. Kolchak's government moved to Irkutsk. On December 24, 1919, the anti-Kolchak uprising began. The Czechs declared their neutrality. In early January, Kolchak was extradited by the Czechs to the leaders of the uprising. In February 1920, by the verdict of the Irkutsk Revolutionary Committee, Kolchak was shot.
Petrograd Front 1918-1919
At the end of 1918 in Finland was created Russian political committee headed by General N.N. Yudenich. AT first half of May 1919 year, in the midst of the battles on the Eastern Front against Kolchak, General Yudenich launched an offensive against Petrograd, creating a real threat to the city. Simultaneously with the offensive of the Whites, uprisings of the Red Army broke out in the forts "White Horse", "Red Hill" and "Obruchev". Having suppressed the uprising, the Red Army went on the offensive and pushed Yudenich's units back into Estonian territory.
In October 1919, in the midst of the fight against Denikin, General Yudenich tried to capture Petersburg for the second time, but was again driven back to Estonia, where his troops were interned.
Northern Front 1918-1919
After the landing in March 1918 of the British landing in the port of Murmansk, Soviet power was overthrown. The troops of the White Guards in the North were commanded by General Miller. After the withdrawal of foreign troops from the North of the country, the Red Army stepped up military operations. The Northern Front was created. In February 1920, the Red Army went on the offensive and liberated Arkhangelsk. In March 1920, Murmansk was liberated. The north of the country was cleared of the Whites.
Southern Front 1918-1920
In the spring of 1918, an uprising of the Cossacks began. It coincided with the advance of the German troops. On April 21, 1918, the Don government was created, which began to create the Don Army. On May 16, the Don Salvation Circle elected General Krasnov as ataman of the Don Cossacks. Krasnov carried out mass mobilization. By mid-July, the size of the Don army reached 45 thousand people. Relying on the support of Germany, Krasnov declared independence Regions of the Great Don Army. In mid-August, Krasnov, together with the German troops, launched an offensive.
From the troops located in the region of Voronezh, Tsaritsyn and the North Caucasus In September 1918, the Southern Front was created by the Bolsheviks. In November 1918, Krasnov broke through the defenses of the Southern Front. Fierce fighting unfolded in the Tsaritsyno direction. Only by December did the Red Army manage to stop the advance of the Cossack troops.
At the same time the second trip to the Kuban began Denikin. The volunteer army focused on the Entente and did not interact with Krasnov's pro-German detachments.
After the end of the First World War in November 1918, the Entente countries insisted on the unification of all anti-Bolshevik forces under the leadership of Denikin. Denikin's government in March 1919 published its draft land reform, which did not arouse the approval of the peasantry. The final decision on this issue was postponed until the complete victory over the Bolsheviks. In fact, all land acquisitions of peasants received on the basis of the Decree on Land, adopted by the Soviet government, were canceled. Under these conditions, the peasants supported the Soviet government. Denikin's administration began to return their land to the landowners. They demanded a third of the total harvest from the occupied lands from the peasants.
Denikin, like Kolchak, decided to resolve all issues by military means. In the midst of fierce fighting on the Eastern Front, the Volunteer Army went on the offensive on the Southern Front.
In May - June 1919, Denikin went on the offensive along the entire front captured the Donbass, part of Ukraine, Belgorod, Tsaritsyn. On July 3, 1919, Denikin accepted the Moscow Directive. In July 1919, the Volunteer Army launched an offensive against Moscow. Denikin's troops took Kursk, Orel, Voronezh.
Mobilization began under the slogan "Everything to fight Denikin." He was appointed Commander of the Southern Front A.I. Egorov. In October 1919, the Red Army went on the offensive. The 1st Cavalry Army of S.M. Budyonny played an important role. The offensive was supported by the peasant insurrectionary movement led by N.I. Makhno, who opened a “second front” against Denikin. By the autumn of 1919, the Volunteer Army was divided by the Red offensive into two parts - Crimean and North Caucasian.
In February - March 1920, the North Caucasian group of whites was finally defeated. The volunteer army ceased to exist.
The remnants of the volunteer army concentrated in the Crimea. On April 4, 1920, Denikin announced General Wrangel as his successor and left the country. General P.N. Wrangel became the new commander-in-chief of the armed forces of southern Russia. (April 1920)
War with Poland in 1920
After the October Revolution, the Soviet government recognized the independence of Poland and Finland. The leadership of Poland pursued an anti-Soviet policy from the very beginning. The leader of Poland, the former general of the tsarist army, J. Pilsudsky, considered it possible to increase the territory of Poland at the expense of Belarus and Ukraine. Poland also claimed part of the Lithuanian territories. After the defeat of Germany, Pilsudski clearly set a course for allied relations with the Entente countries. With the support of foreign instructors, the Polish army is being created. (one of the instructors was the future President of France, Captain Charles de Gaulle)
In April 1920, J. Pilsudsky ordered an offensive against Kyiv, announcing this step as a desire to help the Ukrainian people in the fight against the Soviets.
On the night of May 7, Kyiv was taken by the Poles. The calculations of the Polish military for cooperation with the Ukrainian people turned out to be futile. The Ukrainians perceived the campaign of the Polish troops as an occupation.
All the forces of the Red Army, united in Western and Southwestern fronts. They were commanded by M.N. Tukhachevsky and A.I. Egorov.
On June 12, Kyiv was liberated. The Red Army reached the borders of Poland. “Through the corpse of white Poland lies the path to a world fire,” Tukhachevsky wrote in an order to the troops. However, near Warsaw, the Red Army was defeated. October 12, 1920 in Riga a peace treaty was signed Western Ukraine and Belarus passed to Poland. Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, remained part of Poland.
Southern front in 1920
In the midst of hostilities against Poland, the Crimean white group "Russian Army", under the command of Baron Wrangel, escaped from the Crimea and launched an attack on the Donbass. Having made peace with Poland, the Soviet command concentrated significant forces in the southern direction. The command of the Southern Front was entrusted to M.V. Frunze. After fierce fighting in Northern Tavria, the Red Army managed to push the Wrangel troops back to the Crimea.
In early November 1920, the Red Army launched an assault on the fortifications. Perekop and Chongar. At the same time, units of the Red Army crossed Sivash bay. The position of the remnants of the Volunteer Army became hopeless. About 100 thousand people fled on the ships of the Black Sea Fleet. The civil war in the central part of Russia ended in the complete defeat of the white movement. Only pockets of resistance to Soviet power remained on the outskirts.
In the summer of 1918, the Civil War entered a new stage - front-line. It began with a speech by the Czechoslovak Corps. The corps consisted of captured Czechs and Slovaks of the Austro-Hungarian army. As early as the end of 1916, they expressed their desire to participate in hostilities on the side of the Entente. In January 1918, the leadership of the corps proclaimed itself part of the Czechoslovak army, which was under the command of the commander-in-chief of the French troops. An agreement was concluded between Russia and France on the transfer of Czechoslovaks to the Western Front. They were supposed to follow along the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok, board ships and sail to Europe.
At the end of May 1918, military trains (more than 45 thousand people) stretched from the Rtishchevo station (in the Penza region) to Vladivostok for 7 thousand km. There was a rumor that the local Soviets were ordered to disarm the corps and extradite the Czechoslovaks as prisoners of war to Austria-Hungary and Germany. The command decided not to hand over the weapons and, if necessary, fight their way to Vladivostok. On May 25, the commander of the Czechoslovaks R. Gaida, intercepting Trotsky's order confirming the disarmament of the corps, ordered to occupy the stations where they were. In a relatively short time, with the help of the Czechoslovaks, Soviet power was overthrown in the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East.
"Democratic Counter-Revolution". Eastern front
In the summer of 1918, local governments were established in the territories liberated by the Czechoslovaks from the Bolsheviks. In Samara - the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch), in Yekaterinburg - the Ural Regional Government, in Tomsk - the Provisional Siberian Government. The Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks stood at the head of the new organs of power. They proclaimed themselves a "democratic counter-revolution", or a "third force", equally distant from both Reds and Whites. The slogans of the Social Revolutionary-Menshevik governments were "Power not to the Soviets, but to the Constituent Assembly!", "Liquidation of the Brest peace!". Part of the population supported them. With the support of the Czechoslovaks, the People's Army of Kom-uch took Kazan on August 6, hoping to cross the Volga and move on Moscow.
In June 1918, the Soviet government adopted a resolution on the creation of the Eastern Front. It included five armies formed in the shortest possible time. The first concentration camps were set up in Murom, Arzamas, and Sviyazhsk. Between the front and the rear, special barrage detachments were formed to fight deserters. On September 2, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee declared the Soviet Republic a military camp.
In early September, in bloody battles, the Red Army managed to stop the enemy and go on the offensive. In September - early October, she liberated Kazan, Simbirsk, Syzran and Samara. Czechoslovak troops retreated to the Urals.
In September 1918, a meeting of representatives of all anti-Bolshevik governments was held in Ufa. A single government was formed on it - the Ufa directory, in which the Socialist-Revolutionaries played the main role.
The offensive of the Red Army forced the Ufa directory to move to Omsk in October. Admiral A. V. Kolchak was invited to the post of Minister of War.
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Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak(1874-1920) was born into the family of a naval artillery officer. In 1894 he graduated from the naval cadet corps as a second student. Participated in polar expeditions. One of the largest explorers of the Arctic. During the Russo-Japanese War he fought in Port Arthur. He was wounded and taken prisoner. In early September 1915 he was appointed commander of a mine division. For the development and implementation of the landing operation on the Riga coast, he received the highest military award - the St. George Cross. In July 1916 he was appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet with promotion to vice admiral. During the February events of 1917, he swore allegiance to the Provisional Government, hoping that the revolution would stir up the patriotic feelings of the people and make it possible to end the war victoriously. In the first weeks of the revolution, he managed to establish contact with the Sevastopol Soviet of Workers' Deputies and the sailors' committee and prevent the sailors from massacring officers. However, in early June 1917, revolutionary unrest also captured the Black Sea Fleet. The sailors' committees decided to disarm the officers. Kolchak resigned as commander of the fleet. At the end of July 1917, he left for the USA to share his experience in organizing the mine business and fighting submarines. The October Revolution caught him on his way back to Russia. The admiral took the signing of the Brest peace treaty as a personal catastrophe. Representatives of the British mission in Russia set him the task of creating a united anti-Bolshevik front in the east. In November, he agreed to take the post of Minister of War and Navy in the government of the Directory. |
The Social Revolutionary leaders of the Directory hoped that Kolchak's popularity would allow him to unite the disparate military formations that acted against the Soviet regime in the Urals and Siberia. But the officers did not want to cooperate with the socialists. On the night of November 17-18, 1918, a group of officers of the Cossack units stationed in Omsk arrested the socialists - members of the Directory. All power was offered to Kolchak. He accepted the title of Supreme Ruler of Russia.
In the spring of 1919, Kolchak, having carried out a general mobilization and putting 400 thousand people under arms, went on the offensive. In March-April, his armies captured Sarapul, Izhevsk, Ufa, Sterlitamak. The advanced units were located several tens of kilometers from Kazan, Samara and Simbirsk. Success allowed the Whites to set a new task - a march on Moscow.
Lenin demanded the adoption of emergency measures to organize a rebuff to the Kolchakists.
The counteroffensive of the Red Army began on April 28, 1919. The troops under the command of M.V. Frunze in the battles near Samara defeated the elite Kolchak units and took Ufa in June. On July 14, Yekaterinburg was liberated. In November 1919, the capital of Kolchak, Omsk, fell.
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Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze (1885-1925) was born into the family of a military paramedic. In 1904 he entered the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. For participation in the revolutionary movement he was expelled from the institute, expelled from the capital. Frunze joined the RSDLP and became a professional revolutionary. In May 1905, he became one of the leaders of the Ivanovo-Voznesenskaya strike and the first Soviet of Workers' Deputies in Russia. In 1909 he was sentenced to death, which was commuted to hard labor. In 1915 he escaped from hard labor. After February 1917 - head of the people's militia in Minsk, member of the Soldiers' Committee of the Western Front, chairman of the Council of Peasants' Deputies of Minsk and Vilna provinces. In 1918 - Chairman of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk provincial committee of the RCP (b) and at the same time chairman of the provincial executive committee. In December 1918 he was appointed commander of the 4th Army of the Eastern Front. From March 1919 - Commander of the Southern Group of Forces of the Eastern Front. In July 1919, Frunze was appointed commander of the Eastern Front. |
Under the blows of the Red Army, the Kolchak government was forced to move to Irkutsk. On December 24, 1919, an anti-Kolchak uprising broke out in Irkutsk. Allied troops and the remaining Czechoslovak detachments declared their neutrality. In early January 1920, the Czechoslovaks handed over A. V. Kolchak to the leaders of the uprising. In February 1920 he was shot.
Red terror
In the summer of 1918, the Social Revolutionaries carried out a series of terrorist acts against the leaders of the Bolsheviks. On August 30, 1918, Lenin was seriously wounded in Moscow, and the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, MS Uritsky, was killed in Petrograd. The Soviet government adopted a policy of intimidation of the population - the Red Terror. The terror was massive. Only in response to the assassination attempt on Lenin, the Petrograd Cheka shot, according to official reports, 500 hostages.
One of the sinister pages of the Red Terror was the execution of the family of Nicholas II. The October Revolution found the former Russian emperor and his family in Tobolsk. At the end of April 1918, the former royal family was transferred to Yekaterinburg and settled in a house that had previously belonged to the merchant Ipatiev. On July 16, 1918, apparently in agreement with the Council of People's Commissars, the Ural Regional Council decided to execute Nikolai Romanov and his family members. On the night of July 17, a bloody tragedy broke out in the basement of the house. Together with Nikolai, his wife, five children and servants, 11 in all, were shot. On July 13, the tsar's brother Mikhail was killed in Perm. On July 18, 18 members of the imperial family were shot and thrown into a mine in Alapaevsk.
southern front
The South of Russia became the second center of resistance to Soviet power. In the spring of 1918, the Don was filled with rumors about the upcoming equalizing redistribution of land. The Cossacks murmured. Next came the order to surrender weapons and requisition of bread. An uprising broke out. It coincided with the arrival of the Germans on the Don. The Cossack leaders entered into negotiations with a recent enemy. On April 21, the Provisional Don Government was created, which began the formation of the Don Army. On May 16, the Cossack circle - the Don Salvation Circle - elected General P. N. Krasnov the ataman of the Don Army, endowing him with almost dictatorial powers. Relying on German support, Krasnov declared the state independence of the Don Cossacks region.
Ataman, using cruel methods, carried out mass mobilizations, bringing the size of the Don Army to 45 thousand people by mid-July 1918. Weapons were supplied in excess by Germany. By mid-August, Krasnov's units occupied the entire Don region and, together with the German troops, launched military operations against the Red Army.
From the troops located in the region of Voronezh, Tsaritsyn and the North Caucasus, the Soviet government created in September 1918 the Southern Front. Fierce fighting took place in the area of Tsaritsyn. In November 1918, Krasnov's Don Army broke through the Southern Front of the Red Army, defeated it, and began to move north. At the cost of incredible efforts in December 1918, the Red Army managed to stop the advance of the Cossack troops.
At the same time, Denikin's Volunteer Army began its second campaign against the Kuban. "Volunteers" focused on the Entente and tried not to interact with Krasnov's pro-German detachments.
Meanwhile, the foreign policy situation has changed dramatically. At the beginning of November 1918, the World War ended with the defeat of Germany and its allies. Under pressure and with the active help of the Entente countries, at the end of 1918, all the anti-Bolshevik Armed Forces of the South of Russia were united under the command of Denikin. His army in May-June 1919 went on the offensive along the entire front, captured the Donbass, part of Ukraine, Belgorod, Tsaritsyn. In July, an offensive began on Moscow, the Whites occupied Kursk, Orel, Voronezh.
Rice. Soldiers of the 1st Cavalry Army of S. M. Budyonny
On Soviet territory, another wave of mobilization of forces and means began under the motto "Everyone to fight Denikin!". In October 1919, the Red Army launched a counteroffensive. The 1st Cavalry Army of S. M. Budyonny played a major role in changing the situation at the front.
The rapid advance of the Reds in the fall of 1919 divided the Volunteer Army into two parts - Crimean and North Caucasian. In February-March 1920, its main forces in the North Caucasus were defeated, and the Volunteer Army ceased to exist. At the beginning of April 1920, General P. N. Wrangel was appointed commander-in-chief of the troops in the Crimea.
Campaign to Petrograd
At a time when the Red Army was winning decisive victories over the Kolchak troops, a serious threat arose to Petrograd. Russian emigrants found shelter in Finland and Estonia, among them about 2.5 thousand officers of the tsarist army. They created a Russian political committee headed by General N. N. Yudenich. With the consent of the Finnish, and then the Estonian authorities, he began to form the White Guard army.
In the first half of May 1919, Yudenich launched an offensive against Petrograd. Having broken through the front of the Red Army between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Peipsi, his troops created a real threat to the city. Anti-Bolshevik demonstrations by the Red Army broke out in the forts of Krasnaya Gorka, Gray Horse, and Obruchev. Not only the regular units of the Red Army, but also the naval artillery of the Baltic Fleet were used against the rebels. Having suppressed these uprisings, the Reds went on the offensive and pushed back Yudenich's units. Yudenich's second attack on Petrograd in October 1919 also ended in failure. His troops were thrown back into Estonian territory.
In February 1920, the Red Army liberated Arkhangelsk, and in March, Murmansk.
Intervention
The civil war in Russia from the very beginning was complicated by the intervention of foreign states in it. In December 1917, Romania occupied Bessarabia. The government of the Central Council proclaimed the independence of Ukraine and in March 1918 returned to Kyiv together with the Austro-German troops, which occupied almost all of Ukraine. German troops invaded the Orel, Kursk, Voronezh provinces, captured the Crimea, Rostov and crossed the Don. In April 1918, Turkish troops moved deep into the Transcaucasus. In May, a German corps also landed in Georgia.
From the end of 1917, British, American and Japanese warships began to arrive at Russian ports in the North and the Far East, ostensibly to protect these ports from possible German aggression. At first, the Soviet government took this calmly and even agreed to accept aid from the Entente countries in the form of food and weapons. But after the conclusion of the Brest Peace, the military presence of the Entente became a direct threat to Soviet power. But it was too late. On March 6, 1918, an English landing force landed in the port of Murmansk. At a meeting of the heads of government of the Entente countries, it was decided not to recognize the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and to interfere in the internal affairs of Russia.
In April 1918, Japanese paratroopers landed in Vladivostok. They were joined by British, American, French and other troops. The governments of the Entente countries did not declare war on Soviet Russia; moreover, they covered themselves with the idea of fulfilling "allied duty". Lenin regarded these actions as an intervention and called for an armed rebuff to the aggressors.
Since the autumn of 1918, after the defeat of Germany, the military presence of the Entente countries in Russia has become more widespread. In January 1919, troops were landed in Odessa, Crimea, Baku, Batumi and the number of troops in the North and the Far East was increased. The dissatisfaction of the personnel of the expeditionary forces, for whom the war dragged on for an indefinite period, forced the evacuation of the Black Sea and Caspian landing forces in the spring of 1919. The British left Arkhangelsk and Murmansk in the autumn of 1919. In 1920, British and American units were evacuated from the Far East. Only Japanese troops remained there until October 1922.
Large-scale intervention did not take place primarily because the governments of Europe and the United States were afraid of the movement of their peoples in support of the Russian revolution. Revolutions broke out in Germany and Austria-Hungary, under the pressure of which these empires collapsed.
War with Poland. The defeat of Wrangel
The main event of 1920 was the war between the Soviet republics and Poland. In April 1920, the head of Poland, J. Pilsudski, ordered an attack on Kyiv. It was officially announced that it was about helping the Ukrainian people to eliminate the illegal Soviet power and restore the independence of Ukraine. On the night of May 7, Kyiv was taken. However, the population of Ukraine perceived the intervention of the Poles as an occupation. The Bolsheviks, in the face of external danger, managed to rally the various sections of society.
Almost all the forces of the Red Army were thrown against Poland, united in the Western and Southwestern fronts. They were commanded by former officers of the tsarist army M. N. Tukhachevsky and A. I. Egorov. On June 12, Kyiv was liberated. The offensive developed rapidly. Some of the Bolshevik leaders began to hope for the success of the revolution in Western Europe. In an order on the Western Front, Tukhachevsky wrote: “Through the corpse of white Poland lies the path to a world conflagration. On bayonets, let us bring happiness and peace to working humanity. Forward to the West! However, the Red Army, which entered Polish territory, met a fierce rebuff from the enemy, who received great help from the Entente.
Due to the inconsistency in the actions of the Red Army formations, the Tukhachevsky front was defeated. Failure befell the South-Western Front. On October 12, 1920, preliminary conditions were concluded in Riga, and on March 18, 1921, a peace treaty with Poland was signed there. On it, the territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus passed to it.
Having ended the war with Poland, the Soviet command concentrated all the power of the Red Army to fight the last major White Guard center - the army of General Wrangel. The troops of the Southern Front under the command of M.V. Frunze in early November 1920 stormed the impregnable, as it was believed, positions on Perekop and Chongar, forced the Sivash Bay. The last fight between the Reds and the Whites was especially fierce and cruel. The remnants of the once formidable Volunteer Army rushed to the ships concentrated in the Crimean ports. Almost 100 thousand people were forced to leave their homeland.
The armed confrontation between the Whites and the Reds ended in victory for the Reds.
Expanding vocabulary
"Democratic counter-revolution"- the slogan put forward by the Social Revolutionaries after the Bolsheviks came to power, which meant a return to the democratic gains of the February Revolution.
Intervention- violent intervention of one or several states in the internal affairs of other countries and peoples; it can be military (aggression), economic, diplomatic, ideological.
Concentration camp- a place of isolation of prisoners of war, prisoners.
Terror- intimidation using extremely cruel methods, up to the physical destruction of the enemy.
Questions for self-examination
- What program did the SR-Menshevik governments of the Volga region and Siberia put forward? Why couldn't they hold on to power?
- How did events develop on the Eastern Front in 1918-1919? Why did the Red Army manage to defeat Kolchak?
- How did events develop on the Southern Front in 1918-1919?
- What are the goals and features of the intervention of foreign states in the internal affairs of Russia?
- What were the features of the Soviet-Polish war? What are its results?
- The paragraph contains an excerpt from the decision of the Council of People's Commissars on the Red Terror. Read the fragments from the order of the white general S.N. Rozanov: “When occupying villages previously captured by robbers, demand the extradition of their leaders and leaders; if this does not happen, and reliable information about the availability of such is available, shoot the tenth ... Villages, the population of which will meet government troops with weapons, burn; shoot the adult male population without exception ... Take hostages among the population, in the event of an action by fellow villagers directed against government troops, shoot hostages mercilessly. Discuss with your class the statement of a modern historian: “It is immoral to ask what kind of terror is better.”
- Lenin wrote: "We took away its soldiers from the Entente." Explain this statement.