Agnes Murphy

1918: Germans Rout Reds

Soviet policy after revolution was led by the expectation that other nations would shake off the capitalists who were exploiting them, and join Russia in a peaceful Socialist world. As the Russian army streamed back from the front the Bolsheviks were forced to accept the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which they eventually signed on 3 March 1918. However, the Germans had by far the most powerful force in Russia, and soon showed they would serve their own interests without any nicety of scruple. The following General Order comes from the period after 18 February, when the Communist government was still trying to gain time by refusing to sign the Treaty.

1919: Who will win?

Communists held contradictory views on how to administer the Voysko territory. In 1918 the failure to set up any normal system of government was largely responsible for turning almost the whole population against them. In later years, as the Soviet Union was established, it became the practice for the Politburo or the Central Committee to lay down the main lines of policy, and these policies were promulgated through channels of the Communist Party. The various branches of the administration were managed by People’s Commissars (eventually in 1946 changed to the title of Ministers or Deputy Ministers). These latter really exercised the role of officials, carrying out the functions of permanent civil servants, implementing policies which had been decided by the highest organs of the Party.

1919: Red strategy

As long as Germany was at war with the Western Allies, the Kaiser’s government feared that a new Eastern Front might be formed against them. The Volunteer Army was opposed to them in theory, though in practice Denikin tried to avoid open conflict with German units, as he wished to concentrate his efforts on overthrowing the Soviets.

The Kaleidoscope of War

This chapter seeks to give a kaleidoscopic picture of the many and varied aspects of life at the height of the Civil War during the summer and autumn of 1919, as the Bolsheviks gradually moved from the defensive to the offensive and ultimate victory. It is sub-divided into five parts, dealing with different aspects of the fighting.

The Labour Armies of the Soviet Republic

The Russian Civil War was to all intents and purposes over by the end of 1919. On the Eastern Front Kolchak’s capital, Omsk, was taken by the Bolsheviks on 14 November 1919; as his forces retreated eastward the SRs and Mensheviks seized power in Irkutsk on 4 January 1920, and with the help of remnants of the Czechoslovak Legion arrested Kolchak as he tried to pass through the city. By the end of January the local Bolsheviks had persuaded the SRs and Mensheviks to co-operate with them and put Kolchak on trial, but on 6 February he was summarily executed to prevent him being rescued in what seemed, momentarily, to be a White counterattack. The Red Army finally secured Irkutsk on 6 March 1920. On the Southern Front the Red Army had at last discovered cavalry (see Chapter 2), and the Red Cavalry, created over the summer and autumn of 1919, drove Denikin back to the Don and beyond, with Rostov being recovered in January 1920. Although Denikin was able to make a final stand on the Kuban river in March 1920, it was only a temporary reprieve; by April 1920 he and his forces had been evacuated to the Crimea.

The Don Rebellion

In this second collection of documents attention is focused on the cossack rebellion in the Don region of southern Russia in the spring of 1919. This was a crucial episode in the war, since it enabled General A.I. Denikin and his White Volunteer Army to break out of the distant Kuban area to which they had been confined throughout 1918 and advance through the Don and up the Volga to Tsaritsyn; from there the great armaments work at Tula was under threat and the gates of Moscow seemed to be open. In other words, the Don cossack rebellion almost resulted in the Bolsheviks’ defeat, and many lessons were learned as a consequence. These lessons were more political than military in nature and related in particular to how to adapt the iron certainties of Bolshevik dogma to the realities of winning the confidence of the rural population.

The Final Curtain

Conventionally histories of the Civil War finish in late 1920 or early 1921; by the end of 1920 the military victory of the Bolsheviks was assured, but most historians take the story to the spring of 1921 to show how bitter the fruits of that victory were, with the strikes in Petrograd in February, the mutiny in Kronshtadt in March, and the peasant rebellion in Tambov province which lasted throughout the spring. However, the conventional approach is a simplification; it would be more accurate to date the end of the Civil War to 1922.