The Russian October Revolution of 1917 led to a civil war between the Bolshevik government and a number of rebel armies. The war is said to have begun in 1918, but fierce fighting began in 1917. In Moscow the Bolsheviks formed a military and political alliance with Nestor Makhno, a Ukrainian anarchist whose black army attacked several regiments of Wrangel’s troops in southern Ukraine, forcing Wrangel to retreat after being captured during the grain harvest in 1920.
The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution triggered the civil war that lasted for more than five years and cost the lives of millions of Russians. It was the second revolution in a year in which socialist Bolsheviks captured the political heart of Russia. It took the Bolsheviks until 1922 to capture the industrial heart of the country and begin to crush the opposition during most of the 1920 civil war between the Bolshevik government and a number of rebel armies.
The Russian Civil War that broke out after the October Revolution in 1918, was waged between the Reds (fed by the Bolsheviks) and the Whites (a diverse coalition of anti-Bolsheviks). It consisted of a majority revolt led by the Bolsheviks against a minority of white army officers, Cossacks, and the bourgeoisie, as well as against political groups ranging from extreme right-wing socialists and revolutionaries who opposed the drastic restructuring championed by the Bolshevik Party after the collapse of the Russian Provisional Soviet Government and clear Bolshevik dominance. Key points The Russian civil war that broke out after the October Revolution of 1918 brought death and suffering to millions, regardless of their political orientation.
The Russian Civil War was a three-year battle between the Bolshevik Red Army, the counterrevolutionary White Army, and other non-aligned forces for control over Russia. She saw the formation of White Army governments in various places throughout the country, from the north to southern Russia and Siberia. The war arose from anti-Bolshevik activities following the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, and the insurrection of the Czech Legion.
The Russian civil war was an opportunity for foreign powers to join the Whites and stop the Bolshevik capture in the hope of destroying socialist and communist ideology all over the world. The war began when the rest of Europe was deeply rooted in World War I, and there was little support in Parliament or among the public who saw the war as less threatening to them. Britain participated in the war when it began, and influential people like Winston Churchill called for sending land troops to Russia to fight for the Whites.
The disastrous performance of Russia in World War I was one of the main causes of the 1917 Russian Revolution which swept away the Romanov dynasty and installed a government eager to end fighting. Under the 1918 Brest-Litovsk Treaty, Russia surrendered a large part of its territory to Germany, leading to a rupture of the coalitions of the Bolshevik (Communist Left) and Socialist (Revolutionary Left). Red Army, Army, and Air Force of the Russian Federal Soviet Socialist Republic (1922 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics).
The two largest red army fighting groups of Vladimir Lenin and the allied forces known as the White Army embraced different interests and favored political monarchism, capitalism, social democracy, and democratized and anti-democratic variants. Moreover, the rival militant Socialist Machnovia (anarchist left) opposed the SRS and the non-ideological Green Army opposed the Red Army and were foreign interventionists. Three foreign nations, all of the central powers, intervened as rival allies, but the main objective of the intervention was to retain the territory they had obtained through the Brest-Litovsk Treaty.
In his book Black on Red, Robinson provides readers with a detailed overview of the activities of the White Military Organization, the army in exile of General P. N. Wrangel and his successor the Russky Obsche Voinsky Soyuz (ROVs), including its underground fight against the Soviet Union, humanitarian aid and supplies to its members, ideological debates within the organization and participation in the effort to cooperate with Germany during World War II. Although it is known that the Reds consisted of Bolsheviks, there were only about 40,000 members of the Red Army, and it is estimated that they had twice as many soldiers fighting for them as the Whites, which were in Russia comprised of other parties and paramilitary political forces. White Army soldiers who fled Russia at the end of the Russian Civil War were scattered around the world, but they continued to regard themselves as soldiers, keeping their organizations intact and in some cases continuing their military training.