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Russian Civil War: A Visual History

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Visual history of a war

Reds against Whites, Greens, Poles, Cossacks and a dozen foreign armies: the war that made the Soviet Union and killed up to 12 million.

Fought
1917 to 1922
Duration
5 years
Dates
November 1917 to October 1922 (Vladivostok)
Deaths
About 7 to 12 million, including famine and disease
Reds
Bolsheviks; Red Army of up to 5 million
Whites and others
Kolchak, Denikin, Wrangel, Yudenich; Allied interventions; Poland; nationalists; Makhno's anarchists
Result
Bolshevik victory; USSR founded December 1922

The Russian Civil War (1917-1922) followed the Bolshevik seizure of power in November 1917. The Red Army under Trotsky fought White armies led by Kolchak in Siberia, Denikin and Wrangel in the south and Yudenich in the north-west, backed half-heartedly by British, French, American, Japanese and other interventionist forces; nationalist governments in Ukraine, the Caucasus and the Baltics; peasant Green armies; and Poland in 1920. Terror on both sides, requisitioning and typhus killed 7 to 12 million, mostly civilians. By 1922 the Bolsheviks controlled most of the old empire, minus Poland, Finland, the Baltics and Bessarabia, and founded the USSR.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Russian Civil War. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

120013001400150016001700180019002000Russian Civil War (1917 to 1922)Open: Ottoman EmpireOttoman Empire (1299 to 1922)Open: Polish-Lithuanian CommonwealthPolish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569 to 1795)Open: Russian EmpireRussian Empire (1721 to 1917)Open: Qajar EmpireQajar Empire (1789 to 1925)Open: Empire of JapanEmpire of Japan (1868 to 1947)Open: Russo-Japanese WarRusso-Japanese War (1904 to 1905)Open: World War IWorld War I (1914 to 1918)Open: Turkish War of IndependenceTurkish War of Independence (1919 to 1923)Open: Soviet Union (USSR)Soviet Union (USSR) (1922 to 1991)Open: World War IIWorld War II (1939 to 1945)Open: Cold WarCold War (1947 to 1991)

Estimated deaths by cause

01.252.53.755Combat: 1.51.5CombatTerror and executions: 0.50.5Terror and executionsDisease (typhus etc.): 2.52.5Disease (typhus etc.)Famine 1921-22: 55Famine 1921-22millions (approximate)

Timeline of the Russian Civil War

  1. 1917
    Bolshevik seizure of power7 November.
  2. 1918
    Brest-Litovsk; Czech Legion revolt; tsar shot; Red Terror
  3. 1919
    Kolchak, Denikin and Yudenich offensives fail
  4. 1920
    Kolchak shot; Polish-Soviet War; Wrangel evacuated
  5. 1921
    Kronstadt; famine; NEP
  6. 1922
    Japanese leave Vladivostok; USSR founded

1918: the war spreads

Lenin's Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918) took Russia out of the World War at ruinous cost. The Czechoslovak Legion, 40,000 ex-prisoners trying to leave via Siberia, revolted in May and seized the Trans-Siberian Railway, giving anti-Bolshevik forces a base. The Whites, monarchists, liberals and socialists united only by hatred of the Reds, formed governments at Samara and Omsk; the tsar and his family were shot at Ekaterinburg in July. Trotsky built the Red Army from ex-tsarist officers watched by commissars, and the Cheka launched the Red Terror after an attempt on Lenin's life.

1919: the crisis

Admiral Kolchak, 'Supreme Ruler' at Omsk, advanced to the Volga in spring; Denikin's Volunteer Army took Ukraine and reached Orel, 400 km from Moscow, in October; Yudenich reached the suburbs of Petrograd. The Reds, with interior lines, conscription and control of the industrial heartland, beat each in turn. Kolchak was shot at Irkutsk in February 1920; Denikin's army fled from Novorossiysk in March. Pogroms by White, Ukrainian and Red forces killed perhaps 100,000 Jews.

1920-1922: Poland, Wrangel and the end

Pilsudski's Poland invaded Ukraine in April 1920 and took Kiev; the Red counter-offensive reached Warsaw and was smashed in the 'Miracle on the Vistula' in August. Wrangel's last White army was evacuated from the Crimea in November 1920. Peasant revolts in Tambov and the Kronstadt sailors' rising in 1921 were crushed but forced the New Economic Policy. The Japanese left Vladivostok in October 1922; the Bolsheviks retook Georgia and Central Asia; the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was proclaimed on 30 December 1922.

Famine in the Volga in 1921-1922, aided by war and requisitioning, killed about 5 million more.

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8 surprising things about the Russian Civil War

  1. Trotsky commanded the Red Army from an armoured train that travelled 100,000 km during the war.
  2. The Czechoslovak Legion, stranded ex-POWs, briefly controlled the entire Trans-Siberian Railway.
  3. Fourteen foreign nations sent troops to Russia, including Britain, France, the United States, Japan, Italy, Greece and Czechoslovakia.
  4. Kolchak's government held the imperial gold reserve, part of which vanished; legends of Kolchak's gold persist.
  5. Nestor Makhno's anarchist Black Army in Ukraine fought both Reds and Whites with horse-drawn machine gun carts (tachanki).
  6. The White general Baron Ungern-Sternberg conquered Mongolia in 1921 and was shot by the Reds.
  7. Typhus killed an estimated 2 to 3 million; Lenin said 'either socialism will defeat the louse or the louse will defeat socialism'.
  8. Some 2 million Russians emigrated, forming the White emigre communities of Paris, Berlin, Belgrade and Harbin.

Sources

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