The Bolsheviks have consolidated their power, with the party expanding, dissidents being quelled and institutions taking shape. Kolchek then created a military dictatorship. ThoughtCo uses cookies to provide you with a great user experience. However, when the Red Army ordered them to disarm after a brawl, the Legion resisted and seized control of local facilities including the vital Operating under the leadership of Lenin and There were also the ‘Blacks’, the Anarchists. Kolchak was not put in power by foreign allies as the Bolsheviks later claimed; they were actually against the coup. Tens of thousands of Whites fled through the Crimea as Denikin and his army were pushed right back and morale collapsed, the commander himself fleeing abroad.
Their siege of Tsaritsyn (later known as Stalingrad) caused arguments between the Bolsheviks
Armed independence movements in the newly declared republics of Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan were crushed, and large portions added to the new USSR. More evacuations then took place: nearly 150,000 fled by sea, and the Bolsheviks shot tens of thousands of those left behind.
Kolchak and his officers disliked the left-wing views of the politicians and found it difficult to distinguish between Socialist Revolutionaries and Communists, lumping together all “Reds” as enemies. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica.Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. In 1918 a variety of different groups opposed the Bolshevik government. The Red Army had survived in 1919 and had time to solidify and become effective. The ‘Reds’ were clustered around the capital. Areas on the outskirts of the Russian empire took advantage of the chaos to declare independence and in 1918 almost the whole periphery of Russia was lost to the Bolsheviks by localized military revolts. Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Lenin, 1918. Kolchak’s They were, in practice, comprised of ad hoc groups opposed to both the Bolsheviks, and sometimes each other, and were outnumbered and overstretched thanks to controlling a smaller population over a huge area. In Omsk relations between the Socialist Revolutionaries and Kolchak steadily deteriorated. These were forces fighting, not for the reds of the whites, but after their own goals, like national independence; neither the Reds or Whites recognized breakaway regions - or for food and booty.
They dismissed the elected Constitutional Assembly at gunpoint and banned opposition politics; it was clear they wanted a dictatorship. Kolchak, pushed out of Omsk and vital supply territory by the Reds, tried to establish himself at Irktusk, but his forces fell apart and, after resigning, he was arrested by left-leaning rebels he’d managed to totally alienate during his rule, given to the Reds, and executed. However, there was still stiff opposition to the Bolsheviks, not least of which from the right-wing faction in the army; this began to form a unit of volunteers from hardcore anti-Bolsheviks in the Kuban Steppes.
The
The White threat was at its greatest in October 1919 (Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War, p. 195), but how great this threat was is debated.
By using ThoughtCo, you accept ourOperation Barbarossa in World War II: History and SignificanceBiography of Joseph Stalin, Dictator of the Soviet UnionBiography of Anastasia Romanov, Doomed Russian DuchessExecution of Czar Nicholas II of Russia and His Family A third of the Communist party (the old Bolshevik party) members who joined in 1917; 20 had fought in the war and gave the party an overall feeling of military command and unquestioned obedience to orders. On the news of Kornilov’s death, Lenin announced: “It can be said with certainty that, in the main, the civil war has ended.” (Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War, p. The Bolsheviks saw the war as a struggle between their workers and Russia’s upper and middle classes, and as a war of socialism against international capitalism. He is the author of the History in an Afternoon textbook series. Other White gains were also driven back as the Reds took advantage of overreaching lines. There were also the ‘Greens’.
The worker’s revolt the Reds were anticipating didn’t happen, and the Soviet army was ejected. An attempt by Komuch, the Siberian Provisional Government and others in the east to form a unified government produced a five-man Directory.