which the Bolsheviks dealt with opposition from Soviets - manipulating their structure or closing down the more recalcitrant ones - added to their unpopularity. Yet the revival in the fortunes of the Mensheviks and the ? SRs should not be exaggerated. New elections to the Moscow Soviet g from 28 March to 10 April, although marred by malpractice, gave them e only a quarter of the vote. And even where their record was more jg impressive, the division between the two parties meant they were
Sometimes, moreover, the challenge came from the left, as in Samara where SR Maximalists declared a commune and ejected Red Guards. On 15 June, discarding the pretence that the Soviets were multi-party bodies, the Bolsheviks expelled Mensheviks and SRs from the CEC. This proved to be a decisive step in the subordination of the CEC to Sovnarkom. On 29 May a party circular spelt out the logic of the situation: 'Our party stands at the head of soviet power. Decrees and measures of soviet power emanate from our party.'
Civil war
The years between 1918 and 1922 witnessed a level of strife and anarchy unparalleled since the Time of Troubles' of 1605-13, when struggles between pretenders to the throne brought Russia to a state of chaos.
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The civil war brutalized social life to an unimaginable degree, yet as an epic struggle between the new and old worlds it inspired idealism and heroism among the dedicated minorities who supported the Red and White causes. The young Bolshevik, V. Poliansky, recalled:
We all lived in an atmosphere of revolutionary romanticism, tired, exhausted, but joyful, festive, our hair uncut, unwashed, unshaven, but bright and dear in heart and mind.
n
Yet the reality was that Russia succumbed to an economic and social cataclysm. The population on Soviet territory fell by 12.7 million between 1917 and early 1922, only partly due to civil war as such. The losses of Soviet armed forces ranged from 1,150,000 to 1,250,000; and -when the losses of Whites, partisans and nationalist forces are included, * war-related losses rise to between 2.5 million and 3.3 million. Far more ^ perished as a result of disease - between 1917 and 1920 over 2 million ?.
с
died of typhus, typhoid fever, smallpox, and dysentery - causing Lenin g.
Си
to warn that, 'either the louse will defeat socialism or socialism will|'
!
J
defeat the louse.' Finally, and most hideously, between 1921 and 1922 as ^ many as 6 million died of starvation and disease in a famine that devastated the Volga region and Ukraine. Not without reason did the novelist Boris Pasternak conclude: 'In our days even the air smells of death.' Meanwhile the brutalization that had begun with the First World |
ID
War continued apace. Large quantities of weapons were now in the hands of ordinary people and civil authority was too weak to stanch the flow of violence. After his forces swept the Reds from the northern Caucasus in January 1919, General P. N. Wrangel recollected:
On the outskirts of one of the Cossack settlements we met five young Cossacks with rifles ... 'Where are you going, lads?' 'We're going to beat up some Bolsheviks. There are a lot of them hiding in the reeds. Yesterday I killed seven.' This was said by a boy about 12 years old. During the whole of the intestinal conflict I never felt as sharply as I did at that moment the utter horror of fratricidal war.
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The civil war was dominated by the conflict between the Bolsheviks and the conservative nationalist officers who formed the various White armies, notably the Volunteer Army of General A. I. Denikin, the Siberian forces of Admiral A. V. Kolchak, and the Northwestern Army of General N. N. ludenich. Yet the civil war was more than a straight struggle between Reds and Whites. Initially, the so-called 'democratic counterrevolution', led by the SRs, posed at least as great a threat to Bolshevik rule. More crucially, the struggle between Reds and Whites was played out in a context in which the Russian empire was disintegrating, and nationalist movements in Ukraine in 1918, in Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland in 1919, and in Poland, Azerbaijan, and Armenia in 1920, made things more complicated for Reds and Whites alike. Furthermore, the civil war had international ramifications, initially in relation to the outcome of the First World War, later in relation to the carving out of post-war spheres of influence. The Allies intervened on the side of the Whites and this was an important, if not ultimately decisive factor in the conflict. Finally, the conflict between Reds and Whites became embroiled with powerful partisan movements, notably the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine led by the anarchist N. Makhno, guerrilla actions by deserters, and innumerable peasant uprisings.
It is sensible to seethe civil war building up gradually, beginning as early as the Kornilov movement and significantly escalating after the Bolshevik seizure of power. Soviet forces invaded independent Ukraine in December 1917 and by February had succeeded in forcing the nascent Volunteer Army, which struggled to establish a base among the Cossacks of the Don and Kuban regions, to retreat. In these early skirmishes, the Red Guards, Latvian riflemen, and other soviet forces proved to be an eager but ill-disciplined force; so it fell to Trotsky, as Commissar of War, to build a conventional army. In this he faced bitter resistance from those who believed that the only defence force appropriate to a socialist society was a citizens' militia. When only 360,000 men volunteered for the new Red Army, Trotsky on 29 May
1918 reinstated conscription. Vigorous measures were taken to enforce discipline among the largely peasant conscripts, including summary execution and the decimation of units. His most contentious decision was to put former tsarist officers - 'military specialists' - in operational command subject to the oversight of political-military commissars. To deter them from treason or desertion - few having m uch sym pat hy with the Red cause-their families were held hostage for their good behaviour. Trotsky proved to be an inspirational figure as he toured the front in his famous headquarters train; but he was not infallible as a military commander and his authoritarian methods alienated many. This led to the formation of a Military Opposition, of which Stalin was a supporter, that opposed the ruthless centralization of the Red Army at the Eighth Party Congress in March 1919.
An undreamed-of opportunity for the'democratic counter-revolution' presented itself in May 1918 when the Czech Legion, a body of 38,000 men recruited by the tsarist government from Austro-Hungarian prisoners-of-war, revolted against the Bolsheviks. From this time on, one may speak of full-scale civil war, since armies now fought along clearly defined fronts. Within a few months, the Legion seized control of a vast area east of the Volga and helped the SRs to set up governments committed to overthrowing the Bolsheviks, restoring the Constituent Assembly, and resuming war with Germany. The revolt threw the Bolsheviks into panic. Secret orders were given by Lenin to execute the imperial family in Ekaterinburg lest they be liberated by the insurgents. In fact the SRs proved unabletotranslatethe electoral support they had received in the Constituent Assembly into solid political support and, crucially, into forging a reliable army. Where they remained respectful of democracy and law they were ineffective; where they sought to be firm, they slid into habits not very different from those of the Reds and Whites. Having gone to considerable lengths to secure the cooperation of conservative military men, they ended up in hock to them, compromising what were for the peasants the most important gains of the revolution: land and the devolution of power to the localities. The
