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INTERVENTION Tatyana Shvetsova |
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After
the October Socialist revolution Russian society was split into the ‘red’ and
the ‘white’ camps, those sympathizing with one of the two, or those who
refused to accept either. The Entente alliance opted for supporting the
‘white’ movement, since it was a force that spoke out for continuing the war
to its logical victorious end. With the purpose of helping the ‘whites’, the
Triple Entente launched an intervention into From
the autumn of 1918 the So
was this really the case? How did the intervention impact the results of the
Civil war in Doctor
of History Professor Olshtynsky noted that already during World War One the
Entente Alliance, while supporting the anti-bolshevist forces, gradually went
from ‘concealed’ intervention to open warfare on the The
first to launch the intervention was In
early April 1918 an agreement was reached between the governments of the On
April 5th the Japanese landed in After
Simultaneously
the German forces, violating the peace agreement with Soviet Russia,
continued their onslaught and occupied the By
that time neither the ‘reds’ nor the ‘whites’ had any doubts that the
invaders were not so much aiding the White powers as pursuing their own
interests of colonizing Russia. Even
the paragon of Russian liberalism Pavel Miliukov, who was in If
this was written by so staunch a proponent of western ideals as Miliukov,
then we cannot put to doubt the truthfulness of his ‘diagnosis’.
“All
Russian territory from the river Volga to the However,
this rejoicing was premature. Events took a turn that gradually dimmed the
hopes of the invaders. As
is known, on November 11th 1918 It likewise succeeded in
strengthening its positions inside the country. The threat of their homeland
possibly becoming a colony of the West inspired many opponents of Soviet
power to side with it in the struggle against the invaders. So in response to
the invading onslaught at the end of 1918 a powerful patriotic upsurge swept Those
who previously sympathized with the ‘white power’ altered their attitude
towards it, since the latter were now regarded in the light of traitors,
siding with the invaders. This alone, not to mention other reasons, made the
defeat of the ‘whites’ in the Civil war inevitable. As
a result of the successful advance of the Red Army many grain and energy
regions of the country were liberated, besides In
1919 the ‘white movement’ undertook three powerful onslaughts against Soviet
Russia. According to historian Pyotr Deinichenko: “Admiral Kolchak, who
launched a successful advance in March, instead of joining up with forces led
by General Denikin in the vicinity of the Volga town of Saratov, decided to
head for Moscow on his own, nurturing the impetuous plan of capturing it
single-handedly. This provided the Red Army with freedom of maneuver, and the
opportunity of beating the armies of Kolchak and Denikin separately. Kolchak
was forced to retreat. In his rear a peasants’ revolt erupted, sparked by an
ill-thought-out decree on returning the land to its initial owners – the
landowners. Red partisans captured Kolchak prisoner and in February of 1920
the Admiral was executed by a firing squad in the Siberian town of In
the meantime, in the south of Russia, the army of ‘white’ General Anton
Denikin was forced to engage in combat with the armies of the Independent
Ukraine, where all power was then in the hands of socialist and nationalist
Simon Petliura, equally antagonistic towards the ‘reds’ and the ‘whites’.
Simon Petliura fought successfully with the Red Army and its ally, notorious
anarchist Nestor Makhno. Only after he’d coped with the forces of the
Independent Ukraine was Denikin able to launch a powerful offensive. He had
at his disposal a 150 thousand strong army and initially his actions were
extremely successful. However,
by spring of 1920 Denikin’s army was ousted from the Russian south, from In
1919 Europe and The
mushrooming of communist parties in many countries of the world led to the
formation of the III Communist International, the 1st Congress of which was
held in “Throughout
the world the tide is turning towards the revolutionary struggle. The First
World War clearly demonstrated that socialism has perished. A new order is
coming in its stead. The old word ‘socialism’ has been sullied by traitors to
the socialist cause. Now the workers who remain faithful to the notion of
overthrowing capitalism are calling themselves ‘communists’. The union of
communists is gathering force all across the world. In a number of countries
Soviet power has already come out victorious. We do not have long to wait
before we shall have cause to rejoice in the triumph of communism throughout
the world. We shall witness the founding of the The
International communist movement was gaining strength. This couldn’t but
inject the Bolsheviks with additional political support, boosting their
morale. In these conditions the invaders were forced to withdraw their troops
from However,
after a brief lull the war action resumed. This time against The
regional Russian newspaper “Tver Veche”, recalling the history of
Russo-Polish relations, recently wrote: “As
is known, the Polish state was formed in November 1918, after the annulment
of the The
main bulk of the Red Army was concentrated at the time in the East and the
South of the country: the Civil war was raging. The scanty soviet troops in
the west were unable to fend off the onslaught of the superior bulk of the
Polish army. The invaders seized Western Byelorussia and A leading expert of the
history-archive and war memorial centre of the General Staff headquarters of
the Russian Federation Mikhail Filimoshin quotes the description of the
beginning of the undeclared Polish-Soviet war, that the American representative
at the Entente mission in Poland Major-General Kernan sent in his report to
the USA President. According to him: “although in In
early May the Poles seized In
less than a month In
April 1920 … in Crimea General Pyotr Wrangel patched together the remnants of
Denikin’s army to create the “Russian Army”, proclaiming
himself as the “Ruler of the Russian South”. In June his troops began their
advance towards Donbass. The
end of the war with In
their struggle with General Wrangel the Red Armymen were aided by units of
anarchists led by Nestor Makhno, who had been lured by promises of broad
autonomy by the Bolsheviks. However, when the Revolutionary Military Council
of the Southern Front demanded that Makhno reorganize his rebel detachments
into regular units and bring them within the fold of the Red Army, the latter
rejected the demand. As a result the Makhno forces were proclaimed enemies of
the Soviet republic and therefore liable for destruction – something the
Bolsheviks eventually achieved, but through tremendous exertions. The fact
is, Makhno’s detachments were regularly augmented by the peasants, those who
returned from the Civil war fronts and found themselves without any means of
livelihood, various declassified elements, criminals and such. To give them
their due, Makhno’s army possessed enviable maneuverability. It could swiftly
evade pursuit, while making pinpoint attacks at Red army detachments, militia
units and population settlements. Yet,
at the end of August 1921 the Red Army finally succeeded in crushing Makhno.
At the head of some 50 mounted troops he fled to In
1920 Soviet power was established in Thus, by the end of 1920 the
Civil war in Pursuing
the remnants of the ‘white’ armies, the Red Army reached In
the words of historian Pyotr Deinichenko, “By 1922 Soviet power was controlling
practically the entire territory of the former Russian Empire, with the
exception of The
socialists in national republics and autonomies were well aware that without In turn, some union
republics comprised autonomous republics. Copyright © 2006 The Voice of Originally
published at http://www.vor.ru/English/homeland/home_033.html 01/26/2006 |
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