click below
click below
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Tsardom to Communism
1.3 - The causes and nature of the Civil War, 1918-21
Question | Answer |
---|---|
What can be said about there being a civil war in Russia? Why? | It was not surprising. Only a tiny minority of all the people living in the Russian Empire supported the Bolsheviks. It was, therefore, only a matter of time before the Bolshevik enemies organised themselves. |
What is a civil war? | A war between political factions or regions within the same country. |
What was the problem with the enemies of the Bolsheviks who had organised themselves? | It was only hatred of the Bolsheviks that held them together. |
Who did the enemies of the Bolsheviks include? | >other revolutionary parties e.g. the SRs >the Kadets >landowners >Church leaders >foreign countries that wanted a government that would bring Russia back into the war >various national groups who won their independence in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk |
What was significant about other revolutionary parties, such as the SRs, being enemies of the Bolsheviks? | They had the support of the peasants. |
Why were the Kadets enemies of the Bolsheviks? | They wanted the Constituent Assembly back to decide the future of Russia, hoping for a system of government similar to that in Britain. |
Why were landowners enemies of the Bolsheviks? | They had lost their land and wanted a return to the monarchy. |
Why were Church leaders enemies of the Bolsheviks? | They opposed the Bolshevik seizure of the extensive property of the Russian Orthodox Church, and hoped to see the Bolsheviks defeated as the first step towards recovering it. |
Why were foreign countries that wanted a government that would bring Russia back into the war enemies of the Bolsheviks? | The Bolsheviks had pulled Russia out of the war, and these foreign countries wanted a government who would bring Russia back to the war, and force Germany to start fighting on two fronts again. |
How had some of the foreign countries wanting a defeat of the Bolsheviks due to them wanting a government who would bring Russia back into the war shown this? | Various countries such as the USA, France and Britain promised huge quantities of arms to the enemies of the Bolsheviks. |
Give examples of the national groups who had been part of the Russian Empire and had won their independence at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918? | The Finns and Estonians. |
Why were various national groups such as the Finns and Estonians that had been part of the Russian Empire and had won their independence at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918 enemies of the Bolsheviks? | They wanted to make sure that the new Bolshevik government did not try to take back these territories. It was because Finland and Estonia were so close to Petrograd that the Bolsheviks moved their capital to Moscow in 1918, where it has been ever since. |
Who were the two sides in the Russian Civil War (1918-21)? | The Bolsheviks (the 'Reds') were forced to fight a coalition of 'Whites'. |
Who were the Whites led by? | Former generals of the Tsar such as Denikin, Yudenich and Kolchak. |
Who provided many Whites with a possible replacement for the Bolsheviks? | The Romanov family, held in captivity at the start of the fighting. |
What was a complicating factor in the Civil War? | The existence of the Czech Legion of 50,000 Czechs who had been fighting for Austria and had been captured by the Russians. |
What had been agreed now in 1918 about the Czech Legion and why? | That they would be sent to France via the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok and then by sea - a tremendously long journey. This is because they wanted to continue fighting in Europe against Germany. |
Despite what had been agreed about the Czech Legion being sent back to Europe, what happened? | When they were told by Trotsky to disarm, they seized control of the Trans-Siberian Railway and began to head back towards Moscow to fight against the Bolsheviks. |