Why White Russian lose in civil war ??

[Chinaski1917]

"In any case, since Lenin's version differed from Marx's, what is "Marxism" in this case?"

Let me repeat once more : Please read before judging.

"and trying to justify the killing that followed the subsequent coup by a minority"

Having read all the cold war propaganda and all historians coming out of it would lead you to that conclusion. But that's simple one point of view , and a very biased one too.

[RCW Mark]

Sorry, are you saying that the Bolsheviks were not in a minority when they took power in October? Why then did they have to crush the Constitutional Assembly? Lenin knew he didn't have the popular support -- which is why he needed to take over with a coup, rather than legitimately.

Or, are you saying the Bolsheviks didn't kill a lot of people in their Terror campaign? Which would be odd, since they openly admitted that they did, and it is not really denied by anyone.

So, while fairly simple, I fail to see how my assessment is "very biased".



Or are you saying that the Terror was entirely necessary and well-executed??? Which is plain sick.

[Chinaski1917]

All 3 statements-"questions" by you are misleading (to say the least), and is yet another evidence of what happens when reading ONLY one-sided historians and never attempting to read anything else from "the other side" just because its "propaganda" from the "evil empire" etc etc etc etc ...

P.S. I'll answer them when I have the time (maybe tomorrow). With sources and all...

[RCW Mark]

I'd just like to point out that I have actually read books that portray the Russian Revolution from the Soviet side. And I have talked to people raised in the Soviet Union. Please do not assume anyone that disagrees is automatically duped.

[Nemda]

Sorry, are you saying that the Bolsheviks were not in a minority when they took power in October?

In the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets the Bolsheviks were a majority. In addition, the transfer of power to the soviets was also supported by the left-wing SRs, who were about one-half of all SR representatives.

The assertion that the Bolsheviks seized power is inaccurate, for on the night 24-25 October 1917, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets passed a resolution on transferring all state power to the soviets. The transfer of power to the Petrograd soviet of workers' deputies coincided with similar developments throughout Russia from Revel to Baku to Tashkent to Vladivostok. The reason why the transfer of power to the soviets did not occur earlier was because the Bolsheviks were outnumbered by the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. But the working population following the July Days and the attempted Kornilov putsch became increasingly radicalized.

Why then did they have to crush the Constitutional Assembly?

According to Russian historians during Soviet rule:
http://www.cultinfo.ru/fulltext/1/001/008/114/956.htm

The Provisional Government had blocked the convocation of an assembly throughout 1917 because they feared it would yield a majority to peasants who were more to the left than the Socialist-Revolutionaries. The Bolsheviks did not reject the idea of such a body, but they exhorted the people to a revolutionary struggle, pointing out that practice and the revolution tend to push parliamentary bodies into the background. Lenin in his writings proved that the soviet of workers’ deputies was a superior form of democracy than a parliamentary republic with a nominally representative constituent assembly.

The result did not reflect the actual interrelation of political forces in the country because the influence of the working class and the Bolshevik party on the non-proletarian masses was incomparably stronger in the extra-parliamentary than in the parliamentary struggle. The SR electorate was part of the Russian peasantry, and political power was held in the city. Numbers could not be translated into power because the voice of the peasant carried less weight than the enlightened worker or soldier.

About half the electorate abstained from voting. The machinery for handling the elections was in the hands of commissions appointed by the Provisional Government, leaving the vote susceptible to fraud and sabotage. There was no clear winner in the election. The Bolsheviks polled 24 percent of the vote, the SRs 38 percent, the Mensheviks 3 percent, and the Cadets 4 percent. Nor did the election reflect the split of the Socialist Revolutionary Party whose Left faction supported soviet power. In the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, half of the SR delegates voted in favor of soviet power. Even a vote for the Socialist Revolutionary Party by the peasant did not equate to repudiation of soviet power: by October 1917 the agrarian policies of the Bolsheviks and SRs were indistinguishable. The peasant was not voting for the SR any more than he was voting for the distribution of land from the large estates.

The election was held when the Soviet Government was still just becoming established and a sizable portion of the population was not acquainted with its decrees. Even the formal results, however, proved that the Revolution conformed to the laws of history: the Bolsheviks won in Petrograd, Moscow, on the Northern and Western fronts, in the Baltic fleet, and in 20 districts of the Northwest and Central Industrial regions. The majority of the working class and about half of the military voted for the Bolsheviks. When the Constituent Assembly convened, only 410 (including 140 Bolsheviks) deputies out of 715 bothered to show up. The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was wholly legal: by a decree of the Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets, the Constituent Assembly ceased to exist. As we saw, the people did not care about the disappearance of such a body. By contrast, the Bolsheviks were able to lead demonstrations of 500,000 people in Petrograd against the policies of the Provisional Government during the June Crisis and the July Days.

However, the ChEKa took their methods to extremes. Not just the worrisome opponents, but also pretty much anyone associated with them were subject to the Red Terror.

The ChEKa record was quite modest, as Lenin points out[1]:

The present Government of Finland on coming into power executed in cold blood within a few days’ time 16,700 members of the old Socialist Republic, and imprisoned in starvation camps 70,000 more. Meanwhile the total executions in Russia for the year ended November 1, 1918, were officially stated to have been 3,800, including many corrupt Soviet of officials as well as counter-revolutionists. The Finnish Government was infinitely more terroristic than the Russian.

In addition, Krasnov's regime in the Don province meted out 25,000 death sentences the period May to January 1919.[1] Kolchak's regime shot 25,000 people in the Ekaterinburg province in 1919.[2] The White Guard forces in Ukraine, including the forces of Denikin and Petliura, unleashed pogroms against the Jews, killing over 100,000 of them.[3] Furthermore, it should be considered that assassinations of Soviet functionaries had been common in the period prior to the Red Terror decree: more than 10,000 of them had been killed up to September 1918. By contrast, the Soviet Government's record shows that 6300 people were executed by the Cheka in 1918.[4]

1. Peter Holquist: Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-21
2. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/w ... sep/20.htm
3. http://www.cultinfo.ru/fulltext/1/001/008/063/073.htm
4. cited in Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War

[RCW Mark]

There are no "laws of history".

I won't address each item above -- it clearly comes from Soviet-era textbooks. One typical example is confusing "soviet power" as understood by the Left SR (in which all parties worked through democratic labour-based organisations) with "Soviet power" as understood by Lenin (in which the central party ran the country, and damn democratic soviets). The fact that the Left SRs supported "soviet power" does not mean that they supported the eventual Bolshevik system of government -- which they clearly did not, since many fought against it.

One particular item though:

The present Government of Finland on coming into power executed in cold blood within a few days’ time 16,700 members of the old Socialist Republic,

Total lies. Typical Lenin really. A large number of former Reds died due to illness in camps, but there were never mass executions in Finland.

The atrocities by the Whites are disputable in statistics (Krasnov never ordered 25,000 deaths, not even by omission), though not in nature, since the Whites allowed a lot of things to happen that should never have happened. That does not excuse Soviet atrocities. No more that Stalin excuses Hitler or vice versa. If you want to defend the ChEKa, as you apparently do, then defend them -- don't do it by blackening their enemies.

[Art]

The fact that the Left SRs supported "soviet power" does not mean that they supported the eventual Bolshevik system of government -- which they clearly did not, since many fought against it.

They supported it on the early stages.

Total lies. Typical Lenin really. A large number of former Reds died due to illness in camps, but there were never mass executions in Finland.

It's not a generally accepted opinion as far as I can see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Ci ... ite_terror

[South]

Good morning Nemda,

The CHEKA's record was "quite modest" per Lenin ?!

Not that I have any historical or current support for any of these groups or their emigrant communities, there were other power blocs not referenced in the article.

The Union of Nobles, an organization of aristocracy, was also against the Czar. I do not believe the Bolshevik faction accomodated them too well.

Other power blocs were the minority states; Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Caucasus, and Siberia. They demanded independence or autonomy.

Warm regards,

Bob

[RCW Mark]

Total lies. Typical Lenin really. A large number of former Reds died due to illness in camps, but there were never mass executions in Finland.

It's not a generally accepted opinion as far as I can see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Ci ... ite_terror

Those are the generally accepted figures, and this subject has been heavily researched by partisans of both sides and neutrals.

As the article goes on to say, only 113 were executed directly under Government orders. The 7,000+ Reds shot out of hand were mostly shot by vengeful Whites during the fighting or immediately following it, sometimes in reprisals for the Red Terror, which itself was no picnic. The statement "on coming into power executed in cold blood within a few days’ time 16,700 members of the old Socialist Republic" is clearly wrong -- the number was much lower, and the guilty parties were generally soldiers acting on their own behalf.

[Eric Johnson]

According to V.I. Lenin:

In this civil war the overwhelming majority of the population proved to be on our side, and that is why victory was achieved with such extraordinary ease.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/w ... ong/01.htm

The Allies—the French and British—have lost their campaign and have discovered that with the insignificant number of troops at their com-mand they cannot wage war against the Soviet Republic.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/w ... apr/16.htm

We won because the best people from the entire working class and from the entire peasantry displayed unparalleled heroism in the war against the exploiters, performed miracles of valour, withstood untold privations, made great sacrifices and got rid of scroungers and cowards.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/w ... ar/x02.htm

And if anything decided the issue of the struggle against Kolchak and Denikin in our favour, despite the fact that they were supported by the Great Powers, it was that both the peasants and working Cossacks, who for a long time remained in the other camp, have in the end come over to the workers and peasants—and it was only this that finally decided the war and brought about our victory.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/w ... mar/01.htm

There were British, French and Japanese armies on Russian territory for three years. There can be no doubt that the most insignificant concentration of forces by these three powers would have been quite enough to win a victory over us in a few months, if not in a few weeks. We were able to contain that attack only on account of the demoralisation among the French troops and the unrest that set in among the British and Japanese. We have made use of this divergence of imperialist interests all the time. We defeated the interventionists only because their interests divided them, thereby enhancing our strength and unity. This gave us a breathing-space and rendered impossible the complete victory of German imperialism at the time of the Peace of Brest-Litovsk.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/w ... nov/21.htm

There are tens of thousands of old colonels and officers of other ranks in that army and if we had not accepted them in our service and made them serve us, we could not have created an army
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/w ... nov/18.htm

The help of allies was limited.

The German occupation lasted throughout 1918 and extended from Pskov down to Rostov. The Germans occupied Russia's most economically vital land including Polish industry and Ukrainian agriculture.

The Entente prepared and provoked the mutiny of 45,000 troops in the Czechoslovak Corps in May 1918. Russia's military strength at this time was no match for the Czechs. The White Czechs proceeded to unleash aggression against Syzran, Samara, Cheliabinsk, Omsk, and Vladivostok. The Entente declared the Czechoslovak Corps part of its troops, stating it would consider its disarmament an unfriendly act.

On 6 July the Japanese and American troops invaded Vladivostok. On August 1 Baku was invaded and occupied by British troops. In November 1918, England and France reaffirmed their agreement on a plan of intervention and began implementing it. On November 22-27, 1918, British ships invaded Novorossiisk and French ships in Odessa and Sevastopol. In western Belorussia in December 1918, Russian troops made contact with Polish invaders, who were advancing to seize Lithuania and Belorussia. The Entente’s attempt to deploy large forces in the southern regions of Russia ended in failure because of revolutionary sentiments among the troops. French troops seized Kherson on 31 January 1919 and Nikolaev on February 3. This caused violent mass protests in France and demands for an end to the aggression. In April a revolt broke out in the French Navy, and the French command was compelled to abandon Odessa and Sevastopol.

In the struggle against Russia the interests of the French and Polish regimes coincided, and the Polish regime, with active support and material aid from France, proceeded to unleash aggression against Soviet Ukraine, occupying Zhitomir on April 26 and Kiev on May 6. When the condition of Poland became critical, France and England rushed to its aid. France increased military supplies and sent a military mission headed by General Wegand. Prime Minister Lloyd George threatened to start a war against Russia.

The White Guards received from the Entente hundreds of thousands of rifles, thousands of machine guns, hundreds of guns, and large quantities of equipment and ammunition. Denikin received more than 100 tanks, 200 aircraft, and 1300 trucks. Foreign military advisers and specialists were went to the White Guard troops—for example, British specialists alone numbered about 2000. The main role at Kolchak’s headquarters was played by the British general Knox, who was in charge of supplying Kolchak’s army. American representatives, who had seized control of the Trans-Siberian railroad, had a great influence on the Kolchak regime. The most important centers of the Far East were occupied by Japanese and American troops. Japan had demanded that the Far East Republic recognize its special rights in the area. Japan then organized an invasion of Primore Oblast from China by White Guard troops.

[RCW Mark]

In this civil war the overwhelming majority of the population proved to be on our side, and that is why victory was achieved with such extraordinary ease.

"Extraordinary ease"??? !!! The fighting lasted from late 1917 and was still on-going into 1921 (Kronstadt, Tambov, Makhno and other Ukranians, Vladivostok). During that time Petrograd nearly fell and Moscow was threatened. It's lucky the Russians didn't have to suffer a "difficult victory".

We won because the best people from the entire working class and from the entire peasantry displayed unparalleled heroism in the war against the exploiters

Actually no. The "entire working class" would have included the Poles, Estonians, Latvians etc as coming over to Soviet power. In the event all the non-Russian dialect speaking parts were lost and had to be forcibly conquered by invasion over the following decades. The defeat in Poland showed that, on the whole, only Russian peasants and workers were even slightly interested in Lenin's vision.

[Art]

In this civil war the overwhelming majority of the population proved to be on our side, and that is why victory was achieved with such extraordinary ease.

"Extraordinary ease"??? !!! The fighting lasted from late 1917 and was still on-going into 1921

I would advise to look at the date when the report was made.

In the event all the non-Russian dialect speaking parts were lost and had to be forcibly conquered by invasion over the following decades.

Eh, I didn' realy understand, do you want to say that al the regions of the former Empire except Batic and Poland were Russian-speaking? That is too strong statement.

[RCW Mark]

The October Revolution was an easy victory. That meant the Kerensky government was very unpopular, not that the Bolsheviks were truely popular. The ease of that victory is meaningless though, in light of later resistance.

The non-Russian speaking portions of the Tsarist Empire included Finland, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan -- all of which were determinedly not Bolshevik (though most started out pretty firmly Socialist). It also included various Caucasian mountain and central Asian tribes -- all of which offered stern resistance to Soviet rule, and which had to be conquered by force.

This did not fit Marxist theory or rhetoric, which was that the Finns, Poles, Letts and Estonians should all have solid Internalist Marxist movements, since they had large working classes. In reality only the Finnish Reds offered any resistence to Nationalist movements.

Once the Bolsheviks moved away from Russian-dialect areas (Russia, Siberia, Ukraine, Belarus, North Caucasus etc) their support dwindled to almost zero. So it seems to me that assertions of Bolshevik popularity in the masses which exclude an ethnic factor are weak.

In any place where there was a viable alternative to the Tsarist/Bolshevik divide -- in the form of Pilsudski, Mannerheim etc -- the Bolsheviks were not popular. Even in the Ukraine the popularity of Petliura and Makhno imply a strong anti-Bolshevik strand.

So any assertion "We won because the best people from the entire working class" needs to be qualified by the addition of "Russian" to "working class". The world revolution clearly stalled at the edge of the Russian speaking zone -- even when Stalin tried later to extend it by force.

[Art]

The non-Russian speaking portions of the Tsarist Empire included Finland, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan

An also Volga region with a number of Turkish and Finnish nations, vast areas in Siberia, Transbaikal and Far East, Kalmykia, partly Crimea, Karelia and then there were German settlements in Volga region and New Russia and Jews scattered all along the western part of the Empire. That is if we take Ukrainians and Belorussians as Russian-speaking, which is not true from the modern point of view. I think you agree that the Soviet power encountered much more problems in Russian-speaking Cossack regions then in Tatarstan or Mordovia. Then you thesis as I understood it was that all non-Russian regions were lost as a result of Revolution, in fact only the western regions (Poland in 1921 borders, Baltic States, Finland, Bessarabia) were. If you mean that large areas were temporary beyond the control of Moscow in 1918-21, then it was the case for territories with predominantly Russian-speaking population too.

all of which were determinedly not Bolshevik

What do you mean by "they"? The govermets that ultimately gained power were certainly not Bolshevik, as concerns the disposition of political forces it was different in different countries. In Finland the Whites gained power only as a result of a bitter Civil War, Latvia was probably the most "Red" region of the former Empire, as I remember Bolsheviks recieved there the absolute majority of votes during the Constitutional Assembly election in 1917, and it wasn't Sovietized mainly due to German occupation in 1918 and von der Goltz's forces in 1919.Then in Trancaucasian region there was a Baku Commune where Bolsheviks played important role.

It also included various Caucasian mountain and central Asian tribes -- all of which offered stern resistance to Soviet rule

Caucasian highlandersplayed rather on the Red side, mainly because hostile relations with Cossacks, but they have their one Bolsheviks that formed a strange anti-Denikin alliance with local isalmists. In Central Asia Soviet power surivived in almost complete isolation, though in constant struggle against rebellion movement.
In general I see no reason to treat national regions as strongly anti-Red, in fact the main basis of the White movement was formed by Sibeiria and Don-Caucasus with mainly Russian-speaking population. I coulld even point to another interesting correlation - in all the White Regions - Siberia, South, Northern Russia due to historical reasons there was no institute of landlord landownership.

[henryk]

Art said:

Latvia was probably the most "Red" region of the former Empire, as I remember Bolsheviks recieved there the absolute majority of votes during the Constitutional Assembly election in 1917, and it wasn't Sovietized mainly due to German occupation in 1918 and von der Goltz's forces in 1919.

From the Latvian Embassy in the US:
http://www.latvia-usa.org/hisoflatbrie.html

Independence. After the Russian Revolution of March 1917 the Latvian National Political Conference, convened at Riga, asked for complete political autonomy in July. On September 3, however, the German army took Riga. After the Bolshevik coup of November 1917 in Petrograd, the Latvian People's Council, representing peasant, bourgeois, and socialist groups, proclaimed independence on Nov. 18, 1918. A government was formed by the leader of the Farmers' Union, Karlis Ulmanis. The Soviet government established a communist government for Latvia at Valmiera, headed by Peteris Stucka. The Red Army, which included Latvian units, took Riga on Jan. 3, 1919, and the Ulmanis government moved to Liepaja, where it was protected by a British naval squadron. But Liepaja was still occupied by German troops, who the Allies wished to defend East Prussia and Courland (Kurzeme) against the advancing Red Army. Their commander, General Rüdiger von der Goltz, intended to build a German-controlled Latvia and to make it a German base of operation in the war against the Soviets. This intention caused a conflict with the government of independent Latvia supported by the Allies. On May 22, 1919, von der Goltz took Riga. Pushing northward, the Germans were stopped near Cesis by the Estonian army, which included 2,000 Latvians. The British forced the Germans to abandon Riga, to which the Ulmanis government returned in July. In the meantime, the Red Army, finding itself attacked from the north by the Estonians, had withdrawn from Latvia.

In July the British demanded that the German troops retreat to East Prussia. But von der Goltz now raised a "West Russian" army, systematically reinforced by units of German volunteers. These forces, headed by an adventurer, Colonel Pavel Bermondt-Avalov, were to fight the Red Army, cooperating with the other "White Russian" armies of Kolchak, Denikin, and Yudenich, supported by the Allies. But on October 8 Bermondt-Avalov attacked the Latvian troops and occupied the suburbs of Riga south of the river. By November 10, however, the Latvians, aided by the artillery of an Anglo-French naval squadron cooperating with Estonian forces, defeated von der Goltz's and Bermondt-Avalov's troops, attacked finally also by the Lithuanians. By December 1919 all German troops had abandoned Latvia and Lithuania. Only Latgale remained in Red hands; but this province was soon thereafter cleared of Red troops.

A Latvian constituent assembly, elected in April 1920, met in Riga on May 1; and on August 11 a Latvian-Soviet peace treaty was signed in Riga, the Soviet government renouncing all claims to Latvia. The Latvian constitution of Feb. 15, 1922, provided for a republic with a president and a unicameral parliament, the Saeima, of 100 members elected for three years.