Civil war and intervention (briefly). Civil war and foreign intervention. Politics of War Communism Civil War and Military Intervention 1917 1922

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- Civil War and the military intervention of 1917-1922 in Russia - an armed struggle for power between representatives various classes, social strata and groups of the former Russian Empire with the participation of the troops of the Quadruple Alliance and the Entente.

1. The causes of the war and its content.

The main reasons for the Civil War and military intervention were:

· irreconcilability of the positions of various political parties, groups and classes on issues of power, economic and political course of the country;

· the bet of opponents of Bolshevism on the overthrow of Soviet power by armed means with the support of foreign states;

· the desire of the latter to protect their interests in Russia and prevent the spread of the revolutionary movement in the world; the development of national separatist movements on the territory of the former Russian Empire;

· the radicalism of the Bolsheviks, who considered revolutionary violence one of the most important means of achieving their political goals, the desire of the leadership of the Bolshevik Party to put into practice the ideas of the world revolution.

(Military encyclopedia. Military publishing house. Moscow. In 8 volumes - 2004)

After Russia's withdrawal from the First World War, German and Austro-Hungarian troops occupied parts of Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states and southern Russia in February 1918. To preserve Soviet power, Soviet Russia agreed to conclude the Brest Peace Treaty (March 1918). In March 1918, Anglo-Franco-American troops landed in Murmansk; in April, Japanese troops in Vladivostok; in May, a mutiny began in the Czechoslovak Corps, which was traveling along the Trans-Siberian Railway to the East. Samara, Kazan, Simbirsk, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk and other cities along the entire length of the highway were captured. All this created serious problems for the new government. By the summer of 1918, numerous groups and governments had formed on 3/4 of the country’s territory that opposed Soviet power. The Soviet government began creating the Red Army and switched to a policy of war communism. In June, the government formed the Eastern Front, and in September - the Southern and Northern Fronts.

Soviet authority by the end of the summer of 1918, it was preserved mainly in the central regions of Russia and in part of the territory of Turkestan. In the 2nd half of 1918, the Red Army won its first victories on the Eastern Front and liberated the Volga region and part of the Urals.

After the revolution in Germany in November 1918, the Soviet government annulled the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and Ukraine and Belarus were liberated. However, the policy of war communism, as well as decossackization, caused peasant and Cossack uprisings in various regions and made it possible for the leaders of the anti-Bolshevik camp to form numerous armies and launch a broad offensive against the Soviet Republic.

In October 1918, in the South, the Volunteer Army of General Anton Denikin and the Don Cossack Army of General Pyotr Krasnov went on the offensive against the Red Army; Kuban and the Don region were occupied, attempts were made to cut the Volga in the Tsaritsyn area. In November 1918, Admiral Alexander Kolchak announced the establishment of a dictatorship in Omsk and proclaimed himself the supreme ruler of Russia.

In November-December 1918, British and French troops landed in Odessa, Sevastopol, Nikolaev, Kherson, Novorossiysk, and Batumi. In December, Kolchak’s army intensified its actions, capturing Perm, but the Red Army troops, having captured Ufa, suspended its offensive.

In January 1919, the Soviet troops of the Southern Front managed to push Krasnov’s troops away from the Volga and defeat them, the remnants of which joined the Armed Forces of the South of Russia created by Denikin. In February 1919, the Western Front was created.

At the beginning of 1919, the offensive of French troops in the Black Sea region ended in failure; revolutionary ferment began in the French squadron, after which the French command was forced to evacuate its troops. In April, British units left Transcaucasia. In March 1919, Kolchak's army went on the offensive along the Eastern Front; by the beginning of April it had captured the Urals and was moving towards the Middle Volga.

In March-May 1919, the Red Army repelled the offensive of the White Guard forces from the east (Admiral Alexander Kolchak), south (General Anton Denikin), and west (General Nikolai Yudenich). As a result of the general counter-offensive of units of the Eastern Front of the Red Army, the Urals were occupied in May-July and, in the next six months, with the active participation of partisans, Siberia.

In April-August 1919, the interventionists were forced to evacuate their troops from the south of Ukraine, Crimea, Baku, and Central Asia. The troops of the Southern Front defeated Denikin's armies near Orel and Voronezh and by March 1920 pushed their remnants into the Crimea. In the fall of 1919, Yudenich's Army was finally defeated near Petrograd.

At the beginning of 1920, the North and the coast of the Caspian Sea were occupied. The Entente states completely withdrew their troops and lifted the blockade. After the end of the Soviet-Polish War, the Red Army launched a series of attacks on the troops of General Peter Wrangel and expelled them from Crimea.

In the territories occupied by the White Guards and interventionists, a partisan movement operated. In the Chernigov province one of the organizers partisan movement was Nikolai Shchors, in Primorye the commander-in-chief of the partisan forces was Sergei Lazo. The Ural partisan army under the command of Vasily Blucher in 1918 carried out a raid from the region of Orenburg and Verkhneuralsk through the Ural ridge in the Kama region. She defeated 7 regiments of Whites, Czechoslovaks and Poles, and disorganized the rear of the Whites. Having covered 1.5 thousand km, the partisans united with the main forces of the Eastern Front of the Red Army.

In 1921-1922, anti-Bolshevik uprisings were suppressed in Kronstadt, the Tambov region, in a number of regions of Ukraine, etc., and the remaining pockets of interventionists and White Guards in Central Asia and the Far East were eliminated (October 1922).

Consequences of the war.

By 1921, Russia was literally in ruins. The territories of Poland, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Western Ukraine, Belarus, Kars region (in Armenia) and Bessarabia were ceded from the former Russian Empire. According to experts, the population in the remaining territories barely reached 135 million people. Losses in these territories as a result of wars, epidemics, emigration, and declining birth rates have amounted to at least 25 million people since 1914.

During the hostilities, the Donbass, the Baku oil region, the Urals and Siberia were especially damaged; many mines and mines were destroyed. Factories shut down due to a lack of fuel and raw materials. Workers were forced to leave the cities and go to the countryside. In general, the level of industry decreased by 5 times. The equipment has not been updated for a long time. Metallurgy produced as much metal as it was smelted under Peter I.

Agricultural production fell by 40%. Almost the entire imperial intelligentsia was destroyed. Those who remained urgently emigrated to avoid this fate. During the Civil War, from hunger, disease, terror and battles, from 8 to 13 million people died (according to various sources), including about 1 million Red Army soldiers. Up to 2 million people emigrated from the country. The number of street children increased sharply after World War I and the Civil War. According to some data, in 1921 there were 4.5 million street children in Russia, according to others, in 1922 there were 7 million street children. Damage to the national economy amounted to about 50 billion gold rubles, industrial production fell to 4-20% of the 1913 level.

Losses during the war (Table 1)

Results of the intervention

“Some exotic African troops peacefully walked along the streets of this beautiful seaside city: blacks, Algerians, Moroccans brought by the occupying French from hot and distant countries - indifferent, carefree, poorly understanding what was going on. They did not know how to fight and did not want to. They went shopping, bought all sorts of rubbish and cackled, talking in a guttural language. They themselves didn’t know exactly why they were brought here.”

Alexander Vertinsky about the French intervention in Odessa, early 1919

Leaders White movement were actually in a hopeless situation regarding the question of accepting or not accepting help from the “allies”: a destroyed economy that required huge financial costs; the basing of all White Guard state formations, without exception, on the outskirts of the empire, certainly with a rear at sea, which did not have industrial and material base- in contrast to the situation of the Bolsheviks, based in the center of the country with its factories and military warehouses from the First World War. Without being able to get by on our own, they were forced to place themselves in strategic dependence on the interventionists, who, as the Ph.D. writes. N.S. Kirmel, aligning himself on this issue with Doctor of Historical Sciences. N.A. Narochnitskaya, at a difficult moment they betrayed the White movement.

An important factor, skillfully used by the Bolsheviks against the White movement in the propaganda struggle, was the very presence on the territory of Russia of limited contingents of foreign troops, who, moreover, did not want to engage in the fight against the Red Army, and therefore, by the fact of their presence, brought not so much to the White movement good, so much harm, since they only discredited anti-Soviet governments among the masses and gave the Soviets a powerful propaganda trump card. Bolshevik agitators presented the White Guards as supposedly proteges of the world bourgeoisie, trading in national interests and natural resources, and their struggle as supposedly patriotic and fair.

List of used literature

1. Goldin V.I. Russia in the Civil War. Essays on modern historiography.-

M.-2000.-276s.

2. Civil war in documents and memoirs.-M.-1998.

3. History of the USSR. / Edited by Ostrovsky V.P. - M.: Prosvet, 1990.

4. Konovalov V. Civil war in Russia (1917-1922): myths and

reality // Dialogue.-1998.-No.9.-p.72-76

5. Levandovsky A.A., Shchetinov Yu.A. Russia in the 20th century: Textbook. M.: Vlados,

6. Our Fatherland. Experience of political history. T.2 – M.: Prosvet, 1991.

7. National history/ Edited by A.A. Radugin. – M.: Academy, 2003.

8. A manual on the history of the Fatherland / Ed. Kuritsina V.M. - M.: Space,

9. Shevotsukov P. A. Pages of the history of the Civil War.-M.-1995.

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Presentation on the topic: Civil War and military intervention of 1917-1922 in Russia

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Presentation on the topic: Civil war and military intervention 1917-1922 in Russia

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YUDENICH Nikolai Nikolaevich (1862-1933), infantry general (1915), one of the leaders of the white movement in northwestern Russia. In World War I, he commanded the Caucasian Army (1915-16), successfully conducted the Erzurum operation (December 1915 - February 1916); in April - May 1917 commander-in-chief of the Caucasian Front. During the Civil War, he led the spring-summer offensive of 1919 White Guard troops on Petrograd, and from June he was the commander-in-chief of the White Guard troops in northwestern Russia. After the failure of the “campaign against Petrograd” (October - November 1919), he retreated to Estonia with the remnants of the army. He emigrated in 1920.

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DENIKIN Anton Ivanovich (December 4, 1872, the village of Shpetal-Dolny, Włoclaw district, Warsaw province - August 7, 1947, Ann Arbor, USA), Russian military leader, one of the leaders of the white movement, publicist and memoirist, lieutenant general (1916). Beginning of a military career Father - from serfs, after 22 years of military service he passed the exam for the officer rank and retired with the rank of major, mother - a Polish woman from small landowners. He graduated from the Lovichi Real School, military school courses at the Kiev Infantry Junker School (1892) and the Nikolaev Academy General Staff(1899). He served in the 2nd Artillery Brigade (1892-95 and 1900-02), and was senior adjutant of the 2nd Infantry Division (1902-03) and the 2nd Cavalry Corps (1903-04). During Russo-Japanese War in March 1904 he submitted a report on transfer to the active army. In April 1917, after the February Revolution, he was appointed chief of staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, and in May - commander-in-chief of the armies Western Front, in July - Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the Southwestern Front. In November 1917 he arrived in Novocherkassk, where he took part in the organization and formation of the Volunteer Army. He sought to smooth out differences between generals M.V. Alekseev and L.G. Kornilov, initiated the division of powers between them, as well as the Don ataman A.M. Kaledin. On January 30, 1918, he was appointed head of the 1st Volunteer Division. The greatest successes of Denikin's troops occurred in the summer - early autumn of 1919. On June 20, in the newly captured Tsaritsyn, Denikin signed the “Moscow Directive” - on an attack on Moscow. The White troops under the command of Denikin achieved the greatest successes compared to other anti-Bolshevik fronts; in October 1919 they took Oryol and launched an attack on Tula; However, the counter-offensive of the Red Army troops led to a rapid retreat, which ended in March 1920 with the “Novorossiysk disaster”, when the White troops, pressed to the sea, were evacuated in panic, and a significant part of them were captured. Shocked by the disaster, Denikin resigned and on April 4, 1922 handed over command to General P.N. Wrangel. In exile, Denikin went to Constantinople, then to London, and in August 1920 to Brussels. Buried with military honors at Evergreen Cemetery (Detroit); On December 15, 1952, Denikin's ashes were transferred to the Russian cemetery of St. Vladimir in Cassville (New Jersey).

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As a result of the general counteroffensive of the Soviet troops of the Eastern Front in May - July, the Urals were occupied and, in the next six months, with the active participation of partisans, Siberia. In April - August 1919, the interventionists were forced to evacuate their troops from the south of Ukraine, from Crimea, Baku, Sr. Asia. The troops of the Southern Front defeated Denikin's armies near Orel and Voronezh and by March 1920 pushed their remnants into the Crimea. In the fall of 1919, Yudenich's army was finally defeated near Petrograd. In the beginning. 1920 The north and coast of the Caspian Sea were occupied. The Entente states completely withdrew their troops and lifted the blockade. After the end of the Soviet-Polish War, the Red Army launched a series of attacks on the troops of General P. N. Wrangel and expelled them from Crimea. In 1921-22, anti-Bolshevik uprisings were suppressed in Kronstadt, the Tambov region, in a number of regions of Ukraine, etc., and the remaining pockets of interventionists and White Guards in Sr. Asia and the Far East (October 1922). The civil war brought enormous disasters. From hunger, disease, terror and in battles (according to various sources), from 8 to 13 million people died, including approx. 1 million Red Army soldiers. Up to 2 million people emigrated by the end of the Civil War. The damage caused to the national economy amounted to approx. 50 billion gold rubles, industrial production fell to 4-20% of the 1913 level, agricultural production fell by almost half.

The October Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent political and economic measures of the Soviet government and the Bolshevik leadership led the country to a deep internal split and intensified the struggle of various social and political forces. The period from the spring of 1918 to 1920 was called the Civil War.

Civil war is a state of society divided in social-class, national-religious, ideological-political, moral-ethical and other respects, when violence (including armed violence) is the main means of resolving contradictions (not only in the struggle for power, but also simply for preservation of life).

1. The question of the chronological framework and periodization of the Civil War in Russian historiography is still ambiguous. Here are some of them:

I. V.I. Lenin defined four periods of the Civil War (from October 1917 - 1922)

1. Purely political since October 1917. Until January 5, 1918 (before the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly).

2. Peace of Brest-Litovsk.

3. Civil war from 1918 to 1920

4. Forced cessation of intervention and blockade by the Entente. 1922.

II. A number of historians share the Civil War of 1918 - 1920. for three periods:

The first – summer 1918 – March 1919. - the beginning of an armed uprising by the forces of external and internal counter-revolution and the large-scale intervention of the Entente.

III. Modern historian L.M. Spirin notes that Russia, since the overthrow of the autocracy, has experienced two Civil Wars:

2. October 1917 – 1922 At the same time, the period from the summer of 1918 to the end of 1920 is singled out as the most acute. Then from 1921 – the period of highest opposition.

IV. Modern historian P.V. Vlobuev believes: “It must be taken into account that not immediately after the revolution, the struggle began to be waged for the mutual destruction of opposing forces. Period from October 1917 Until May 1918 - stage of the soft Civil War. There have already been cases of terror, but the mass of the people have not yet joined the fight. From the end of 1918 - 1919 The civil war has reached the peak of bitterness.”

V. Modern historian Yu. A. Polyakov gives his periodization of the Civil War of 1917 - 1922.

February – March 1917 The violent overthrow of the autocracy and the open split of society along social lines.

March – October 1917 Strengthening social and political confrontation in society. The failure of Russian democrats in trying to establish peace in the country.

October 1917 – March 1918 The violent overthrow of the Provisional Government and a new split in society.

March – June 1918 Terror, local military actions, the formation of the Red and White armies.

Summer 1918 – end of 1920 Massive battles between regular troops, foreign intervention.

1921 – 1922 The end of the Civil War, military operations on the outskirts of the country.

VI. Modern American historian V.N. Brovkin offers the following periodization:

1918 Collapse of the empire. The struggle of the Bolsheviks and socialists (Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries). The beginning of the intervention, the peasants protesting against the poor.

1919 Year of the Whites. The offensive of the army of Denikin, Kolchak and others. The peasantry again swung towards the Bolsheviks due to the threat of the “whites” to confiscate land in favor of the landowners.

1920 – 1921 Years of "red" and "green". Bolshevik victory in the Civil War. Under pressure from the “greens” - the abolition of surplus appropriation and the introduction of free trade.

Each of these periodizations can take place in Russian history in its own way, depending on what point of view you look at the Civil War from. There are many differences, but there are also common points - this is that all historians lean towards the period of the beginning and end of the Civil War from 1918 to 1920, the peak of the highest confrontation of forces in the country.

2. Like any historical phenomenon or event, the Civil War has its own signs and causes.

Signs:

1. Confrontation between classes and social groups;

2. acute class clashes;

3. resolution of contradictions with the help of armed forces;

4. terror towards political opponents;

5. lack of clear time and spatial boundaries.

It is not easy to find the answer to the questions: who is to blame for the Civil War, and what are its causes?

In modern historical science there are different opinions on this matter. Let us dwell on the most general interpretation of the causes of the Civil War.

1. Inconsistency between the goals of transforming society and the methods for achieving them;

2. Nationalization of industry, liquidation of commodity-money relations;

3. Confiscation of landowners' lands;

4. Creation of a one-party political system, establishment of the Bolshevik dictatorship.

At the same time, a feature of the Civil War in Russia is the presence of foreign intervention - the violent intervention of one or more states in the internal affairs of another state, a violation of its sovereignty. In Russia there is an “overlay” of the Civil War and the intervention of the Entente countries and the countries of the Triple Alliance.

Reasons and goals of the intervention:

1. The fight against Bolshevism;

2. The desire to return your property in Russia and restore payments on loans - securities;

3. The Entente countries feared the pro-German orientation of the Bolsheviks and supported those who were capable of renewing the war with Germany;

4. They wanted to divide Russia into spheres of influence.

The intervention of the Entente and Triple Alliance countries began in March 1918 with the invasion of the Anglo-Franco-American landing force in Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. The Allies landed under the pretext of protecting their warehouses. The Japanese landed in the Far East in April. In July - August 1918, the British landed in Central Asia and Transcaucasia. At the same time, Germany, violating the terms of the Brest Peace Treaty, occupied Crimea and Donbass, the Turks captured Armenia and part of Azerbaijan. At the end of November 1918, British and French invaders landed in Novorossiysk, Sevastopol and Odessa, thereby blocking the Black Sea ports. In November 1918, the first World War, a revolution begins in Germany, accordingly, neither she nor her allies had any time for the situation in Russia.

On the contrary, the Entente countries could now exert greater influence on events in Russia.

There is a consolidation of the intervention and the “white movement”.

· The local population had a negative attitude towards the intervention;

· Among the interventionists, the Bolsheviks conduct anti-war propaganda;

· Contradictions among the Entente countries are intensifying;

· The “Hands off Soviet Russia!” movement is expanding in the Entente countries.

Thus, we can conclude that the intervention, in which France played a leading role, did not have a decisive impact on the civil war in Russia. In March–April 1919, due to unrest among French sailors on the Black Sea, the Entente Supreme Council began evacuating expeditionary forces. The British are based in the north and north-west of the country until September 1919, and then leave the opposing forces to sort things out among themselves.

The civil war and military intervention of 1917-1922 in Russia was an armed struggle for power between representatives of various classes, social strata and groups of the former Russian Empire with the participation of troops of the Quadruple Alliance and the Entente.

The main reasons for the Civil War and military intervention were: the intransigence of the positions of various political parties, groups and classes on issues of power, economic and political course of the country; the bet of opponents of Bolshevism on the overthrow of Soviet power by armed means with the support of foreign states; the desire of the latter to protect their interests in Russia and prevent the spread of the revolutionary movement in the world; the development of national separatist movements on the territory of the former Russian Empire; the radicalism of the Bolsheviks, who considered revolutionary violence one of the most important means of achieving their political goals, and the desire of the leadership of the Bolshevik Party to put into practice the ideas of world revolution.

(Military encyclopedia. Military publishing house. Moscow. In 8 volumes - 2004)

By the end of the summer of 1918, Soviet power remained mainly in the central regions of Russia and in part of the territory of Turkestan. In the 2nd half of 1918, the Red Army won its first victories on the Eastern Front and liberated the Volga region and part of the Urals.

In the territories occupied by the White Guards and interventionists, a partisan movement operated. In the Chernigov province, one of the organizers of the partisan movement was Nikolai Shchors; in Primorye, the commander-in-chief of the partisan forces was Sergei Lazo. The Ural partisan army under the command of Vasily Blucher in 1918 carried out a raid from the region of Orenburg and Verkhneuralsk through the Ural ridge in the Kama region. She defeated 7 regiments of Whites, Czechoslovaks and Poles, and disorganized the rear of the Whites. Having covered 1.5 thousand km, the partisans united with the main forces of the Eastern Front of the Red Army.

The civil war on Russian territory ended in victory for the Red Army, but brought enormous disasters. The damage caused to the national economy amounted to about 50 billion gold rubles, industrial production fell to 4-20% of the 1913 level, and agricultural production decreased by almost half.

The irretrievable losses of the Red Army (killed, died from wounds, went missing, did not return from captivity, etc.) amounted to 940 thousand and sanitary losses of 6 million 792 thousand people. The enemy, according to incomplete data, lost 225 thousand people in battles alone. The total losses of Russia in the Civil War amounted to about 13 million people.

During the Civil War, military leaders in the Red Army were Joachim Vatsetis, Vladimir Gittis, Alexander Egorov, Sergei Kamenev, August Kork, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Hieronymus Uborevich, Vasily Blucher, Semyon Budyonny, Pavel Dybenko, Grigory Kotovsky, Mikhail Frunze, Ion Yakir and others.

Of the military leaders of the White movement, the most prominent role in the Civil War was played by generals Mikhail Alekseev, Anton Denikin, Alexander Dutov, Alexey Kaledin, Lavr Kornilov, Pyotr Krasnov, Evgeny Miller, Grigory Semenov, Nikolai Yudenich, and Admiral Alexander Kolchak.

One of the controversial figures of the Civil War was the anarchist Nestor Makhno. He was the organizer of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine, which fought either against the whites, then against the reds, or against all of them at once.

41. Policy of “war communism”. 1918-early 1921.

Considering the question of the formation of the Soviet economy in the first months after October revolution, we found out that in less than a year a mixed economy was created, combining large state industry and transport, a government monopoly on banking and foreign trade, trade in bread and other food products with private and cooperative capital in production and internal trade in non-productive goods. The countryside changed dramatically: landownership was eliminated and the kulaks were limited, but at the same time the number of small-scale peasant farms sharply increased, on whose shoulders fell the task of supplying the army, cities and industry with food, primarily bread.

The Soviet state in 1918-1920. implemented a number of emergency measures, the totality of which is known as the policy of war communism. The system of military communism, characteristic of the entire period of foreign military intervention and civil war, began to take shape in the second half of 1918.

In the conditions of incredibly difficult wartime, first during the First World War, then the Civil War and foreign intervention, it was impossible to allow the development of market relations, it was impossible to allow the peasant to sell the excess of his production. This would lead to the fact that the country's meager production resources would not go to defense needs, but would be used by speculators. Therefore, surplus appropriation was the only way out of the situation.

Surplus appropriation. Back in 1916, the Minister of Agriculture Kutler proposed to the government, following the example of Germany, to distribute among the grain-producing provinces the amount of grain that they had to hand over to supply the army and cities. This later received the name food appropriation. In March 1917, the Provisional Government declared a grain monopoly: all surpluses in excess of the minimum necessary to feed the producer and his family were to be at the disposal of the state. But, reflecting the interests of the landowners - the main supplier of commercial grain, not a single old government dared to introduce surplus appropriation. It was introduced only in 1918.

Back in November 1917, the Military Revolutionary Committees of Petrograd, Moscow, and then other industrial centers organized food detachments that were sent to the villages of the South and Volga region to procure bread and other products. They carried with them tools, nails, and some textiles for direct product exchange for bread, cereals, and butter.

On January 14 (27), 1918, the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars “On measures to improve the food situation” was adopted, according to which the so-called “barrage detachments” for requisitioning surplus food from the population on railways and waterways (at stations and piers), as well as on highways at the entrance to cities.

Barrage detachments– armed groups of 5-10 people, deployed on the railway. stations, marinas and highways at the entrance to cities for the purpose of requisitioning food. They had the right to inspect all carts, ships, passenger and service cars (except postal and bank cars) and requisition of food in excess of the permitted 20 pounds (8 kg) per person with the obligatory issuance of a receipt, according to which the cost of the requisitioned was paid at fixed prices. Liquidated in the spring of 1921 with the introduction of the New Economic Policy.

The beginning of the policy of "war communism". By the spring of 1918, hunger in the cities of Northern and Central Russia became even more acute. Grain Ukraine was occupied by German and Austrian troops, the Don, North Caucasus and Volga region were cut off by White Guard revolts. The supply of food to the cities almost stopped. On May 9, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a Decree granting the People's Commissar of Food emergency powers. It confirmed the grain monopoly and fixed prices for bread declared but not implemented by the Provisional Government.

All grain in excess of the amount necessary for sowing fields and personal consumption, peasants were obliged to hand over to dumping points. Persons who did not hand over the surplus were declared enemies of the people and were subject, according to the verdict of the revolutionary court, to imprisonment for 5-10 years, confiscation of property and expulsion from the community. Moonshiners were sentenced to community service. Those who brought surpluses for shelter were paid half of their value at fixed prices.

The People's Commissariat for Food could use armed force, cancel decisions of local food authorities and other organizations, dissolve them, dismiss them, arrest them and bring them to revolutionary court officials interfering with his orders.

The decree of May 9, 1918 actually introduced a “food dictatorship” in the country. It marked the beginning of the policy of "war communism". In connection with the expansion of the territory covered by the civil war, the Council of People's Commissars on May 28, at the suggestion of V.I. Lenin, introduced martial law throughout the country. The scattered food ranks were brought together into a Food Army headed by the chief commissar, and barrage detachments were installed on all major railways and waterways to confiscate the food being transported.

Combeds. On June 8, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued a Decree on the organization of committees of the rural poor (Kombedov). According to it, committees of the poor were created in all volosts and villages, to which everyone except kulaks could be elected. The committees distributed surplus bread (for the poor until July 15 - free of charge, from July 15 to August 15 - at a discount of half the fixed price, from August 15 - 20%) and helped food detachments. The committees carried out partial dispossession, transferring part of the kulak land and 2 million rubles worth of agricultural implements to the poor.

At the end of the summer, harvesting and harvesting-requisitioning detachments were created, harvesting grain in the former landowners' estates and the front line.

By the decree of November 21, 1918 “On organizing the supply of the population with all products and items for personal consumption and household use,” all trading enterprises were nationalized.

Decree on food appropriation. The most important element War communism was food allocation for bread and fodder. It was introduced by the decree of the People's Commissar of the Council of January 11, 1919. Subsequently, food allocation was extended to other agricultural products.

According to the surplus appropriation system, peasants had to hand over all food surpluses to the state. The peasant was left with the amount of bread that he needed for consumption, fodder for livestock, as well as a seed fund. In accordance with the harvest, the amount of grain allocated to each province was determined. This amount was further allocated to counties, volosts, villages and peasant households. Fulfillment of the grain supply plan was mandatory.

The allocation for farms was carried out on the basis of the class principle formulated by V.I. Lenin: from the poor peasants - nothing, from the middle peasants - moderately, from the rich - a lot. The peasants were left with only 1 pound of bread and 1 pound of cereals per eater; the rest was requisitioned for worthless paper money or receipts. Conducted with military cruelty, surplus appropriation yielded 108 million poods in the 1918/19 business year (it began in October), and 212 million poods in the next 1919/20.

The surplus appropriation system was not based on the capabilities of the peasant economy, but solely on the needs of the state. As a result, the nutrition of the peasants sharply deteriorated: if before the war a peasant consumed on average 27 poods of grain per year, then in 1920 - 15 poods, and peasants without sowing (approximately one third of the peasant population) - only 12 poods.

Knowing that the “surplus” would be taken away anyway, the peasants sharply reduced their crops. The state was unable to organize counter deliveries of manufactured goods in exchange for bread: in 1920, through the People's Commissariat of Food, peasants received from the state on average only 100 metal products, including less than one nail per household.

The policy of “war communism” was a forced measure, but some of the Bolsheviks saw in it the shortest path to communism: desired equality, universal labor, the destruction of private enterprise, trade, money, turning a blind eye to the fact that this was equality in poverty. The closer peace was, the more urgent the question arose of restoring the material interest of the working people, especially the peasants. But not everyone in the ruling circles understood this.

The civil war began in October 1917 and ended with the defeat of the White Army in the Far East in the fall of 1922. During this time, on the territory of Russia, various social classes and groups resolved the contradictions that arose between them using armed methods.

The main reasons for the outbreak of the civil war include the discrepancy between the goals of transforming society and the methods for achieving them, the refusal to create a coalition government, the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, the nationalization of land and industry, the liquidation of commodity-money relations, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the creation of a one-party system, the danger of the revolution spreading to other countries, economic losses of Western powers during regime change in Russia.

In the spring of 1918, British, American and French troops landed in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. The Japanese invaded the Far East, the British and Americans landed in Vladivostok - the intervention began.

On May 25, there was an uprising of the 45,000-strong Czechoslovak corps, which was transferred to Vladivostok for further shipment to France. A well-armed and equipped corps stretched from the Volga to the Urals. In conditions of decomposed Russian army, he became the only real force at that moment. The corps, supported by the Social Revolutionaries and White Guards, put forward demands for the overthrow of the Bolsheviks and the convening of the Constituent Assembly.

In the South, the Volunteer Army of General A.I. Denikin was formed, which defeated the Soviets in the North Caucasus. The troops of P.N. Krasnov approached Tsaritsyn, in the Urals the Cossacks of General A.A. Dutov captured Orenburg. In November-December 1918, English troops landed in Batumi and Novorossiysk, and the French occupied Odessa. In these critical conditions, the Bolsheviks managed to create a combat-ready army by mobilizing people and resources and attracting military specialists from the tsarist army.

By the fall of 1918, the Red Army liberated the cities of Samara, Simbirsk, Kazan and Tsaritsyn.

The revolution in Germany had a significant influence on the course of the civil war. Having admitted its defeat in the First World War, Germany agreed to annul the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and withdrew its troops from the territory of Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states.

The Entente began to withdraw its troops, providing only material assistance to the White Guards.

By April 1919, the Red Army managed to stop the troops of General A.V. Kolchak. Driven deep into Siberia, they were defeated by the beginning of 1920.

In the summer of 1919, General Denikin, having captured Ukraine, moved towards Moscow and approached Tula. The troops of the first cavalry army under the command of M.V. Frunze and the Latvian riflemen concentrated on the Southern Front. In the spring of 1920, near Novorossiysk, the “Reds” defeated the White Guards.

In the north of the country they fought against the Soviets fighting troops of General N.N. Yudenich. In the spring and autumn of 1919 they made two unsuccessful attempts to capture Petrograd.

In April 1920, the conflict between Soviet Russia and Poland began. In May 1920, the Poles captured Kyiv. The troops of the Western and Southwestern Fronts launched an offensive, but failed to achieve final victory.

Realizing the impossibility of continuing the war, in March 1921 the parties signed a peace treaty.

The war ended with the defeat of General P.N. Wrangel, who led the remnants of Denikin’s troops in the Crimea. In 1920, the Far Eastern Republic was formed, and by 1922 it was finally liberated from the Japanese.

The reasons for the Bolshevik victory: support for the national outskirts and Russian peasants, deceived by the Bolshevik slogan “Land for the peasants”, the creation of a combat-ready army, the lack of a common command among the Whites, support for Soviet Russia from labor movements and communist parties of other countries.

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