The Russian Civil War was fought between 1918 and 1920 and was mainly between those attacking the Bolshevik-led Soviet Government (‘the whites’), and those defending it (‘the reds’).
In 1918 the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, in which Russia had to surrender large amounts of territory to Germany as a condition of peace, intensified opposition to the Soviet Government. It also led to a break up of the coalition between the Bolsheviks and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries which left Lenin’s government somewhat vulnerable. During the following months, there emerged two main parties of opposition: the first was all of the left-wing socialist parties who were not the Bolsheviks and were feeling excluded from leadership after Lenin dissolved the Constituent Assembly, and the second was a rightist group, commonly referred to as the ‘whites’ who had gotten a hold of a well-trained volunteer army. Increasing tension and conflict between the Bolsheviks and the opposition led the government to declare a campaign of ‘Red Terror’ in September 1918. This meant that they could increase power to the Cheka, including the ability to arrest, trial, and even execute political suspects.
One of the first set of victims in the war was the imperial family. The former Tsar and Tsarina and their five children were executed at their home in Yekaterinburg on the 17th of July 1918. Although this was a brutal tactic by Lenin, it was strategically the right move because it meant that the whites had no clear replacement in the event that they did overthrow Lenin and his Government. The fighting between the reds and the whites continued and, in 1919, ended up in Ukraine. At this point, the Allied forces had to make a decision on what to do about the devolving situation in Russia. The French and Italian governments were strongly favoured towards helping the Whites in the form of providing ammunition and supplies, while the British and the US governments were somewhat more cautious and maintained hope about reuniting the opposing Russian factions. Eventually the reds won the war with a successful counteroffensive against the whites, and Lenin and the Bolsheviks remained in power.
Consequences of the war – the fallout of the Russian civil war was disastrous. Approximately 10 million lives were lost, most of them were civilians. Thousands of alleged Bolshevik opponents were murdered by the Cheka. Typhus was everywhere and, due to Lenin confiscating grain during the war to feed the red army, there was rampant malnutrition amongst the peasants. There was also a complete breakdown of transportation across the country as the railway systems were devastated. The victory of the Communists also went hand-in-hand with the crushing of hope for various nationalist movements by non-Russian ethnic minorities, such as the Tartar people.