The civil war was a terrible test for Russia. This page of history, which has been heroized for many decades, was actually shameful. Fratricide, numerous betrayals, robberies and violence coexisted in it with exploits and self-sacrifice. The White Army consisted of different people - people from all classes, representatives of various nationalities who inhabited a vast country and had different backgrounds. The Red forces were also not a homogeneous mass. Both warring parties experienced similar difficulties in many respects. In the end, after four years, the Reds won. Why?
When did the Civil War begin
When it comes to the start of the Civil War, historians call different dates. For example, Krasnov put forward units subordinate to him with the goal of taking control of Petrograd on October 25, 1917. Or another fact: General Alekseev arrived in the Don to organize a Volunteer Army - this happened on November 2. And here is the Milyukov Declaration, published in the Donskaya Speech newspaper on December 27. What is no reason to consider it an official declaration of war on Soviet power? In a sense, these three versions, like many others, are true. In the last two months of 1917, the Volunteer White Army was formed (and this could not happen at once). In the Civil War, it became the only serious force capable of resisting the Bolsheviks.
The personnel and social profile of the White Army
The backbone of the white movement was Russian officers. Beginning in 1862, its social-class structure underwent changes, but these processes reached particular swiftness during the First World War. Whereas in the middle of the 19th century, belonging to the highest military leadership was the lot of the aristocracy, then at the beginning of the next century, common people were increasingly admitted to it. An example is the famous commanders of the White Army. Alekseev is the son of a soldier, Kornilov’s father was a coronet of the Cossack army, and Denikin was a serf. Contrary to the propaganda stereotypes that were being introduced into the mass consciousness, there could be no talk of any kind of “white bone”. Officers of the White Army, by their origin, could represent a social section of the entire Russian Empire. Infantry schools for the period from 1916 to 1917 graduated 60% of immigrants from peasant families. In the army of General Golovin, out of a thousand ensigns (junior lieutenants, according to the Soviet system of military ranks) there were 700 of them. In addition to them, 260 officers came from the philistine, working and merchant class. The nobles were also four dozen.
The White Army was founded and formed by the notorious “cook children”. Only five percent of the organizers of the movement were wealthy and eminent people, the rest of the income before the revolution consisted only of officer salaries.
Modest debut
The officers intervened in the course of political events immediately after the February Revolution. It was an organized military force, the main advantage of which was discipline and the availability of combat skills. The officers, as a rule, did not have political convictions in terms of belonging to a particular party, but they had a desire to restore order in the country and avoid collapse of the state. As for quantity, the entire White army, as of January 1918 (General Kaledin’s campaign in Petrograd), consisted of seven hundred Cossacks. The demoralization of troops led to an almost complete reluctance to fight. Not only ordinary soldiers, but also officers are extremely reluctant (about 1% of the total) obeyed mobilization orders.
By the beginning of full-scale hostilities, the Volunteer White Army totaled up to seven thousand soldiers and Cossacks, commanded by a thousand officers. She had no food supplies and weapons, as well as support from the population. Immediate collapse seemed inevitable.
Siberia
After the Reds seized power in Tomsk, Irkutsk and other Siberian cities, clandestine anti-Bolshevik centers created by officers began to operate. The uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps was a signal for their open speech against the Soviet regime in May-June 1918. The West Siberian Army was created (commander - General A.N. Grishin-Almazov), into which volunteers began to enlist. Soon its number exceeded 23 thousand. By August, the White Army, having teamed up with the troops of Yesaul G.M. Semenov, formed in two corps (4th East Siberian and 5th Amur) and controlled a vast territory from the Urals to Lake Baikal. It numbered about 60 thousand bayonets, 114 thousand unarmed volunteers under the command of almost 11 thousand officers.
North
The White Army in the Civil War, in addition to Siberia and the Far East, fought on three more main fronts: the South, North-West and North. Each of them had its own specifics both in terms of the operational situation and in terms of contingent. The most professionally trained officers who went through the German War concentrated on the northern theater of war. In addition, they were distinguished by excellent education, upbringing and courage. Many White Army commanders arrived from Ukraine and owed their salvation from the Bolshevik terror to German troops, which explained their Germanophilism, while others had traditional sympathies for the Entente. This situation has sometimes become a cause of conflict. The Northern White Army was relatively small.
Northwest White Army
It was formed with the support of the German armed forces as opposed to the Bolshevik Red Army. After the Germans left, its composition totaled up to 7000 bayonets. It was the least prepared White Guard front, which, however, was accompanied by temporary success. The sailors of the Peipsi flotilla, together with the cavalry detachment of Balakhovich and Permykin, having become disillusioned with the communist idea, decided to go over to the side of the White Guards. Peasant volunteers joined the growing army, and then high school students were forcibly mobilized. The Northwest Army fought with varying success and became one example of the curiosity of the entire war. Counting 17 thousand fighters, it was controlled by 34 generals and many colonels, among whom were those who were less than twenty years old.
South of Russia
Events on this front became decisive in the fate of the country. A population of over 35 million, an area equal in area to a couple of large European countries, equipped with developed transport infrastructure (seaports, railways) were controlled by the white forces of Denikin. The south of Russia could exist separately from the rest of the territory of the former Russian Empire: it had everything for autonomous development, including agriculture and industry. The generals of the White Army, who received excellent military education and multifaceted experience in military operations with Austria-Hungary and Germany, had every chance of winning victories over often poorly educated enemy commanders. However, the problems were the same. People did not want to fight, they could not create a single ideological platform. Monarchists, democrats, liberals were united only by the desire to oppose Bolshevism.
Deserters
Both the Red and White Army suffered from one disease: representatives of the peasantry did not want to go into them voluntarily. Forced mobilization led to a decrease in overall combat effectiveness. Russian officers, regardless of social origin, traditionally constituted a special caste, far from the masses of soldiers, which caused internal contradictions. The scale of punitive measures applied to deserters was monstrous on both sides of the front, but the Bolsheviks practiced executions more often and more decisively, including by showing cruelty to the families of those who escaped. Moreover, they were bolder in promises. As the number of forcibly recruited soldiers "eroding" combat-ready officer regiments increased, control over the performance of combat missions became more difficult. There were practically no reserves, supply was deteriorating. There were other problems that led to the defeat of the army in the South, which was the last stronghold of the whites.
Myths and Reality
The image of a White Guard officer dressed in an impeccable tunic, certainly a nobleman with a sonorous surname, spending leisure time in drunkenness and singing romances, is far from the truth. I had to fight in the conditions of a constant shortage of weapons, ammunition, food, uniforms and everything else, without which it is difficult, if not impossible, to maintain the army in a combat-ready state. The Entente provided support, but this help was not enough, plus there was a moral crisis, expressed in a sense of struggle with one’s own people.
After the defeat in the Civil War, they found salvation abroad Wrangel and Denikin. In 1920, Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak was shot by the Bolsheviks. The Army (Belaya) lost every new territory with every bloody year. All this led to the forced evacuation from Sevastopol in 1922 of the surviving parts of the once powerful army. A little later, the last centers of resistance in the Far East were suppressed.
Many songs of the White Army after a certain alteration of the lyrics became Red Guard. The words “for Holy Russia” were replaced by the phrase “for the power of the Soviets”, other wonderful musical works that received new names (“In the valleys and on the hills”, “Kakhovka”, etc.) were expected to do the same. Today, after decades of oblivion, they are available listeners interested in the history of the White movement.