🚂 The Reds in the centre
The Reds held Moscow and Petrograd, the biggest cities, with most of Russia's factories, weapons and population. Railways ran out from Moscow like spokes, so troops and supplies could be sent quickly to any front.
The Bolshevik Consolidation of Power and the Civil War » Why the Bolsheviks Won the Civil War
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: Paper 2 Section A, Investigation A2, Key topic 4
- How Trotsky built the Red Army
- Why holding the centre and the railways helped the Reds
- How unity, propaganda and the Red Terror held the Reds together
- Why the Whites were divided and unpopular, and how to answer a 16-mark interpretation question
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Unlock This CourseTrotsky and the Red Army
In 1918 the Bolsheviks had little more than volunteers and Red Guards. In March 1918 Leon Trotsky became People's Commissar for War and set out to build a real army. He brought in conscription, so that men were called up rather than relying on volunteers. By 1920 the Red Army had around five million men on paper.
He also brought back strict discipline, including the death penalty for desertion and cowardice. To get skilled leaders he used former officers of the Tsar's army, called military specialists. Many were distrusted, so each was watched by a political commissar, a Communist who checked orders and kept up the troops' loyalty. Trotsky travelled the fronts in an armoured train, giving speeches and sorting out problems himself.
Key terms:
- Military specialists: former Tsarist officers who served in the Red Army.
- Political commissar: a Communist Party official attached to a unit to watch its commander and keep the men loyal.
- Red Terror: the Bolsheviks' use of arrests, hostage-taking and executions to crush opponents, officially launched in September 1918.
- Propaganda: information and images spread to win support for a cause.
Geography: the centre and the railways
🗺️ The Whites on the edges
The White armies were scattered around the edges, in Siberia, the south and the north-west, often thousands of miles apart. They could not easily plan together, and each had to fight on its own with poor supplies.
This is why the White attacks failed one after another. The Reds could move forces from front to front and beat each in turn.
Unity, propaganda and the Red Terror
The Reds had one party and one leader, Lenin, and a clear message: defend the revolution and the workers' state. Posters, newspapers and speakers on special agitation trains spread this message. The Bolsheviks also said they were defending Russia against foreign invaders, because the Whites were backed by foreign troops.
The Red Terror was the other side of Bolshevik control. The Cheka, led by Dzerzhinsky, arrested and shot suspected enemies, and the Terror was officially launched in September 1918 after an attempt on Lenin's life. Fear kept many people quiet and obedient, though it also made enemies. The Reds also ran the economy for the war effort (see the lesson War Communism and the Kronstadt Mutiny).
Why the Whites lost
- Divided aims: the Whites were monarchists, liberals and moderate socialists who agreed mainly that they opposed the Bolsheviks.
- Poor co-operation: Kolchak, Denikin, Yudenich and Wrangel acted separately.
- Unpopular: many peasants feared that a White victory would bring back the landowners. White armies also took food and horses by force, and some White troops attacked Jews.
- "One and indivisible Russia": refusing independence to the non-Russian peoples lost them potential allies.
- Weak foreign help: the Allies sent supplies and some troops but were tired after the First World War and withdrew, so the help never decided the war.
Common mistakes
- Saying the Reds won only because of Trotsky. Weigh him against the Whites' weaknesses.
- Retelling the battles. This question asks WHY the Reds won, not what happened.
- Treating a source as simply true. Lenin and Trotsky were speaking and writing for an audience, so ask why they said it.
Exam-style question
This is a Paper 2 Section A (c) question. You must use Extract C, Sources A and B and your own knowledge. Give evidence that supports the view and evidence that challenges it, then reach a judgement.
Source A: From a speech by Leon Trotsky to the Moscow Soviet, 19 March 1918, printed in Pravda on 21 March 1918 (translated).
We must at all costs and at any price implant discipline in the Red Army - not the previous sort, the automatic discipline of the rod, but conscious, collective discipline, based on revolutionary enthusiasm and clear understanding by the workers and peasants of their duty to their own classes.
Source B: From a letter by Lenin to the workers and peasants about the victory over Kolchak, written 24 August 1919 (translated).
The workers and peasants of the Urals and Siberia are enthusiastically welcoming Soviet power, for it is sweeping away with an iron broom all the landowner and capitalist scum who ground down the people with exactions, humiliations, floggings, and the restoration of tsarist oppression.
Extract C (a practice extract written for this lesson, in the style of a modern history book)
The Reds won the Civil War because of the army Trotsky built. He brought in conscription, restored discipline and used experienced officers under close watch. The Whites were divided and often unpopular, but without a disciplined Red Army their weaknesses would not have been decisive.
Study Extract C. Extract C suggests that the Bolsheviks won the Civil War mainly because of the Red Army built by Trotsky. How far do you agree with this interpretation? Use Extract C, Sources A and B and your own knowledge to explain your answer. [16 marks]
Model answer
Extract C says the Reds won 'because of the army Trotsky built', and there is good evidence for this. Source A shows Trotsky demanding discipline 'at all costs and at any price' in March 1918, when the Reds had only volunteers. My own knowledge supports the extract. Trotsky introduced conscription, so the Red Army grew to around five million men, and he used former Tsarist officers while commissars watched them. His armoured train took him to threatened fronts, and the Reds beat the White armies one by one.
However, 'because of' Trotsky's army goes too far, because other factors mattered. Source B says the workers and peasants of Siberia were 'enthusiastically welcoming Soviet power' and that it swept away 'landowner and capitalist scum'. Lenin was writing propaganda, so it must be treated with care, but peasants did fear that the Whites would bring back the landowners, and White armies took food and horses by force. This lost the Whites support they needed, whatever the Red Army did.
Geography also helped. The Reds held Moscow, Petrograd and the railways, so they could move troops between fronts, while the Whites were scattered on the edges and could not co-operate. The Whites were also divided, as their leaders acted separately, and refusing independence to non-Russian peoples lost them allies.
The Reds also used terror and propaganda. The Cheka and the Red Terror frightened opponents into obedience, and posters painted the Whites as backed by foreigners. Extract C ignores both of these, yet a conscript army needs more than good officers to hold together.
Overall, I only partly agree. The Red Army was essential, because without it the Reds could not have used their central position. But an army cannot win without supplies and recruits, and the Reds had both from the centre and from peasants who feared the Whites more than the Bolsheviks. The most important factor was therefore the Whites' unpopularity and division, which let the Red Army succeed.
What lifts this to the top level: it uses Extract C and both sources with short quotations, adds precise own knowledge, weighs several factors against each other, and reaches a judgement based on which factor mattered most.
Exam tip
Name the extract's claim in your first sentence, then test it with Source A, Source B and your own facts. Your final paragraph should rank the factors and say why one mattered most.