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(c) By April 1918 armed opposition to the Bolsheviks was breaking out in many areas leading to civil war. The Whites were a mixed bag, including Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, ex-tsarist officers and any other groups which did not like what they had seen of the Bolsheviks; they were not aiming to restore the tsar, but simply to set up a parliamentary government on western lines. In Siberia Admiral Kolchak, former Black Sea Fleet commander, set up a White government; General Denikin was in the Caucasus with a large White army; most bizarre of all the Czechoslovak Legion of about 40,000 men had seized long stretches of the Trans-Siberian Railway in the region of Omsk. These troops were originally prisoners taken by the Russians from the Austro-Hungarian army, who had later fought against the Germans under the Kerensky government. After Brest-Litovsk the Bolsheviks gave them permission to leave Russia via the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostock, but then decided to disarm them in case they co-operated with the Allies, who were already showing interest in the destruction of the new Bolshevik government. The Czechs resisted with great spirit and their control of the railway was a serious embarrassment to the government. The situation was complicated by foreign intervention to help the Whites with the excuse that they wanted a government which would continue the war against Germany. When intervention continued even after the defeat of Germany. it became clear that the aim was to destroy the Bolshevik government which was now advocating world revolution. The USA, Japan, France and Britain sent troops, with landings at Archangel. Murmansk and Vladivostock. The situation seemed grim for the Bolsheviks when early in 1919 Kolchak (whom the Allies intended to head the next government) advanced with three armies towards Moscow, the new capital. However Trotsky, now Commissar for War, had done a magnificent job creating the well-disciplined Red Army, based on conscription and including thousands of experienced officers from the old tsarist armies. Kolchak was forced back, and later captured and executed by the Reds; the Czech legion was defeated and Denikin, advancing from the south to within 250 miles of Moscow, was forced to retreat; he later escaped with British help. By the end of 1919 it was clear that the Bolsheviks (now calling themselves communists) would survive, though 1920 saw an invasion of the Ukraine by Polish and French troops which forced the Russians to hand over part of the Ukraine and White Russia (Treaty of Riga 1921). From the communist point of view, however, the important thing was that they had won the civil war. The communist victory was achieved because: (i) The Whites were not centrally organised; Kolchak and Denikin failed to link up, and the nearer they drew to Moscow the more they strained their lines of communication. They lost the support of many peasants by their brutal behaviour and because peasants feared a White victory would mean the loss of their newly acquired land. (ii) The Red Armies had more troops plus the inspired leadership of Trotsky. (iii) Lenin took decisive measures, known as war communism, to control the economic resources of the state: all factories of any size were nationalised, all private trade banned, and food and grain seized from peasants to feed town workers and troops. This was successful at first in that it enabled the government to survive the civil war, but it had disastrous results later. (iv) Lenin was able to present the Bolsheviks as a nationalist government fighting against foreigners; and even though war communism was unpopular with peasants, the Whites became even more unpopular because of their foreign connections.
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