White and Red Terror 1918. Red and White Terror: which was bloodier

Local government and white terror White terror traditionally occupied a special place in red propaganda and later Soviet historiography, which believed that it was the widespread use of violence that allowed whites to keep power in their hands. It was argued that only through

Causes and beginning of the civil war in Russia. White and red movement. Red and white terror. Reasons for the defeat of the white movement. Results of the civil war

The first historiographers of the civil war were its participants. A civil war inevitably divides people into “us” and “strangers”. A kind of barricade lay in understanding and explaining the causes, nature and course of the civil war. Day by day we understand more and more that only an objective look at the civil war on both sides will make it possible to get closer to the historical truth. But at a time when the civil war was not history, but reality, it was looked at differently.

Recently (80-90s), the following problems of the history of the civil war have been at the center of scientific discussions: the causes of the civil war; classes and political parties in the civil war; white and red terror; ideology and social essence of “war communism”. We will try to highlight some of these issues.

The inevitable accompaniment of almost every revolution is armed clashes. Researchers have two approaches to this problem. Some view a civil war as a process of armed struggle between citizens of one country, between different parts of society, while others see a civil war as only a period in the history of a country when armed conflicts determine its entire life.

As for modern armed conflicts, social, political, economic, national and religious reasons are closely intertwined in their occurrence. Conflicts in their pure form, where only one of them would be present, are rare. Conflicts prevail where there are many such reasons, but one dominates.

Causes and beginning of the civil war in Russia

The dominant feature of the armed struggle in Russia in 1917-1922. there was a socio-political confrontation. But the civil war of 1917-1922 cannot be understood taking into account only the class side. It was a tightly woven tangle of social, political, national, religious, personal interests and contradictions.

How did the civil war begin in Russia? According to Pitirim Sorokin, usually the fall of a regime is the result not so much of the efforts of revolutionaries as of the decrepitude, impotence and inability of the regime itself to do creative work. To prevent a revolution, the government must undertake certain reforms that would relieve social tension. Neither the government of Imperial Russia nor the Provisional Government found the strength to carry out reforms. And since the escalation of events required action, they were expressed in attempts at armed violence against the people in February 1917. Civil wars do not begin in an atmosphere of social peace. The law of all revolutions is such that after the overthrow of the ruling classes, their desire and attempts to restore their position are inevitable, while the classes that have come to power try by all means to preserve it. There is a connection between revolution and civil war; in the conditions of our country, the latter after October 1917 was almost inevitable. The causes of the civil war are the extreme aggravation of class hatred, the debilitating first world war. The deep roots of the civil war must also be seen in the character of the October Revolution, which proclaimed the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly stimulated the outbreak of civil war. All-Russian power was usurped, and in a society already split, torn apart by the revolution, the ideas of the Constituent Assembly and parliament could no longer find understanding.

It should also be recognized that the Brest-Litovsk Treaty offended the patriotic feelings of broad sections of the population, primarily officers and intelligentsia. It was after the conclusion of peace in Brest that the White Guard volunteer armies began to actively form.

The political and economic crisis in Russia was accompanied by a crisis in national relations. White and red governments were forced to fight for the return of lost territories: Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia in 1918-1919; Poland, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Central Asia in 1920-1922. The Russian Civil War went through several phases. If we consider the civil war in Russia as a process, it will become

it is clear that its first act was the events in Petrograd at the end of February 1917. In the same series are armed clashes on the streets of the capital in April and July, the Kornilov uprising in August, the peasant uprising in September, the October events in Petrograd, Moscow and a number of others places

After the abdication of the emperor, the country was gripped by the euphoria of “red-bow” unity. Despite all this, February marked the beginning of immeasurably deeper upheavals, as well as an escalation of violence. In Petrograd and other areas, a persecution of officers began. Admirals Nepenin, Butakov, Viren, General Stronsky and other officers were killed in the Baltic Fleet. Already in the first days of the February revolution, the anger that arose in people's souls spilled out onto the streets. So, February marked the beginning of the civil war in Russia,

By the beginning of 1918, this stage had largely exhausted itself. It was this situation that the leader of the Socialist Revolutionaries V. Chernov stated when, speaking at the Constituent Assembly on January 5, 1918, he expressed hope for a speedy end to the civil war. It seemed to many that the turbulent period was being replaced by a more peaceful one. However, contrary to these expectations, new centers of struggle continued to emerge, and from mid-1918 the next period of the civil war began, ending only in November 1920 with the defeat of P.N.’s army. Wrangel. However, the civil war continued after this. Its episodes included the Kronstadt sailors' uprising and the Antonovschina of 1921, military operations in the Far East, which ended in 1922, and the Basmachi movement in Central Asia, which was largely liquidated by 1926.

White and red movement. Red and white terror

We have now come to understand that a civil war is a fratricidal war. However, the question of what forces opposed each other in this struggle is still controversial.

The question of the class structure and the main class forces of Russia during the civil war is quite complex and requires serious research. The fact is that in Russia classes and social strata, their relationships were intertwined in the most complex way. Nevertheless, in our opinion, there were three major forces in the country that differed in relation to the new government.

Soviet power was actively supported by part of the industrial proletariat, the urban and rural poor, some of the officers and the intelligentsia. In 1917, the Bolshevik Party emerged as a loosely organized radical revolutionary party of intellectuals, oriented towards workers. By mid-1918 it had become a minority party, ready to ensure its survival through mass terror. By this time, the Bolshevik Party was no longer a political party in the sense in which it had been before, since it no longer expressed the interests of any social group; it recruited its members from many social groups. Former soldiers, peasants or officials, having become communists, represented a new social group with your rights. The Communist Party turned into a military-industrial and administrative apparatus.

The impact of the Civil War on the Bolshevik Party was twofold. Firstly, there was a militarization of Bolshevism, which was reflected primarily in the way of thinking. Communists have learned to think in terms of military campaigns. The idea of ​​building socialism turned into a struggle - on the industrial front, the collectivization front, etc. The second important consequence of the civil war was the Communist Party's fear of the peasants. The Communists have always been aware that they are a minority party in a hostile peasant environment.

Intellectual dogmatism, militarization, combined with hostility towards the peasants, created in the Leninist party all the necessary preconditions for Stalinist totalitarianism.

The forces opposing Soviet power included the large industrial and financial bourgeoisie, landowners, a significant part of the officers, members of the former police and gendarmerie, and part of the highly qualified intelligentsia. However, the white movement began only as an impulse of convinced and brave officers who fought against the communists, often without any hope of victory. White officers called themselves volunteers, motivated by ideas of patriotism. But at the height of the civil war, the white movement became much more intolerant and chauvinistic than at the beginning.

The main weakness of the white movement was that it failed to become a unifying national force. It remained almost exclusively a movement of officers. The white movement was unable to establish effective cooperation with the liberal and socialist intelligentsia. Whites were suspicious of workers and peasants. They did not have a state apparatus, administration, police, or banks. Personifying themselves as a state, they tried to compensate for their practical weakness by brutally imposing their own rules.

If the white movement was unable to rally the anti-Bolshevik forces, then the Kadet Party failed to lead the white movement. The Cadets were a party of professors, lawyers and entrepreneurs. In their ranks there were enough people capable of establishing a workable administration in the territory liberated from the Bolsheviks. And yet the role of cadets in general public policy during the civil war was insignificant. There was a huge cultural gap between the workers and peasants, on the one hand, and the Cadets, on the other, and the Russian Revolution was presented to the majority of the Cadets as chaos, a rebellion. Only the white movement, according to the cadets, could restore Russia.

Finally, the largest group of the Russian population is the wavering part, and often simply passive, observing events. She looked for opportunities to do without the class struggle, but was constantly drawn into it by the active actions of the first two forces. These are the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie, the peasantry, the proletarian strata who wanted “civil peace,” part of the officers and a significant number of representatives of the intelligentsia.

But the division of forces proposed to readers should be considered conditional. In fact, they were closely intertwined, mixed together and scattered throughout the vast territory of the country. This situation was observed in any region, in any province, regardless of whose hands were in power. The decisive force that largely determined the outcome of revolutionary events was the peasantry.

Analyzing the beginning of the war, it is only with great convention that we can talk about the Bolshevik government of Russia. In fact, in 1918 it controlled only part of the country's territory. However, it declared its readiness to rule the entire country after dissolving the Constituent Assembly. In 1918, the main opponents of the Bolsheviks were not the Whites or the Greens, but the Socialists. The Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries opposed the Bolsheviks under the banner of the Constituent Assembly.

Immediately after the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, the Socialist Revolutionary Party began preparing for the overthrow of Soviet power. However, soon the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionaries became convinced that there were very few people willing to fight with weapons under the banner of the Constituent Assembly.

A very sensitive blow to attempts to unite anti-Bolshevik forces was dealt from the right, by supporters of the military dictatorship of the generals. The main role among them was played by the Cadets, who resolutely opposed the use of the demand for the convening of the Constituent Assembly of the 1917 model as the main slogan of the anti-Bolshevik movement. The Cadets headed for a one-man military dictatorship, which the Socialist Revolutionaries dubbed right-wing Bolshevism.

Moderate socialists, who rejected the military dictatorship, nevertheless compromised with the supporters of the generals' dictatorship. In order not to alienate the Cadets, the general democratic bloc “Union for the Revival of Russia” adopted a plan for creating a collective dictatorship - the Directory. To govern the country, the Directory had to create a business ministry. The Directory was obliged to resign its powers of all-Russian power only before the Constituent Assembly after the end of the fight against the Bolsheviks. At the same time, the “Union for the Revival of Russia” set the following tasks: 1) continuation of the war with the Germans; 2) creation of a single firm government; 3) revival of the army; 4) restoration of scattered parts of Russia.

The summer defeat of the Bolsheviks as a result of the armed uprising of the Czechoslovak corps created favorable conditions. This is how the anti-Bolshevik front arose in the Volga region and Siberia, and two anti-Bolshevik governments were immediately formed - Samara and Omsk. Having received power from the hands of the Czechoslovaks, five members of the Constituent Assembly - V.K. Volsky, I.M. Brushvit, I.P. Nesterov, P.D. Klimushkin and B.K. Fortunatov - formed the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) - the highest government agency. Komuch transferred executive power to the Board of Governors. The birth of Komuch, contrary to the plan for creating the Directory, led to a split in the Socialist Revolutionary elite. Its right-wing leaders, led by N.D. Avksentiev, ignoring Samara, headed to Omsk to prepare from there the formation of an all-Russian coalition government.

Declaring himself the temporary supreme power until the convening of the Constituent Assembly, Komuch called on other governments to recognize him as the center of state. However, other regional governments refused to recognize Komuch's rights as a national center, regarding him as a party Socialist Revolutionary power.

Socialist Revolutionary politicians did not have a specific program for democratic reforms. The issues of the grain monopoly, nationalization and municipalization, and the principles of army organization were not resolved. In the field of agrarian policy, Komuch limited himself to a statement about the inviolability of ten points of the land law adopted by the Constituent Assembly.

The main goal of foreign policy was to continue the war in the ranks of the Entente. Relying on Western military assistance was one of Komuch's biggest strategic miscalculations. The Bolsheviks used foreign intervention to portray the struggle of Soviet power as patriotic and the actions of the Socialist Revolutionaries as anti-national. Komuch's broadcast statements about continuing the war with Germany to a victorious end came into conflict with the sentiments of the popular masses. Komuch, who did not understand the psychology of the masses, could rely only on the bayonets of the allies.

The anti-Bolshevik camp was especially weakened by the confrontation between the Samara and Omsk governments. Unlike the one-party Komuch, the Provisional Siberian Government was a coalition. It was headed by P.V. Vologda. The left wing in the government consisted of the Socialist Revolutionaries B.M. Shatilov, G.B. Patushinskiy, V.M. Krutovsky. The right side of the government is I.A. Mikhailov, I.N. Serebrennikov, N.N. Petrov ~ occupied cadet and pro-archist positions.

The government's program was formed under significant pressure from its right wing. Already at the beginning of July 1918, the government announced the cancellation of all decrees issued by the Council of People's Commissars, the liquidation of the Soviets, and the return of their estates to the owners with all inventory. The Siberian government pursued a policy of repression against dissidents, the press, meetings, etc. Komuch protested against such a policy.

Despite sharp differences, the two rival governments had to negotiate. At the Ufa state meeting, a “temporary all-Russian government” was created. The meeting concluded its work with the election of the Directory. N.D. was elected to the latter. Avksentyev, N.I. Astrov, V.G. Boldyrev, P.V. Vologodsky, N.V. Tchaikovsky.

In its political program, the Directory declared the main tasks to be the struggle to overthrow the power of the Bolsheviks, the annulment of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty and the continuation of the war with Germany. The short-term nature of the new government was emphasized by the clause that the Constituent Assembly was to meet in the near future - January 1 or February 1, 1919, after which the Directory would resign.

The Directory, having abolished the Siberian government, could now, it seemed, implement an alternative program to the Bolshevik. However, the balance between democracy and dictatorship was upset. The Samara Komuch, representing democracy, was dissolved. The Social Revolutionaries' attempt to restore the Constituent Assembly failed. On the night of November 17–18, 1918, the leaders of the Directory were arrested. The directory was replaced by the dictatorship of A.V. Kolchak. In 1918, the civil war was a war of ephemeral governments whose claims to power remained only on paper. In August 1918, when the Socialist Revolutionaries and Czechs took Kazan, the Bolsheviks were unable to recruit more than 20 thousand people into the Red Army. The people's army of the Social Revolutionaries numbered only 30 thousand. During this period, the peasants, having divided the land, ignored the political struggle that parties and governments waged among themselves. However, the establishment by the Bolsheviks of the Pobedy Committees caused the first outbreaks of resistance. From this moment on, there was a direct relationship between the Bolshevik attempts to dominate the countryside and the peasant resistance. The more diligently the Bolsheviks tried to impose “communist relations” in the countryside, the harsher the resistance of the peasants.

Whites, having in 1918 several regiments were not contenders for national power. Nevertheless, the white army of A.I. Denikin, initially numbering 10 thousand people, was able to occupy a territory with a population of 50 million people. This was facilitated by the development of peasant uprisings in areas held by the Bolsheviks. N. Makhno did not want to help the Whites, but his actions against the Bolsheviks contributed to the Whites’ breakthrough. The Don Cossacks rebelled against the communists and cleared the way for the advancing army of A. Denikin.

It seemed that with the nomination of A.V. to the role of dictator. Kolchak, the whites had a leader who would lead the entire anti-Bolshevik movement. In the provision on the temporary structure of state power, approved on the day of the coup, the Council of Ministers, the supreme state power was temporarily transferred to the Supreme Ruler, and all the Armed Forces of the Russian state were subordinate to him. A.V. Kolchak was soon recognized as the Supreme Ruler by the leaders of other white fronts, and the Western allies recognized him de facto.

The political and ideological ideas of the leaders and ordinary participants in the white movement were as diverse as the movement itself was socially heterogeneous. Of course, some part sought to restore the monarchy, the old, pre-revolutionary regime in general. But the leaders of the white movement refused to raise the monarchical banner and put forward a monarchical program. This also applies to A.V. Kolchak.

What positive things did the Kolchak government promise? Kolchak agreed to convene a new Constituent Assembly after order was restored. He assured Western governments that there could be “no return to the regime that existed in Russia before February 1917,” the broad masses of the population would be allocated land, and differences along religious and national lines would be eliminated. Having confirmed the complete independence of Poland and the limited independence of Finland, Kolchak agreed to “prepare decisions” on the fate of the Baltic states, Caucasian and Trans-Caspian peoples. Judging by the statements, the Kolchak government took the position of democratic construction. But in reality everything was different.

The most difficult issue for the anti-Bolshevik movement was the agrarian question. Kolchak never managed to solve it. The war with the Bolsheviks, while Kolchak was waging it, could not guarantee the peasants the transfer of landowners' land to them. The national policy of the Kolchak government is marked by the same deep internal contradiction. Acting under the slogan of a “united and indivisible” Russia, it did not reject “self-determination of peoples” as an ideal.

Kolchak actually rejected the demands of the delegations of Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, the North Caucasus, Belarus and Ukraine put forward at the Versailles Conference. By refusing to create an anti-Bolshevik conference in the regions liberated from the Bolsheviks, Kolchak pursued a policy doomed to failure.

Kolchak’s relations with his allies, who had their own interests in the Far East and Siberia and pursued their own policies, were complex and contradictory. This made the position of the Kolchak government very difficult. A particularly tight knot was tied in relations with Japan. Kolchak did not hide his antipathy towards Japan. The Japanese command responded with active support for the ataman system, which flourished in Siberia. Small ambitious people like Semenov and Kalmykov, with the support of the Japanese, managed to create a constant threat to the Omsk government deep in Kolchak’s rear, which weakened it. Semenov actually cut off Kolchak from the Far East and blocked the supply of weapons, ammunition, and provisions.

Strategic miscalculations in the field of domestic and foreign policy of the Kolchak government were aggravated by mistakes in the military field. The military command (generals V.N. Lebedev, K.N. Sakharov, P.P. Ivanov-Rinov) led the Siberian army to defeat. Betrayed by everyone, both comrades and allies,

Kolchak resigned the title of Supreme Ruler and handed it over to General A.I. Denikin. Having not lived up to the hopes placed on him, A.V. Kolchak died courageously, like a Russian patriot. The most powerful wave of the anti-Bolshevik movement was raised in the south of the country by generals M.V. Alekseev, L.G. Kornilov, A.I. Denikin. Unlike the little-known Kolchak, they all had big names. The conditions in which they had to operate were desperately difficult. The volunteer army, which Alekseev began to form in November 1917 in Rostov, did not have its own territory. In terms of food supply and recruitment of troops, it was dependent on the Don and Kuban governments. The volunteer army had only the Stavropol province and the coast with Novorossiysk; only by the summer of 1919 did it conquer a vast area of ​​the southern provinces for several months.

The weak point of the anti-Bolshevik movement in general and in the south especially was the personal ambitions and contradictions of the leaders M.V. Alekseev and L.G. Kornilov. After their death, all power passed to Denikin. The unity of all forces in the fight against the Bolsheviks, the unity of the country and power, the broadest autonomy of the outskirts, loyalty to agreements with allies in the war - these are the main principles of Denikin’s platform. Denikin’s entire ideological and political program was based on the idea of ​​preserving a united and indivisible Russia. The leaders of the white movement rejected any significant concessions to supporters of national independence. All this stood in contrast to the Bolsheviks' promises of unlimited national self-determination. The reckless recognition of the right to secession gave Lenin the opportunity to curb destructive nationalism and raised his prestige much higher than that of the leaders of the white movement.

The government of General Denikin was divided into two groups - right and liberal. Right - a group of generals with A.M. Drago-mirov and A.S. Lukomsky at the head. The liberal group consisted of cadets. A.I. Denikin took the position of center. The most clearly reactionary line in the policy of the Denikin regime manifested itself on the agrarian issue. In the territory controlled by Denikin, it was planned to: create and strengthen small and medium-sized peasant farms, destroy the latifundia, and leave small estates for the landowners on which cultural farming could be conducted. But instead of immediately starting to transfer the landowners' land to the peasants, the commission on the agrarian question began an endless discussion of the draft law on land. As a result, a compromise law was adopted. The transfer of part of the land to the peasants was supposed to begin only after the civil war and end 7 years later. In the meantime, the order for the third sheaf was put into effect, according to which a third of the collected grain went to the landowner. Denikin's land policy was one of the main reasons for his defeat. Of the two evils - Lenin's surplus appropriation system or Denikin's requisition - the peasants preferred the lesser.

A.I. Denikin understood that without the help of his allies, defeat awaited him. Therefore, he himself prepared the text of the political declaration of the commander of the armed forces of southern Russia, sent on April 10, 1919 to the heads of the British, American and French missions. It spoke of convening a national assembly on the basis of universal suffrage, establishing regional autonomy and broad local self-government, and carrying out land reform. However, things did not go beyond broadcast promises. All attention was turned to the front, where the fate of the regime was being decided.

In the fall of 1919, a difficult situation developed at the front for Denikin’s army. This was largely due to a change in the mood of the broad peasant masses. Peasants who rebelled in territory controlled by the whites paved the way for the reds. The peasants were a third force and acted against both in their own interests.

In the territories occupied by both the Bolsheviks and the Whites, the peasants fought a war with the authorities. The peasants did not want to fight either for the Bolsheviks, or for the whites, or for anyone else. Many of them fled into the forests. During this period the green movement was defensive. Since 1920, the threat from the whites has become less and less, and the Bolsheviks have been more determined to impose their power in the countryside. The peasant war against state power covered all of Ukraine, the Chernozem region, the Cossack regions of the Don and Kuban, the Volga and Ural basins and large regions of Siberia. In fact, all grain-producing regions of Russia and Ukraine were a huge Vendée (in a figurative sense - a counter-revolution. - Note ed.).

In terms of the number of people participating in the peasant war and its impact on the country, this war eclipsed the war between the Bolsheviks and the Whites and surpassed it in duration. The Green movement was the decisive third force in the civil war.

but it did not become an independent center claiming power on more than a regional scale.

Why did not the movement of the majority of the people prevail? The reason lies in the way of thinking of Russian peasants. The Greens protected their villages from outsiders. The peasants could not win because they never sought to take over the state. The European concepts of a democratic republic, law and order, equality and parliamentarism, which the Social Revolutionaries introduced into the peasant environment, were beyond the understanding of the peasants.

The mass of peasants participating in the war was heterogeneous. From the peasantry came both rebels, carried away by the idea of ​​“plundering the loot,” and leaders, eager to become new “kings and masters.” Those who acted on behalf of the Bolsheviks, and those who fought under the command of A.S. Antonova, N.I. Makhno, adhered to similar standards of behavior. Those who robbed and raped as part of the Bolshevik expeditions were not much different from the rebels of Antonov and Makhno. The essence peasant war consisted of liberation from all power.

The peasant movement put forward its own leaders, people from the people (suffice it to name Makhno, Antonov, Kolesnikov, Sapozhkov and Vakhulin). These leaders were guided by concepts of peasant justice and vague echoes of the platforms of political parties. However, any peasant party was associated with statehood, programs and governments, while these concepts were alien to local peasant leaders. The parties pursued a national policy, but the peasants did not rise to the level of awareness of national interests.

One of the reasons that the peasant movement did not win, despite its scope, was the political life inherent in each province, which ran counter to the rest of the country. While in one province the Greens were already defeated, in another the uprising was just beginning. None of the Green leaders took action beyond the immediate area. This spontaneity, scale and breadth contained not only the strength of the movement, but also helplessness in the face of systematic onslaught. The Bolsheviks, who had great power and a huge army, had an overwhelming military superiority over the peasant movement.

Russian peasants lacked political consciousness - they did not care what the form of government in Russia was. They did not understand the importance of parliament, freedom of the press and assembly. The fact that the Bolshevik dictatorship withstood the test of the civil war can be considered not as an expression of popular support, but as a manifestation of the still unformed national consciousness and the political backwardness of the majority. The tragedy of Russian society was the lack of interconnectedness between its various layers.

One of the main features of the civil war was that all the armies participating in it, red and white, Cossacks and greens, went through the same path of degradation from serving a cause based on ideals to looting and outrages.

What are the causes of the Red and White Terrors? V.I. Lenin stated that the Red Terror during the Civil War in Russia was forced and became a response to the actions of the White Guards and interventionists. According to the Russian emigration (S.P. Melgunov), for example, the Red Terror had an official theoretical justification, was systemic, governmental in nature, the White Terror was characterized “as excesses based on unbridled power and revenge.” For this reason, the Red Terror was superior to the White Terror in its scale and cruelty. At the same time, a third point of view arose, according to which any terror is inhuman and should be abandoned as a method of struggle for power. The very comparison “one terror is worse (better) than another” is incorrect. No terror has the right to exist. The call of General L.G. is very similar to each other. Kornilov to the officers (January 1918) “do not take prisoners in battles with the Reds” and the confession of the security officer M.I. Latsis that similar orders regarding whites were resorted to in the Red Army.

The quest to understand the origins of the tragedy has given rise to several research explanations. R. Conquest, for example, wrote that in 1918-1820. The terror was carried out by fanatics, idealists - “people in whom one can find some features of a kind of perverted nobility.” Among them, according to the researcher, is Lenin.

Terror during the war years was carried out not so much by fanatics as by people devoid of any nobility. Let's name just a few instructions written by V.I. Lenin. In a note to the Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic E.M. Sklyansky (August 1920) V.I. Lenin, assessing the plan born in the depths of this department, instructed: “A wonderful plan! Finish it together with Dzerzhinsky. Under the guise of the “greens” (we will blame them later) we will march 10-20 miles and outweigh the kulaks, priests, and landowners. Prize: 100,000 rubles for a hanged man."

In a secret letter to members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) dated March 19, 1922, V.I. Lenin proposed taking advantage of the famine in the Volga region and confiscating church valuables. This action, in his opinion, “must be carried out with merciless determination, certainly stopping at nothing and in the shortest possible time. The more representatives of the reactionary clergy and the reactionary bourgeoisie we manage to shoot on this occasion, the better. It is now necessary to teach this public a lesson so that for several decades they will not dare to think about any resistance.”2 Stalin perceived Lenin's recognition of state terror as a high-government matter, power based on force and not on law.

It is difficult to name the first acts of red and white terror. They are usually associated with the beginning of the civil war in the country. Terror was carried out by everyone: officers - participants in the ice campaign of General Kornilov; security officers who received the right of extrajudicial execution; revolutionary courts and tribunals.

It is characteristic that the Cheka’s right to extrajudicial killings, composed by L.D. Trotsky, signed by V.I. Lenin; the tribunals were given unlimited rights by the People's Commissar of Justice; The resolution on the Red Terror was endorsed by the People's Commissars of Justice, Internal Affairs and the head of the Council of People's Commissars (D. Kursky, G. Petrovsky, V. Bonch-Bruevich). The leadership of the Soviet Republic officially recognized the creation of a non-legal state, where arbitrariness became the norm and terror became the most important tool for maintaining power. Lawlessness was beneficial to the warring parties, as it allowed any actions by reference to the enemy.

The commanders of all the armies appear to have never been subject to any control. We are talking about the general savagery of society. The reality of the civil war shows that the differences between good and evil have faded. Human life depreciated. The refusal to see the enemy as a human being encouraged violence on an unprecedented scale. Settling scores with real and imagined enemies has become the essence of politics. The civil war meant the extreme bitterness of society and especially its new ruling class.

"Litvin A.L. Red and White Terror in Russia 1917-1922 // Russian History. 1993. No. 6. P. 47-48.1 2 Ibid. P. 47-48.

Murder of M.S. Uritsky and the assassination attempt on Lenin on August 30, 1918 provoked an unusually brutal response. In retaliation for the murder of Uritsky, up to 900 innocent hostages were shot in Petrograd.

A significantly larger number of victims is associated with the assassination attempt on Lenin. In the first days of September 1918, 6,185 people were shot, 14,829 were sent to prison, 6,407 were sent to concentration camps, and 4,068 people became hostages. Thus, attempts on the lives of Bolshevik leaders contributed to the rampant mass terror in the country.

At the same time as the Reds, white terror was rampant in the country. And if the Red Terror is considered to be the implementation of state policy, then it should probably be taken into account that whites in 1918-1919. also occupied vast territories and declared themselves as sovereign governments and state entities. The forms and methods of terror were different. But they were also used by adherents of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch in Samara, the Provisional Regional Government in the Urals), and especially by the white movement.

The coming to power of the founders in the Volga region in the summer of 1918 was characterized by reprisals against many Soviet workers. Some of the first departments created by Komuch were state security, military courts, trains and “death barges”. On September 3, 1918, they brutally suppressed the workers' uprising in Kazan.

The political regimes established in Russia in 1918 are quite comparable, primarily in their predominantly violent methods of resolving issues of organizing power. In November 1918 A.V. Kolchak, who came to power in Siberia, began with the expulsion and murder of the Socialist Revolutionaries. It is hardly possible to talk about support for his policies in Siberia and the Urals, if out of approximately 400 thousand Red partisans of that time, 150 thousand acted against him. The government of A.I. was no exception. Denikin. In the territory captured by the general, the police were called state guards. By September 1919, its number reached almost 78 thousand people. Osvag's reports informed Denikin about robberies and looting; it was under his command that 226 Jewish pogroms took place, as a result of which several thousand people died. The White Terror turned out to be as senseless in achieving its goal as any other. Soviet historians have calculated that in 1917-1922. 15-16 million Russians died, of which 1.3 million became victims of terror, banditry, and pogroms. The civil, fratricidal war with millions of casualties turned into a national tragedy. Red and white terror became the most barbaric method of struggle for power. Its results for the progress of the country are truly disastrous.

Reasons for the defeat of the white movement. Results of the civil war

Let us highlight the most important reasons for the defeat of the white movement. Relying on Western military assistance was one of the whites' miscalculations. The Bolsheviks used foreign intervention to present the struggle of Soviet power as patriotic. The Allies' policy was self-serving: they needed an anti-German Russia.

The white national policy is marked by deep contradictions. Thus, Yudenich’s non-recognition of the already independent Finland and Estonia may have been the main reason for the failure of the Whites on the Western Front. Denikin’s non-recognition of Poland made it a permanent enemy of the whites. All this stood in contrast to the Bolsheviks' promises of unlimited national self-determination.

Regarding military training, combat experience and technical knowledge Whites had all the advantages. But time was working against them. The situation was changing: in order to replenish the dwindling ranks, the whites also had to resort to mobilization.

The white movement did not have widespread social support. The White army was not supplied with everything it needed, so it was forced to take carts, horses, and supplies from the population. Local residents were drafted into the army. All this turned the population against whites. During the war, mass repression and terror were closely intertwined with the dreams of millions of people who believed in new revolutionary ideals, while tens of millions lived nearby, preoccupied with purely everyday problems. The fluctuations of the peasantry played a decisive role in the dynamics of the civil war, as did various national movements. During the civil war, some ethnic groups restored their previously lost statehood (Poland, Lithuania), and Finland, Estonia and Latvia acquired it for the first time.

For Russia, the consequences of the civil war were catastrophic: a huge social upheaval, the disappearance of entire classes; huge demographic losses; severance of economic ties and colossal economic devastation;

conditions and experience of the civil war decisively influenced political culture Bolshevism: the curtailment of internal party democracy, the perception by the broad party masses of an attitude towards methods of coercion and violence in achieving political goals - the Bolsheviks are looking for support in the lumpen sections of the population. All this paved the way for the strengthening of repressive elements in state policy. The Civil War is the greatest tragedy in Russian history.

The main armed struggle for power during the Civil War was waged between the Bolshevik Red Army and the armed forces of the White movement, which was reflected in the stable naming of the main parties to the conflict “Red” and “White”. Both sides, for the period until their complete victory and pacification of the country, intended to exercise political power through dictatorship. Further goals were proclaimed as follows: on the part of the Reds - the construction of a classless communist society, both in Russia and in Europe, through active support of the “world revolution”; on the part of the Whites - the convening of a new Constituent Assembly, with the transfer to its discretion of deciding the issue of the political structure of Russia.

A characteristic feature of the Civil War was the willingness of all its participants to widely use violence to achieve their political goals.

An integral part of the civil war was the armed struggle of the national “outskirts” of the former Russian Empire for their independence and the insurrectionary movement of broad sections of the population against the troops of the main warring parties - the “reds” and the “whites”. Attempts to declare independence by the “outskirts” provoked resistance both from the “whites,” who fought for a “united and indivisible Russia,” and from the “reds,” who saw the growth of nationalism as a threat to the gains of the revolution.

The civil war unfolded under conditions of foreign military intervention and was accompanied by combat operations on Russian territory by both troops of the Quadruple Alliance countries and troops of the Entente countries.

The civil war was fought not only on the territory of the former Russian Empire, but also on the territory of neighboring states - Iran (Anzel operation), Mongolia and China.

Of the most important causes of the Civil War in modern historiography, it is customary to highlight those that persisted in Russia even after February Revolution social, political and national-ethnic contradictions. First of all, by October 1917, such pressing issues as ending the war and the agrarian question remained unresolved.

The proletarian revolution was considered by the Bolshevik leaders as a “rupture of civil peace” and in this sense was equated with a civil war. The readiness of the Bolshevik leaders to initiate a civil war is confirmed by Lenin’s thesis of 1914, later formalized in an article for the Social Democratic press: “Let’s turn the imperialist war into a civil war!” In 1917, this thesis underwent dramatic changes and, as noted by Doctor of Historical Sciences B.I. Kolonitsky, Lenin removed the slogan about civil war, however, as the historian writes, culturally and psychologically the Bolsheviks, even after removing this thesis, were ready to start a civil war for the sake of transforming world war into world revolution. The desire of the Bolsheviks to retain power by any means, primarily violent, to establish the dictatorship of the party and build a new society based on their theoretical principles made a civil war inevitable.

An integral part of the civil war was the armed struggle of the national “outskirts” of the former Russian Empire for their independence and the insurrectionary movement of broad sections of the population against the troops of the main warring parties - the “Reds” and the “Whites”.

"Red" and "white" terror.

The very concept of “red terror” was first introduced by the Socialist-Revolutionary Zinaida Konoplyannikova, who stated at the trial in 1906:

“The party decided to respond to the white, but bloody terror of the government with red terror...”

In turn, the term “red terror” was then formulated by L. D. Trotsky as “a weapon used against a class doomed to death that does not want to die.”

Of the millions killed in Russia by the Communists, many millions died with faith, prayer and repentance on their lips and in their hearts. Many of them were killed for political unreliability towards the Soviet communist regime. Reliability for the power of atheists, enemies of the faith and truth of Christ, is betrayal of God, the Church of Christ and the moral law. Martyrs and innocent victims are all those who suffered and were killed solely for their origin or for belonging to a certain social class. These never imagined that being a military man, bearing a high title, being a nobleman, merchant, landowner, manufacturer, Cossack, or just being born into these families is already a crime worthy of death in the eyes of the security officers.

Drunken crowds of sailors and “mobs”, inspired by “freedom” (for no reason, found fault and, as a rule, killed generals, officers, cadets and cadets. Even if there were no shoulder straps and cockades, this “beauty of the revolution” defined “officers” by to an intelligent person. Some officers at that time did not shave on purpose, they wore rags to look like their “comrades.” The education of the officers did not allow them to watch indifferently as gangs of these “comrades” robbed stores and raped women in accordance with Lenin’s call for “the expropriation of the expropriators and their socialization.” women." Many officers paid with their lives just because they dared to stand up for women in front of a besotted crowd of "comrades."

After the October coup, the extermination of officers took place in an organized manner, with the help of special “Extraordinary Commissions” composed of notorious executioners of all nationalities: Latvians, Chinese, Jews, Hungarians, Russians, under the leadership of the Chief Executioner Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky. For organizing the Red Terror, for the murder of millions of Russians, some no longer respected politicians are trying to restore the monument to the Chief Terrorist Dzerzhinsky.

..." A typical officer's impression: "It is impossible to describe in human words, what was going on all around in our 76th Infantry Division, in the one next to ours and in general, according to rumors, in the entire Active Army!... Just recently, our Christ-loving Army, almost with unstoppable attacks with bayonets, achieved incredible victories over the enemy, and now... unbridled, disheveled, always half-drunk, gangs armed to the teeth, deliberately incited by some numerous “comrades” with characteristic noses to kill all officers, to commit violence and reprisals"

The concept of “White terror” became part of the political terminology of the period of revolution and the Civil War and is traditionally used in modern historiography, although the term itself is conditional and collective, since the anti-Bolshevik forces included not only representatives of the White movement, but also other very heterogeneous forces. A number of historians believed that, unlike the “Red Terror” proclaimed by the Bolsheviks as a means of establishing their political dominance, the term “White Terror” itself had neither legislative nor propaganda approval in the White movement during the Civil War. The white armies were not alien to the cruelty inherent in war, however, the “black pages” of the white armies differed fundamentally from the terrorist policies of the Bolsheviks:

Whites never and nowhere created organizations similar to the Soviet Extraordinary Commissions and revolutionary tribunals;

the leaders of the White movement never called for mass terror, for executions on social grounds, for the taking and execution of hostages if the enemies did not fulfill certain demands;

Participants in the White movement did not see any need for mass terror - neither ideological nor practical. This was explained by the fact that the purpose of the Whites’ military actions was not a war against the people or any specific social classes, but a war against a small party that had seized power in Russia and used the socio-economic and political situation, as well as market conditions, to its advantage to achieve the goal. changes in the mood of the lower classes of Russian society.

The exact number of victims of the “White Terror” has not been established, however, the policy of “White Terror” caused such discontent among the population that, along with other factors, it served as one of the reasons for the defeat of the White Movement in Civil War.

According to V.V. Erlikhman, about 300 thousand people died from the “white terror”. This number includes both victims of extrajudicial killings of the white troops and governments themselves (approximately 111 thousand people), as well as victims of foreign occupiers and interventionists and victims of national border regimes that arose as a result of the collapse of the Russian Empire.

The civil war was generated by a complex set of social contradictions, economic, political, psychological and other reasons and became the greatest disaster for Russia.

The deep, systemic crisis of the Russian Empire ended with its collapse and the victory of the Bolsheviks, who, with the support of the masses, defeated their opponents in the civil war and were given the opportunity to put into practice their ideas about socialism and communism.

Historical experience teaches that it is easier to prevent a civil war than to stop it, which the Russian political elite must constantly remember.

The victory of the Bolsheviks in the Civil War was determined by a number of factors, in many ways similar to those that ensured their victory in the October Revolution: the political unity of the Bolsheviks, led by a super-centralized party, and in the hands of which was a huge state apparatus, while in the White movement there were internal antagonisms, inconsistency of actions, contradictions with national regions and Entente troops; the ability of the Bolsheviks to mobilize the masses.

In contrast, the White movement, which was largely heterogeneous, failed to unite the bulk of the population under its slogans; the Bolsheviks, under whose rule the central regions of the country were, had powerful economic potential (human resources, heavy industry, etc.); superiority of the Red Army over the White Army in numbers; the defeat of the parties that advocated the second path of development was explained by the weakness of the social forces behind them and the weak support of workers and peasants.