andatiep wrote:- Mencheviks/socialist and liberals (all kind of parliament democrats) of the first revolution. (By the way, those i would like to know what they did or could do in the game, is a third way possible ? etc.)
If there were any "good guys" in the revolution, I'd say it was the Komuch (Russian abbreviation for the "Committee of the Constituent Assembly") - these were the democratically elected SR members of the Constituent Assembly that was dispersed by Lenin a few weeks after taking power. They formed a rival government in Samara on the Volga during 1918, and attempted negotiations with other groups like the Siberian regional government in Omsk to form a federal Russian republic. They also had support from the Czechoslovakian Legion and their own troops, the People's Army.
Unfortunately, after a few early successes such as capturing Kazan (and the old Tsarist national gold reserve, which had been stored there...) they failed to make much of an impact outside their own terrritory - and then Kolchak launched his coup against them and got rid of them.
(if the portrait of StephenT is the most close to the true (what i'm ready to admit because i have doubts on the historical methods used by the current Russian goverment when he draw the new Kolchak official portrait now).
The main source I'm using for my information is Geoffrey Swain's book
Russia's Civil War, which I have here with me. (I've read other stuff in the past as well,but don't have it to check against.)
Except that it's jewish policy may be a bit revolutionary comparing to the old Tsarist rules.
Or not, if the pogroms were already a national sport under Nicolas II.
Anti-Jewish pogroms were common enough under the Tsars, but Denikin's regime does seem to have take them to a new level. And some of the propaganda he issued, taking about Jews as a "microbe" which must be "made harmless", is identical to the sort of the thing the Third Reich would issue 20 years later.
So, then what about the white's foreign supporters :
- UK was for Kolchak, StephenT said.
- France was for ?
- USA was for ?
Finally, was there any other second rank Whites leaders which could have performe different policies and strategies if one or two of those Kolchak and Denikin did died suddenly from a hard core vodka party ?
Kolchak and Denikin were in charge of the two largest and most important White armies during the height of the civil war, but there were certainly other factions:
Kolchak, as I mentioned, seized power away from the Komuch and the Directory which had previously ruled the area between the Urals and the Volga. He advanced westwards, but failed to get much further than the Volga and had to retreat gradually back again.
Denikin was originally a follower of General Kornilov, who replaced him as commander of the White army in the Don and Kuban region after Kornilov's death in early 1918. Denikin lead an offensive which almost captured Moscow, but failed and had to retreat. After that he went into exile and General Wrangel took over as commander.
There was also a smaller White army based in Estonia under the command of General Yudenich (who was one of the best Russian generals of WW1, defeating the Turks in the Caucasus). Yudenich raised and trained his army with British support, planning to advance on Petrograd and capture it; but in a desperate fight Trotsky's hastily-raised forces beat him back.
These were the main White armies which were fighting to conquer Russia and set themselves up as the new central government. There were plenty of other factions, like the Ukrainian nationalists, the Czech Legion, the Don Cossacks, the Polish Army, and so forth who were crucial to the fighting in particular areas; but they only had limited or regional goals such as independence rather than fighting to overthrow the Bolsheviks entirely.
If all three main White armies had been able to coordinate their attacks simultaneously, they might possibly have won. Unfortunately, they never managed that, allowing the Reds - who held a central position around Moscow, Russia's main rail hub - to shift their forces from one front to another and defeat each of them in turn.
Kolchak was something of an anglophile and had a lot of support from Britain, but Britain also backed Denikin and Yudenich... in fact, they were often the ones trying in vain to persuade the White leaders to cooperate with each other. France mostly supported Denikin, but that's purely a matter of geography because the French intervention force was in the Black Sea which is where Denikin was based.
As for the US - they got drawn in because there was a huge stockpile of military supplies at Murmansk and Archangel which had been shipped to Russia during WW1, and the Allies didn't want the Germans to confiscate them. So they sent a multinational force, including Americans, to garrison the ports. This force then got sucked into the wider war, and ended up fighting alongside the Whites against the Reds - one of Kolchak's plans was to link up with them so he could use the supplies himself, but the Reds managed to stop him doing so.
Finally, Japan seized the opportunity to occupy most of the Russian Far East in the name of "protecting it from Communism"... but they were pressured into giving it back again. This did give them some ideas about the region which they'd come back to a couple of decades later, however...
Charles wrote:not really, its a war.
Once it has started, the reasons and causes are irrelevant and it is just a question of strategy and manpower.
I disagree: morale and national will were essential parts of the war. Time and again, one faction would seize control of a region, only for its brutal occupation policies to turn the locals against them. The early White successes in the South were largely due to the local Cossacks deciding to ally with Denikin's forces due to Bolshevik land policies alienating them; Denikin's ultimate defeat was likewise due to him losing control of his rear area to anti-White partisans (including Makhno) and being cut off from supply in consequence.
In the end, one big reason why the Reds won was that they were
slightly less brutal than the Whites. Peasants would grumble at having to hand over half their grain to the Red Guards under "War Communism" - but that was still better than a bunch of White cossacks turning up, stealing
all the grain, and burning down the farmhouse as well just for fun. Trotsky was able to mobilise millions of Russians to fight in the Red Army, and keep them supplied and fed, because the Russians saw the Reds as the lesser of two evils.