Foreign intervention during the civil war. Foreign intervention in Russia

Chronology

• 1918 Stage I civil war- “democratic”
• 1918, June Nationalization Decree
• 1919, January Introduction of surplus appropriation
• 1919 Fight against A.V. Kolchak, A.I. Denikin, Yudenich
• 1920 Soviet-Polish War
• 1920 Fight against P.N. Wrangel
• 1920, November End of the civil war on European territory
• 1922, October End of the civil war in the Far East

Civil war and military intervention

Civil War- “armed struggle between various groups population, which was based on deep social, national and political contradictions, went through various stages and phases with the active intervention of foreign forces...” (Academician Yu.A. Polyakov).

In modern historical science there is no single definition of the concept of “civil war”. In the encyclopedic dictionary we read: “Civil war is an organized armed struggle for power between classes, social groups, the most acute form class struggle." This definition actually repeats Lenin’s famous saying that civil war is the most acute form of class struggle.

Currently, various definitions are given, but their essence mainly boils down to the definition of the Civil War as a large-scale armed confrontation, in which, undoubtedly, the issue of power was decided. The Bolsheviks' seizure of state power in Russia and the dispersal that soon followed Constituent Assembly can be considered the beginning of armed confrontation in Russia. The first shots were heard in the south of Russia, in the Cossack regions, already in the autumn of 1917.

General Alekseev, last Chief of Staff tsarist army, begins to form the Volunteer Army on the Don, but by the beginning of 1918 it amounted to no more than 3,000 officers and cadets.

As A.I. wrote Denikin in “Essays on Russian Troubles,” “the white movement grew spontaneously and inevitably.”

In the first months of the victory of Soviet power, armed clashes were local in nature; all opponents of the new government gradually determined their strategy and tactics.

This confrontation truly took on a front-line, large-scale character in the spring of 1918. Let us highlight three main stages in the development of armed confrontation in Russia, based primarily on taking into account the alignment of political forces and the peculiarities of the formation of fronts.

The first stage begins in the spring of 1918 when the military-political confrontation becomes global, large-scale military operations begin. The defining feature of this stage is its so-called “democratic” character, when representatives of the socialist parties came out in an independent anti-Bolshevik camp with slogans for the return of political power to the Constituent Assembly and the restoration of gains February Revolution. It is this camp that is chronologically ahead of the White Guard camp in its organizational design.

At the end of 1918 the second stage begins- confrontation between whites and reds. Until the beginning of 1920, one of the main political opponents of the Bolsheviks was the white movement with the slogans of “non-decision of the state system” and the elimination of Soviet power. This direction threatened not only the October, but also the February conquests. Their main political force was the Cadets Party, and the army was formed by generals and officers of the former tsarist army. The Whites were united by hatred of the Soviet regime and the Bolsheviks, and the desire to preserve a united and indivisible Russia.

The final stage of the Civil War begins in 1920. events of the Soviet-Polish war and the fight against P. N. Wrangel. Wrangel's defeat at the end of 1920 marked the end of the Civil War, but anti-Soviet armed protests continued in many regions of Soviet Russia during the years of the New Economic Policy

Nationwide scale armed struggle has acquired from spring 1918 and turned into the greatest disaster, the tragedy of the entire Russian people. In this war there were no right and wrong, no winners and losers. 1918 - 1920 — in these years, the military issue was of decisive importance for the fate of the Soviet government and the bloc of anti-Bolshevik forces opposing it. This period ended with the liquidation in November 1920 of the last white front in the European part of Russia (in Crimea). In general, the country emerged from the state of civil war in the fall of 1922 after the remnants of white formations and foreign (Japanese) military units were expelled from the territory of the Russian Far East.

A feature of the civil war in Russia was its close intertwining with anti-Soviet military intervention Entente powers. It was the main factor in prolonging and aggravating the bloody “Russian Troubles.”

So, in the periodization of the civil war and intervention, three stages are quite clearly distinguished. The first of them covers the time from spring to autumn 1918; the second - from the autumn of 1918 to the end of 1919; and the third - from the spring of 1920 to the end of 1920.

The first stage of the civil war (spring - autumn 1918)

In the first months of the establishment of Soviet power in Russia, armed clashes were local in nature; all opponents of the new government gradually determined their strategy and tactics. The armed struggle acquired a nationwide scale in the spring of 1918. Back in January 1918, Romania, taking advantage of the weakness of the Soviet government, captured Bessarabia. In March - April 1918, the first contingents of troops from England, France, the USA and Japan appeared on Russian territory (in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, in Vladivostok, in Central Asia). They were small and could not significantly influence the military and political situation in the country. “War communism”

At the same time, the enemy of the Entente - Germany - occupied the Baltic states, part of Belarus, Transcaucasia and North Caucasus. The Germans actually dominated Ukraine: they overthrew the bourgeois-democratic Verkhovna Rada, whose help they used during the occupation of Ukrainian lands, and in April 1918 they put Hetman P.P. in power. Skoropadsky.

Under these conditions, the Supreme Council of the Entente decided to use the 45,000th Czechoslovak Corps, which was (in agreement with Moscow) under his subordination. It consisted of captured Slavic soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army and followed the railway to Vladivostok for subsequent transfer to France.

According to the agreement concluded on March 26, 1918 with the Soviet government, the Czechoslovak legionnaires were to advance “not as a combat unit, but as a group of citizens equipped with weapons to repel armed attacks by counter-revolutionaries.” However, during their movement, their conflicts with local authorities became more frequent. Because the military weapons The Czechs and Slovaks had more than what was provided for in the agreement, the authorities decided to confiscate it. On May 26 in Chelyabinsk, conflicts escalated into real battles, and legionnaires occupied the city. Their armed uprising was immediately supported by the military missions of the Entente in Russia and anti-Bolshevik forces. As a result, in the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East - wherever there were trains with Czechoslovak legionnaires - Soviet power was overthrown. At the same time, in many provinces of Russia, peasants, dissatisfied with the food policy of the Bolsheviks, rebelled (according to official data, there were at least 130 large anti-Soviet peasant uprisings alone).

Socialist parties(mainly right-wing Social Revolutionaries), relying on interventionist landings, the Czechoslovak Corps and peasant rebel detachments, formed a number of governments Komuch (Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly) in Samara, the Supreme Administration of the Northern Region in Arkhangelsk, the West Siberian Commissariat in Novonikolaevsk (now Novosibirsk), The Provisional Siberian Government in Tomsk, the Trans-Caspian Provisional Government in Ashgabat, etc. In their activities they tried to compose “ democratic alternative”both the Bolshevik dictatorship and the bourgeois-monarchist counter-revolution. Their programs included demands for the convening of the Constituent Assembly, the restoration of the political rights of all citizens without exception, freedom of trade and the abandonment of strict state regulation of the economic activities of peasants while maintaining a number of important provisions of the Soviet Decree on Land, the establishment of a “social partnership” of workers and capitalists during the denationalization of industrial enterprises and etc.

Thus, the performance of the Czechoslavak corps gave impetus to the formation of a front that bore the so-called “democratic coloring” and was mainly Socialist-Revolutionary. It was this front, and not the white movement, that was decisive at the initial stage of the Civil War.

In the summer of 1918, all opposition forces became a real threat to the Bolshevik government, which controlled only the territory of the center of Russia. The territory controlled by Komuch included the Volga region and part of the Urals. Bolshevik power was also overthrown in Siberia, where the regional government of the Siberian Duma was formed. The breakaway parts of the empire - Transcaucasia, Central Asia, the Baltic states - had their own national governments. Ukraine was captured by the Germans, Don and Kuban by Krasnov and Denikin.

On August 30, 1918, a terrorist group killed the chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, Uritsky, and the right-wing Socialist Revolutionary Kaplan seriously wounded Lenin. The threat of loss of political power from the ruling Bolshevik party became catastrophically real.

In September 1918, a meeting of representatives of a number of anti-Bolshevik governments of democratic and social orientation was held in Ufa. Under pressure from the Czechoslovaks, who threatened to open the front to the Bolsheviks, they established a unified All-Russian government - the Ufa Directory, headed by the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionaries N.D. Avksentiev and V.M. Zenzinov. Soon the directorate settled in Omsk, where the famous polar explorer and scientist, former commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral A.V., was invited to the post of Minister of War. Kolchak.

The right, bourgeois-monarchist wing of the camp opposing the Bolsheviks as a whole had not yet recovered at that time from the defeat of its first post-October armed attack on them (which largely explained the “democratic coloring” initial stage civil war by anti-Soviet forces). White Volunteer Army, which after the death of General L.G. Kornilov in April 1918 was headed by General A.I. Denikin, operated on a limited territory of the Don and Kuban. Only the Cossack army of Ataman P.N. Krasnov managed to advance to Tsaritsyn and cut off the grain-producing regions of the North Caucasus from the central regions of Russia, and Ataman A.I. Dutov - to capture Orenburg.

By the end of the summer of 1918, the position of Soviet power had become critical. Almost three quarters of the territory of the former Russian Empire was under the control of various anti-Bolshevik forces, as well as the occupying Austro-German troops.

Soon, however, a turning point occurs on the main front (Eastern). Soviet troops under the command of I.I. Vatsetis and S.S. Kamenev went on the offensive there in September 1918. Kazan fell first, then Simbirsk, and Samara in October. By winter the Reds approached the Urals. The attempts of General P.N. were also repelled. Krasnov to take possession of Tsaritsyn, undertaken in July and September 1918.

From October 1918, the Southern front became the main front. In the South of Russia, the Volunteer Army of General A.I. Denikin captured Kuban, and the Don Cossack Army of Ataman P.N. Krasnova tried to take Tsaritsyn and cut the Volga.

The Soviet government launched active measures to protect its power. In 1918, a transition was made to universal conscription, widespread mobilization was launched. The Constitution adopted in July 1918 established discipline in the army and introduced the institution of military commissars.

The Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) was allocated as part of the Central Committee to quickly resolve problems of a military and political nature. It included: V.I. Lenin - Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars; L.B. Krestinsky - Secretary of the Party Central Committee; I.V. Stalin - People's Commissar for Nationalities; L.D. Trotsky - Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs. Candidates for membership were N.I. Bukharin - editor of the newspaper “Pravda”, G.E. Zinoviev - Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, M.I. Kalinin is the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

The Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, headed by L.D., worked under the direct control of the Party Central Committee. Trotsky. The Institute of Military Commissars was introduced in the spring of 1918; one of its important tasks was to control the activities of military specialists - former officers. Already at the end of 1918, there were about 7 thousand commissars in the Soviet armed forces. About 30% of former generals and officers of the old army during the civil war took the side of the Red Army.

This was determined by two main factors:

• acting on the side of the Bolshevik government for ideological reasons;
• the policy of attracting “military specialists”—former royal officers- conducted by L.D. Trotsky using repressive methods.

War communism

In 1918, the Bolsheviks introduced a system of emergency measures, economic and political, known as “ policy of war communism”. Main acts this policy became Decree of May 13, 1918 g., giving broad powers to the People's Commissariat for Food (People's Commissariat for Food), and Decree of June 28, 1918 on nationalization.

The main provisions of this policy:

• nationalization of all industry;
• centralization of economic management;
• ban on private trade;
• curtailment of commodity-money relations;
• food allocation;
• equalization system of remuneration for workers and employees;
• payment in kind for workers and employees;
• free utilities;
• universal labor conscription.

June 11, 1918 were created committees(committees of the poor), which were supposed to seize surplus agricultural products from wealthy peasants. Their actions were supported by units of the prodarmiya (food army), consisting of Bolsheviks and workers. From January 1919, the search for surpluses was replaced by a centralized and planned system of surplus appropriation (Chrestomathy T8 No. 5).

Each region and county had to hand over a set amount of grain and other products (potatoes, honey, butter, eggs, milk). When the delivery quota was met, the village residents received a receipt for the right to purchase industrial goods (fabric, sugar, salt, matches, kerosene).

June 28, 1918 the state has started nationalization of enterprises with capital over 500 rubles. Back in December 1917, when the VSNKh (Supreme Council of the National Economy) was created, he began nationalization. But the nationalization of labor was not widespread (by March 1918, no more than 80 enterprises were nationalized). This was primarily a repressive measure against entrepreneurs who resisted workers' control. Now it was public policy. By November 1, 1919, 2,500 enterprises had been nationalized. In November 1920, a decree was issued that extended nationalization to all enterprises with more than 10 or 5 workers, but using a mechanical engine.

Decree of November 21, 1918 was installed monopoly on domestic trade. Soviet power replaced trade with state distribution. Citizens received products through the People's Commissariat for Food using cards, of which, for example, in Petrograd in 1919 there were 33 types: bread, dairy, shoe, etc. The population was divided into three categories:
workers and scientists and artists equated to them;
employees;
former exploiters.

Due to the lack of food, even the wealthiest received only ¼ of the prescribed ration.

In such conditions, the “black market” flourished. The government fought against bag smugglers, prohibiting them from traveling by train.

In the social sphere, the policy of “war communism” was based on the principle “he who does not work, neither shall he eat.” In 1918, labor conscription was introduced for representatives of the former exploiting classes, and in 1920, universal labor conscription.

In the political sphere“War communism” meant the undivided dictatorship of the RCP (b). The activities of other parties (cadets, mensheviks, right and left socialist revolutionaries) were prohibited.

The consequences of the policy of “war communism” were deepening economic devastation and a reduction in production in industry and agriculture. However, it was precisely this policy that largely allowed the Bolsheviks to mobilize all resources and win the Civil War.

The Bolsheviks assigned a special role to mass terror in the victory over the class enemy. On September 2, 1918, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution proclaiming the beginning of “mass terror against the bourgeoisie and its agents.” Head of the Cheka F.E. Dzherzhinsky said: “We are terrorizing the enemies of Soviet power.” The policy of mass terror took on a state character. Execution on the spot became commonplace.

The second stage of the civil war (autumn 1918 - end of 1919)

Since November 1918 front war entered the stage of confrontation between the Reds and the Whites. The year 1919 was decisive for the Bolsheviks; a reliable and constantly growing Red Army was created. But their opponents, actively supported by their former allies, united among themselves. The international situation has also changed significantly. Germany and its allies in the world war laid down their arms before the Entente in November. Revolutions took place in Germany and Austria-Hungary. Leadership of the RSFSR November 13, 1918 canceled, and the new governments of these countries were forced to evacuate their troops from Russia. In Poland, the Baltic states, Belarus, and Ukraine, bourgeois-national governments arose, which immediately took the side of the Entente.

The defeat of Germany freed up significant combat contingents of the Entente and at the same time opened up for it a convenient and short road to Moscow from the southern regions. Under these conditions, the Entente leadership prevailed in the intention to defeat Soviet Russia using its own armies.

In the spring of 1919, the Supreme Council of the Entente developed a plan for the next military campaign. (Chrestomathy T8 No. 8) As noted in one of his secret documents, the intervention was to be “expressed in combined military actions of Russian anti-Bolshevik forces and the armies of neighboring allied states.” At the end of November 1918, a joint Anglo-French squadron of 32 pennants (12 battleships, 10 cruisers and 10 destroyers) appeared off the Black Sea coast of Russia. English troops landed in Batum and Novorossiysk, and French troops landed in Odessa and Sevastopol. The total number of interventionist combat forces concentrated in the south of Russia was increased by February 1919 to 130 thousand people. The Entente contingents in the Far East and Siberia (up to 150 thousand people), as well as in the North (up to 20 thousand people) increased significantly.

In Siberia, on November 18, 1918, Admiral A.V. came to power. Kolchak. . He put an end to the chaotic actions of the anti-Bolshevik coalition.

Having dispersed the Directory, he proclaimed himself the Supreme Ruler of Russia (the rest of the leaders of the white movement soon declared their submission to him). Admiral Kolchak in March 1919 began to advance on a broad front from the Urals to the Volga. The main bases of his army were Siberia, the Urals, the Orenburg province and the Ural region. In the north, from January 1919, General E.K. began to play a leading role. Miller, in the north-west - General N.N. Yudenich. In the south, the dictatorship of the commander of the Volunteer Army A.I. is strengthening. Denikin, who in January 1919 subjugated the Don Army of General P.N. Krasnov and created the united Armed Forces of southern Russia.

In March 1919, the well-armed 300,000-strong army of A.V. Kolchak launched an offensive from the east, intending to unite with Denikin’s forces for a joint attack on Moscow. Having captured Ufa, Kolchak’s troops fought their way to Simbirsk, Samara, Votkinsk, but were soon stopped by the Red Army. At the end of April, Soviet troops under the command of S.S. Kamenev and M.V. The Frunzes went on the offensive and advanced deep into Siberia in the summer. By the beginning of 1920, the Kolchakites were completely defeated, and the admiral himself was arrested and executed by verdict of the Irkutsk Revolutionary Committee.

In the summer of 1919, the center of the armed struggle moved to the Southern Front. (Reader T8 No. 7) July 3, General A.I. Denikin issued his famous “Moscow directive”, and his army of 150 thousand people began an offensive along the entire 700-km front from Kyiv to Tsaritsyn. The White Front included such important centers as Voronezh, Orel, Kyiv. In this space of 1 million square meters. km with a population of up to 50 million people there were 18 provinces and regions. By mid-autumn, Denikin's army captured Kursk and Orel. But by the end of October, the troops of the Southern Front (commander A.I. Egorov) defeated the white regiments, and then began to press them along the entire front line. The remnants of Denikin’s army, headed by General P.N. in April 1920. Wrangel, strengthened in Crimea.

The final stage of the civil war (spring - autumn 1920)

At the beginning of 1920, as a result of military operations, the outcome of the front-line Civil War was actually decided in favor of the Bolshevik government. At the final stage, the main military operations were associated with the Soviet-Polish war and the fight against Wrangel’s army.

Significantly aggravated the nature of the civil war Soviet-Polish war. Head of Polish State Marshal J. Pilsudski hatched a plan to create “ Greater Poland within the borders of 1772” from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, including a large part of Lithuanian, Belarusian and Ukrainian lands, including those never controlled by Warsaw. The Polish national government was supported by the Entente countries, who sought to create a “sanitary bloc” of Eastern European countries between Bolshevik Russia and Western countries. On April 17, Pilsudski gave the order to attack Kiev and signed an agreement with Ataman Petliura, Poland recognized the Directory headed by Petliura as the supreme authority of Ukraine. On May 7, Kyiv was captured. The victory was achieved unusually easily, because the Soviet troops withdrew without serious resistance.

But already on May 14, a successful counter-offensive began by the troops of the Western Front (commander M.N. Tukhachevsky), on May 26 - the Southwestern Front (commander A.I. Egorov). In mid-July they reached the borders of Poland. On June 12, Soviet troops occupied Kyiv. The speed of a victory can only be compared with the speed of a previously suffered defeat.

On July 12, British Foreign Secretary Lord D. Curzon sent a note to the Soviet government - in fact, an ultimatum from the Entente demanding to stop the Red Army's advance on Poland. As a truce, the so-called “ Curzon line”, which passed mainly along the ethnic border of the settlement of Poles.

The Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), having clearly overestimated its own strengths and underestimated the enemy’s, set a new strategic task for the main command of the Red Army: to continue the revolutionary war. IN AND. Lenin believed that the victorious entry of the Red Army into Poland would cause uprisings of the Polish working class and revolutionary uprisings in Germany. For this purpose, the Soviet government of Poland was quickly formed - the Provisional Revolutionary Committee consisting of F.E. Dzerzhinsky, F.M. Kona, Yu.Yu. Markhlevsky and others.

This attempt ended in disaster. The troops of the Western Front were defeated near Warsaw in August 1920.

In October, the warring parties concluded a truce, and in March 1921, a peace treaty. Under its terms, a significant part of the lands in western Ukraine and Belarus went to Poland.

At the height of the Soviet-Polish war, General P.N. took active action in the south. Wrangel. Using harsh measures, including public executions of demoralized officers, and relying on the support of France, the general turned Denikin's scattered divisions into a disciplined and combat-ready Russian army. In June 1920, troops were landed from the Crimea on the Don and Kuban, and the main forces of the Wrangel troops were sent to the Donbass. On October 3, the Russian army began its offensive in the northwestern direction towards Kakhovka.

The offensive of Wrangel’s troops was repulsed, and during the operation of the army of the Southern Front under the command of M.V., which began on October 28. The Frunzes completely captured Crimea. On November 14 - 16, 1920, an armada of ships flying the St. Andrew's flag left the shores of the peninsula, taking broken white regiments and tens of thousands of civilian refugees to a foreign land. Thus P.N. Wrangel saved them from the merciless red terror that fell on Crimea immediately after the evacuation of the whites.

In the European part of Russia, after the capture of Crimea, it was liquidated last white front. The military issue ceased to be the main one for Moscow, but fighting on the outskirts of the country continued for many months.

The Red Army, having defeated Kolchak, reached Transbaikalia in the spring of 1920. The Far East was at this time in the hands of Japan. To avoid a collision with it, the government of Soviet Russia promoted the formation in April 1920 of a formally independent “buffer” state - the Far Eastern Republic (FER) with its capital in Chita. Soon, the army of the Far East began military operations against the White Guards, supported by the Japanese, and in October 1922 occupied Vladivostok, completely clearing the Far East of Whites and interventionists. After this, a decision was made to liquidate the Far Eastern Republic and incorporate it into the RSFSR.

The Civil War became the biggest drama of the twentieth century and the greatest tragedy in Russia. The armed struggle that unfolded across the expanses of the country was carried out with extreme tension of the opponents' forces, was accompanied by mass terror (both white and red), and was distinguished by exceptional mutual bitterness. Here is an excerpt from the memoirs of a participant in the Civil War, talking about soldiers of the Caucasian Front: “Well, why, son, isn’t it scary for a Russian to beat a Russian?” - the comrades ask the recruit. “At first it’s really kind of awkward,” he answers, “and then, if your heart gets hot, then no, nothing.” These words contain the merciless truth about the fratricidal war, into which almost the entire population of the country was drawn.

The fighting parties clearly understood that the struggle could only have a fatal outcome for one of the parties. That is why the civil war in Russia became a great tragedy for all its political camps, movements and parties.

“Reds” (the Bolsheviks and their supporters) believed that they were defending not only Soviet power in Russia, but also “the world revolution and the ideas of socialism.”

In the political struggle against Soviet power, two political movements were consolidated:

• democratic counter-revolution with slogans of returning political power to the Constituent Assembly and restoring the gains of the February (1917) Revolution (many Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks advocated the establishment of Soviet power in Russia, but without the Bolsheviks (“For Soviets without Bolsheviks”));
• white movement with the slogans of “non-decision of the state system” and the elimination of Soviet power. This direction threatened not only the October, but also the February conquests. The counter-revolutionary white movement was not homogeneous. It included monarchists and liberal republicans, supporters of the Constituent Assembly and supporters of the military dictatorship. Among the “Whites” there were also differences in foreign policy guidelines: some hoped for the support of Germany (Ataman Krasnov), others hoped for the help of the Entente powers (Denikin, Kolchak, Yudenich). The “Whites” were united by hatred of the Soviet regime and the Bolsheviks, and the desire to preserve a united and indivisible Russia. United political program they did not have it; the military in the leadership of the “white movement” relegated politicians to the background. There was also no clear coordination of actions between the main “white” groups. The leaders of the Russian counter-revolution competed and fought with each other.

In the anti-Soviet anti-Bolshevik camp, some of the political opponents of the Soviets acted under a single Socialist Revolutionary-White Guard flag, while others acted only under the White Guard.

Bolsheviks had a stronger social base than their opponents. They received strong support from urban workers and the rural poor. The position of the main peasant mass was not stable and unambiguous; only the poorest part of the peasants consistently followed the Bolsheviks. The peasants' hesitation had its reasons: the “Reds” gave the land, but then introduced surplus appropriation, which caused strong discontent in the village. However, the return of the previous order was also unacceptable for the peasantry: the victory of the “whites” threatened the return of the land to the landowners and severe punishments for the destruction of the landowners’ estates.

The Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists rushed to take advantage of the hesitations of the peasants. They managed to involve a significant part of the peasantry in the armed struggle, both against the whites and against the reds.

For both warring sides, it was also important what position the Russian officers would take in the conditions of the civil war. Approximately 40% of the officers in the tsarist army joined the “white movement,” 30% sided with the Soviet regime, and 30% avoided participating in the civil war.

The Russian Civil War worsened armed intervention foreign powers. The interventionists carried out active military operations on the territory of the former Russian Empire, occupied some of its regions, helped incite the civil war in the country and contributed to its prolongation. The intervention turned out to be important factor“revolutionary all-Russian unrest”, multiplied the number of victims.

Civil War (1918-1920) and intervention.

The policy of "war communism"

Civil War - a war between citizens of the same country. A full-scale civil war in Russia began in the spring of 1918 and ended in the European part of the country at the end of 1920. Its cause was a deep sociocultural split in society. The split was provoked by the introduction of a food dictatorship, the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, the support of the Bolshevik opponents from the Entente, etc. During the confrontation, three main forces emerged.

The first is “red”. This is what the Bolsheviks and their supporters were called. The Bolsheviks relied on the majority of the working class and the poorest peasantry. The goal of the Bolsheviks was to build socialism, and later communism.

The second force was the opponents of the Bolsheviks, who are called “whites”. The white movement was not homogeneous; it included representatives of different parties. The ideology of the white movement was “non-decisionism”, since, according to the “whites”, it was first necessary to overthrow the Bolsheviks, and then convene a Constituent Assembly, which would determine the future of the country. Before the convening of the Constituent Assembly, the gains of the February Revolution must be restored. Within the white movement, the so-called “democratic counter-revolution” (or “revolutionary democracy”), represented by the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, stood out. Their relationship with the white generals did not work out.

It was the Reds and Whites who were the opposing forces in the civil war.

The third force (“greens”) was the most numerous, it was represented mainly by peasants. Poorly organized, poorly armed peasants defended their property from the Reds and Whites using guerrilla tactics. N.A. units are often classified as green. Makhno and N.A. Grigorieva. The outcome of the civil war depended on which side the sympathies of the third force would lean towards.

A feature of the civil war was its close intertwining with intervention. It is customary to distinguish four stages of the civil war.

1. May - November 1918 At this stage, the main opponents of the Bolsheviks were the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks. The main centers of anti-Bolshevik resistance were formed. A strong anti-Bolshevik movement developed among the Cossacks. On the Don and Kuban they were led by General P.N. Krasnov, in the Southern Urals - Ataman A.I. Dutov. In the south of Russia and the North Caucasus, under the leadership of generals M.V. Alekseeva and L.G. Kornilov, the officer Volunteer Army began to form. It became the basis of the white movement. After the death of L.G. Kornilov's command was taken over by General A.I. Denikin.

In the spring of 1918, the Entente countries began military intervention in Russia, thereby contributing to the escalation of the civil war into a full-scale one. In March, Entente troops landed in Murmansk, then in Vladivostok and Arkhangelsk. German troops occupied Ukraine, Crimea and part of the North Caucasus. Romania captured Bessarabia. Japanese troops ruled the Far East.

Open hostilities began at the end of May 1918 after the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps. It collected prisoners of war from the Austro-Hungarian army who expressed a desire to participate in the war against Germany on the side of the Entente. The corps was sent by the Provisional Government along the Trans-Siberian Railway to the Far East. It was assumed that it would then be delivered to France.

The uprising led to the overthrow of Soviet power in the Volga region and Siberia. In Samara, Ufa and Omsk, and other cities, governments were created from Cadets, Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. The most famous was KOMUCH (Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly). To combat it, the Bolshevik leadership decided to create Eastern Front(under the command of I.I. Vatsetis and S.S. Kamenev). Since June 1918, the Red Army was formed on the basis of universal conscription. During the autumn, units of the Red Army pushed the enemy beyond the Urals.

From the very beginning, the civil war was marked by episodes of white atrocities and the brutal extermination of reds. In response to the “White Terror”, the assassination attempt on Lenin, the Soviet government took retaliatory measures by adopting a decree on the “Red Terror”.

2. November 1918 - spring 1919. The features of the second stage are due to changes in the international situation. In November 1918, Germany and its allies admitted defeat in the world war. Their troops were evacuated from Russian territory. The end of the First World War made it possible to free the Entente forces and direct them against Soviet Russia. England, France, and the USA pursued the following goals: overthrowing the Bolshevik regime, preventing the spread of socialism in the world, returning the debts of the tsarist and Provisional governments, and plundering Russian territory. At the end of November 1918, French and British troops landed in the Black Sea ports of Russia. However, already at the beginning of 1919, England and France were forced to evacuate their troops due to the revolutionary ferment that gripped them.

At this stage, the leading force in the fight against the Reds becomes the white regimes: in the east - A.V. Kolchak, in the south - A.I. Denikin, in the north-west - N.N. Yudenich and in the north - E.K. Miller. They receive support from the Entente countries, including financial support. Admiral Kolchak is proclaimed Supreme Ruler of Russia.

3. Spring 1919 - spring 1920 In the spring of 1919, the white armies began moving towards Moscow, where the capital of Russia was moved. However, the uncoordinated actions of the white generals allowed the Bolsheviks to defeat the troops of Kolchak, Denikin, Miller and Yudenich one by one.

4. Spring-autumn 1920 The main events of this stage were the Soviet-Polish war and the defeat of the last white group of General P.N. in Crimea. Wrangel, who headed the Volunteer Army after Denikin’s resignation. The war with Poland ended unsuccessfully for Russia. The Red Army under the command of M.N. Tukhachevsky was defeated near Warsaw. A significant part of the territory of Ukraine and Belarus went to Poland. In the fall of 1920, under the leadership of M.V. Frunze defeated Wrangel's army. The remnants of the White Army were evacuated from Crimea to Turkey.

Reasons for the Reds' victory in the civil war:

With their first reforms, the Bolsheviks were able to attract the “third force” to their side. Various social groups I liked Bolshevik slogans and promises of social and national justice. Fighting against the interventionists, in the eyes of the population the Reds acted as defenders of the Fatherland;

Through “war communism,” the Bolsheviks managed to mobilize all the country’s resources, turning it into a single military camp;

A disciplined Red Army was created. It had commissars who were engaged in ideological work and raised morale;

Opponents of the Bolsheviks made a number of mistakes. They failed to agree on a single program and a single leader of the movement. Their actions were poorly coordinated. Whites failed to gain popular support. By returning the land to the previous owners, they alienated the peasants. The slogan of preserving a “united and indivisible Russia” contradicted the hopes of many peoples for independence. By collaborating with the interventionists, they were viewed as traitors national interests. Punitive expeditions, pogroms, mass executions of prisoners - all this caused discontent among the population, even leading to armed resistance.

Results of the civil war. The civil war ended by the end of 1920, with the exception of certain regions of Transcaucasia, Central Asia and the Far East, where it was fought until 1922. During a fierce and bloody struggle, the Bolsheviks managed to retain power. The total amount of damage to Russia from the war and intervention was estimated at 50 billion gold rubles. For 1918-1920 the country lost about 10 million people. By 1921, the country was in another full-blown crisis.

The policy of "war communism". The socio-economic policy of the Soviet government from the summer of 1918 to the beginning of 1921 was called "war communism" . This was a forced policy, due to the devastation in the country and the need to mobilize all resources for the victory of the Reds in the civil war. Its main goal was to mobilize all forces and resources for defense and building communism.

The main activities of “war communism”:

1) nationalization, which covered not only large and medium-sized, but also small enterprises;

2) introduction of centralized sectoral management through “headquarters”;

3) transition from a market to a planned economy (the first large-scale plan was the GOELRO plan developed in 1920 - a plan for the electrification of the country);

4) universal labor conscription and labor armies were introduced;

5) an egalitarian (in kind) system of remuneration for workers and employees (rations), the policy of “war communism” in the social sphere was based on the principle “he who does not work, neither does he eat”;

6) curtailment of commodity-money relations, ban on private, free trade;

7) free provision housing, utilities, transport, postal and telegraph services for the population;

8) an undivided dictatorship of the RCP(b) was established in the political sphere. The Bolshevik Party ceased to be a political organization, its apparatus gradually merged with state structures;

9) installed surplus appropriation– obligatory delivery by peasants to the state at fixed prices (virtually free) of all surplus grain and other agricultural products.

10) “red terror” – repressions against the opposition.

“War communism” contributed to the victory of the Reds in the civil war, but also had serious negative consequences, primarily the undermining of the country’s productive forces and the discontent of workers, the strengthening of a one-party dictatorship with the total leadership of the state over all spheres of public life.

In the cemetery of the American city of Troy (Michigan) there is a figure of a polar bear. The grinning animal threateningly put its right paw forward, and with its left it rested against a small cross on which a soldier’s helmet was mounted. This is a monument to 56 American servicemen who died in northern Russia in 1918-1919. What wind brought them to our country and what does the polar bear have to do with it?

THIS STORY began 95 years ago. Taking advantage of the fact that Trotsky disrupted the peace negotiations in Brest, German troops launched an offensive along the entire front on February 18, 1918. At the same time, Great Britain, France and a number of other powers, under the pretext of assisting Soviet Russia in repelling the German offensive, prepared plans for intervention. One of the offers of assistance was sent to Murmansk, near which there were British and French military ships. Deputy Chairman of the Murmansk Council A.M. On March 1, Yuriev reported this to the Council of People's Commissars and at the same time notified the government that there were about two thousand Czechs, Poles and Serbs on the Murmansk railway line. They were transported from Russia to the Western Front via the northern route. Yuryev asked: “In what forms might assistance in human and material force from powers friendly to us be acceptable?”

On the same day, Yuryev received a response from Trotsky, who at that time held the post of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. The telegram said: “You are obliged to accept all assistance from the allied missions.” Referring to Trotsky, the Murmansk authorities entered into negotiations on March 2 with representatives of the Western powers. Among them were the commander of the English squadron, Admiral Kemp, the English Consul Hall, and the French captain Cherpentier. The result of the negotiations was an agreement that read: “The highest command of all the armed forces of the region belongs, under the supremacy of the Department Council, to the Murmansk Military Council of 3 persons - one appointed by the Soviet government and one each from the British and French.”

Yuriev sent a telegram about the conclusion of this agreement to all Soviets along the Murmansk road. When the Petrozavodsk Council asked the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs about this telegram from Yuryev, Trotsky replied: “The Murmansk Council correctly refers to my permission.”

However, V.I. Lenin, I.V. Stalin and other leaders of the Land of Soviets assessed Yuryev’s actions differently. Contacting him by telegraph, Stalin warned him: “It seems that you are a little caught, now you need to get out. The presence of their troops in the Murmansk region and the actual support provided to Murman by the British can be used in the event of further complications in the international situation as a basis for occupation. If you obtain written confirmation of the statement of the British and French against the possible occupation, this will be the first step towards eliminating the confusing situation that has been created, in our opinion, against your will.” However, Yuriev was no longer in control of the situation. Although the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on March 3 and the Germans stopped their advance towards Petrograd, on March 9 the first landing force was landed on the Murmansk coast, which was supposedly supposed to repel the Germans. The Murmansk Military Council, in which the majority belonged to Western countries, declared a state of siege. The interventionists who landed on the shore formed an armored train and contacted the detachments of Czechoslovaks, Serbs and Poles stationed in the city of Kola. Telegrams were sent to London asking for reinforcements.

On March 15, a conference of prime ministers and foreign ministers of the Entente countries took place in London. It reviewed the report of General Knox, who recommended sending 5 thousand soldiers to Arkhangelsk. Attached to the report was a statement from the British military representative in Arkhangelsk, Captain Proctor, who proposed increasing the number of interventionists in the North to 15 thousand. However, the offensive of German troops that began on the Western Front forced the Allies to temporarily postpone these plans.

The 6th of Wilson's 14 points in his message to Congress on January 8, 1918 concerned Russia. The desire to seize Russian possessions appeared among the US ruling circles during the conflicts around Oregon and the preparation of the Alaska deal. It was proposed to “buy the Russians” along with a number of other nations of the world. The hero of Mark Twain’s novel “The American Pretender,” the extravagant Colonel Sellers, also outlined his plan for acquiring Siberia and creating a republic there. Obviously, already in the 19th century such ideas were popular in the USA.

On the eve of the First World War, the activities of American entrepreneurs in Russia sharply intensified. Future US President Herbert Hoover became the owner of oil companies in Maikop. Together with the English financier Leslie Urquhart, Herbert Hoover acquired concessions in the Urals and Siberia. The cost of only three of them exceeded 1 billion dollars (then dollars!).

The First World War opened up new opportunities for American capital. Having been drawn into a difficult and ruinous war, Russia sought funds and goods abroad. America, which did not participate in the war, could provide them. If before the First World War, US capital investments in Russia amounted to $68 million, then by 1917 they had increased many times over. Russia's needs for different types products led to rapid growth import from the USA. While exports from Russia to the United States fell 3 times from 1913 to 1916, imports of American goods increased 18 times. If in 1913 American imports from Russia were slightly higher than its exports from the United States, then in 1916 American exports exceeded Russian imports to the United States by 55 times. The country became increasingly dependent on American manufacturing.

In March 1916, banker and grain merchant David Francis was appointed US Ambassador to Russia. On the one hand, the new ambassador sought to increase Russia's dependence on America. On the other hand, being a grain merchant, he was interested in eliminating Russia as a competitor from the world grain market. A revolution in Russia that could undermine it Agriculture, most likely, was part of Francis's plans.

Ambassador Francis, on behalf of the US government, offered Russia a loan of $100 million. At the same time, by agreement with the Provisional Government, a mission was sent to Russia from the United States “to study issues related to the work of the Ussuri, East China and Siberian Railways.” And in mid-October 1917, the so-called “Russian Railway Corps” was formed, consisting of 300 American railway officers and mechanics. The “corps” consisted of 12 detachments of engineers, foremen, and dispatchers, who were to be stationed between Omsk and Vladivostok. As the Soviet historian A.B. emphasized. Berezkin in his study, “the US government insisted that the specialists it sent be vested with broad administrative powers, and not limited to the functions of technical supervision.” In fact, it was about transferring a significant part of the Trans-Siberian Railway under American control.

It is known that during the preparation of the anti-Bolshevik conspiracy in the summer of 1917, the famous English writer and intelligence officer W.S. Maugham (transgender) and the leaders of the Czechoslovak corps left for Petrograd through the USA and Siberia. It is obvious that the conspiracy that British intelligence wove to prevent the victory of the Bolsheviks and Russia’s exit from the war was linked to US plans to establish their control over the Trans-Siberian Railway.

On December 14, 1917, the “Russian Railway Corps”, consisting of 350 people, arrived in Vladivostok. However, the October Revolution thwarted not only Maugham's plot, but also the US plan to seize the Trans-Siberian Railway. Already on December 17, the “railway corps” left for Nagasaki.

Then the Americans decided to use Japanese military force to seize the Trans-Siberian Railway. February 18, 1918 American representative In the Supreme Council of the Entente, General Bliss supported the opinion that Japan should take part in the occupation of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

After the Czechoslovaks moved along the Trans-Siberian Railway in the spring of 1918, the movement of their trains began to be closely monitored in the United States. In May 1918, Francis wrote to his son in the United States: “I am currently plotting ... to disrupt the disarmament of 40 thousand or more Czechoslovak soldiers who have been asked by the Soviet government to surrender their arms.”

On May 25, immediately after the start of the rebellion, the Czechoslovaks captured Novonikolaevsk (Novosibirsk). On May 26, they captured Chelyabinsk. Then - Tomsk. Penza, Syzran. In June, the Czechoslovaks captured Kurgan, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, and on June 29 - Vladivostok. As soon as the Trans-Siberian Railway was in the hands of the “Czechoslovak Corps”, the “Russian Railway Corps” again headed to Siberia.

On July 6, 1918, in Washington, at a meeting of the country's military leaders with the participation of Secretary of State Lansing, the issue of sending 7 thousand American troops to Vladivostok to help the Czechoslovak corps, which was allegedly attacked by units of former Austro-Hungarian prisoners, was discussed. The decision was made: “To land available troops from American and allied warships in order to gain a foothold in Vladivostok and assist the Czechoslovaks.” Three months earlier, Japanese troops landed in Vladivostok.

Back in the spring of 1918, the Americans appeared in the North of European Russia, on the Murmansk coast. On March 2, 1918, Chairman of the Murmansk Council A.M. Yuryev agreed to the landing of British, American and French troops on the coast under the pretext of protecting the North from the Germans.

On June 14, 1918, the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of Soviet Russia protested against the presence of interventionists in Russian harbors, but this protest was left unanswered. And on July 6, representatives of the interventionists concluded an agreement with the Murmansk Regional Council, according to which the orders of the military command of Great Britain, the United States of America and France “must be unquestioningly carried out by everyone.” The agreement established that from Russians “separate Russian units should not be formed, but, as circumstances permit, units composed of an equal number of foreigners and Russians may be formed.” On behalf of the United States, the agreement was signed by Captain 1st Rank Berger, commander of the cruiser Olympia, which arrived in Murmansk on May 24.

After the first landing, by the summer about 10 thousand foreign soldiers had landed in Murmansk. In total in 1918-1919. About 29 thousand British and 6 thousand Americans landed in the north of the country. Having occupied Murmansk, the invaders moved south. On July 2, the interventionists took Kem. July 31 - Onega. The American participation in this intervention was called the Polar Bear expedition.

On August 2, they captured Arkhangelsk. The “Supreme Administration of the Northern Region” was created in the city, headed by Trudovik N.V. Tchaikovsky, which turned into a puppet government of interventionists. After the capture of Arkhangelsk, the interventionists attempted to launch an attack on Moscow through Kotlas. However, the stubborn resistance of the Red Army units thwarted these plans. The interventionists suffered losses.

In the American press in 1918, voices were openly heard suggesting that the US government should lead the process of dismembering Russia. Senator Poindexter wrote in the New York Times of June 8, 1918: “Russia is merely a geographical concept, and will never be anything more. Her powers of cohesion, organization and restoration are gone forever. The nation does not exist." On June 20, 1918, Senator Sherman, speaking in the US Congress, proposed taking advantage of the opportunity to conquer Siberia. The senator declared: “Siberia is a wheat field and pastures for livestock, having the same value as its mineral wealth.”

These calls were heard. On August 3, the US Secretary of War ordered the dispatch of units of the 27th and 31st American Infantry Divisions, which had until then served in the Philippines, to Vladivostok. These divisions became famous for their atrocities, which continued during the suppression of the remnants partisan movement. On August 16, American troops numbering about 9 thousand people landed in Vladivostok.

On the same day, a declaration was published by the United States and Japan, which stated that “they take under the protection of the soldiers of the Czechoslovak corps.” The governments of France and England assumed the same obligations in corresponding declarations. And soon 120 thousand foreign interventionists, including Americans, British, Japanese, French, Canadians, Italians and even Serbs and Poles, came out to “defend the Czechs and Slovaks.”

At this time, the US government made efforts to obtain agreement from its allies to establish its control over the Trans-Siberian Railway. US Ambassador to Japan Morris assured that the effective and reliable operation of the CER and the Trans-Siberian Railway will allow us to begin to implement “our economic and social program… In addition, allow the free development of local government.” In essence, the United States was reviving plans to create a Siberian republic, which were dreamed of by the hero of Mark Twain’s story, Sellers.

At the end of October 1918, Wilson approved a secret “Commentary” to the “14 Points,” which proceeded from the dismemberment of Russia. The “Commentary” indicated that since the independence of Poland has already been recognized, there is nothing to talk about a united Russia. It was planned to create several states on its territory - Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine and others. The Caucasus was seen as "part of the problem of the Turkish Empire." It was supposed to give one of the victorious countries a mandate to govern Central Asia. The future peace conference was to appeal to "Great Russia and Siberia" with a proposal to "create a government sufficiently representative to act on behalf of these territories," and to such a government "the United States and its allies will provide every assistance."
In December 1918, at a meeting at the State Department, a program for the “economic development” of Russia was outlined, which provided for the export of 200 thousand tons of goods from our country within the first three to four months. In the future, the pace of export of goods from Russia to the United States was expected to increase. As evidenced by Woodrow Wilson’s memo to Secretary of State Robert Lansing dated November 20, 1918, at this time the US President considered it necessary to achieve “the dismemberment of Russia into at least five parts - Finland, the Baltic provinces, European Russia, Siberia and Ukraine.”

The United States proceeded from the fact that the regions that were part of the sphere of Russian interests during the First World War turned into a zone of American expansion after the collapse of Russia. On May 14, 1919, at a meeting of the Council of Four in Paris, a resolution was adopted, according to which the United States received a mandate for Armenia, Constantinople, the Bosporus and Dardanelles.

The Americans also launched activities in other parts of Russia, into which they decided to divide it. In 1919, the director of the American Aid Distribution Administration, future US President Herbert Hoover, visited Latvia. While in Latvia, he established friendly relations with a graduate of the University of Lincoln (Nebraska), a former American professor, and at that time the newly appointed Prime Minister of the Latvian government, Karlis Ulmanis. The American mission led by Colonel Green, which arrived in Latvia in March 1919, provided active assistance in financing the German units led by General von der Goltz and the troops of the Ulmanis government. In accordance with the agreement of June 17, 1919, weapons and other military materials began to arrive in Latvia from American warehouses in France. In general, in 1918-1920. The United States allocated over 5 million dollars for the armament of the Ulmanis regime.

The Americans were also active in Lithuania. In his work “American Intervention in Lithuania in 1918-1920.” D.F. Fainhuaz wrote: “In 1919, the Lithuanian government received from the State Department military equipment and uniforms for arming 35 thousand soldiers for a total amount of 17 million dollars... The general leadership of the Lithuanian army was carried out by the American Colonel Dowley, assistant to the head of the US military mission in the Baltics.” At the same time, a specially formed American brigade arrived in Lithuania, the officers of which became part of the Lithuanian army. It was planned to increase the number of American troops in Lithuania to several tens of thousands of people. The United States provided the Lithuanian army with food. The same assistance was provided to the Estonian army in May 1919. Only the growing opposition in the United States to plans to expand the American presence in Europe stopped further US activity in the Baltic states.

At the same time, the Americans began dividing up the lands inhabited by the indigenous Russian population. Concentration camps were created in the north of European Russia, occupied by interventionists from England, Canada and the USA. 52 thousand people, that is, every 6th resident of the occupied lands, ended up in prisons or camps.

Doctor Marshavin, a prisoner of one of these camps, recalled: “Exhausted, half-starved, we were taken under the escort of the British and Americans. They put me in a cell no more than 30 square meters. And there were more than 50 people sitting in it. They were fed extremely poorly, many died of hunger... They were forced to work from 5 o'clock in the morning until 11 o'clock at night. Grouped in groups of 4, we were forced to harness the sleigh and carry firewood... Health care it didn’t turn out to be at all. From beatings, cold, hunger and back-breaking 18-20 hour work, 15-20 people died every day.” The occupiers shot 4,000 people by decision of military courts. Many people were killed without trial.

Mudyugsky concentration camp- the most famous concentration camp, created by representatives of foreign military intervention in northern Russia on August 23, 1918 as a prisoner of war camp. From June 2, 1919, it was used by the government of the Northern Region as a convict prison. After the uprising of September 15, 1919 and the mass escape of prisoners, he was transferred to Yokanga. The only concentration camp from the First World War, the buildings of which have survived to this day.

By June 1919, there were already about 100 grave crosses on Mudyug Island, many of which had collective graves under them.

"The Northern Cemetery will unite everyone
The Northern Cemetery will shelter us all
Northern Cemetery - everyone is equal there
Northern cemetery - northern dreams" (Vl-r Selivanov. "Red Stars")

The Mudyug concentration camp became a real cemetery for victims of the intervention in the Russian North, Russian Hyperborea.

The Americans acted just as cruelly in the Far East. During punitive expeditions against residents of Primorye and the Amur region who supported the partisans, the Americans destroyed 25 villages in the Amur region alone. At the same time, American punishers, like other interventionists, committed cruel torture against the partisans and people who sympathized with them.

Soviet historian F.F. Nesterov in his book “Link of Times” wrote that after the fall of Soviet power in the Far East, “supporters of the Soviets, wherever the bayonet of the overseas “liberators of Russia” could reach, were stabbed, chopped, shot in batches, hanged, drowned in the Amur, taken away in torture “trains.” death,” starved to death in concentration camps.” Having talked about the peasants of the prosperous seaside village of Kazanka, who at first were by no means ready to support Soviet power, the writer explained why, after much doubt, they nevertheless joined the partisan detachments. The role played by “the stories of the neighbors on the counter that last week an American sailor shot a Russian boy in the port... that local residents should now, when a foreign military man gets on the tram, get up and give him a seat... that the radio station on Russian Island was transferred to the Americans... that In Khabarovsk, dozens of captured Red Guards are shot every day.” Ultimately, the residents of Kazanka, like the majority of Russian people in those years, could not stand the humiliation of national and human dignity perpetrated by the American and other interventionists and their accomplices, and rebelled, supporting the Primorye partisans.

The Americans are also remembered for their participation in the plunder of the occupied lands. In the north of the country, according to A.B. Berezkin, “the Americans exported 353,409 poods of flax, tow and tow alone (including 304,575 poods of flax alone. They exported furs, skins, ornamental bone and other goods.” The manager of the office of the Foreign Affairs Department of the white Tchaikovsky government, formed in Arkhangelsk, complained on January 11, 1919 to the Quartermaster General of the Commander-in-Chief's headquarters that “after the plunder of the region by the interventionists, there were no sources left for obtaining currency, with the exception of timber; as for export goods, then everything that was in warehouses in Arkhangelsk, and everything that could be of interest to foreigners, they exported almost 4,000,000 pounds sterling almost without currency last year.”

In the Far East, American invaders exported timber, furs, and gold. In addition to outright robbery, American firms received permission from the Kolchak government to carry out trading operations in exchange for loans from City Bank and Guaranty Trust. Only one of them, the Airington company, which received permission to export furs, sent 15,730 pounds of wool, 20,407 sheep skins, and 10,200 large dry skins from Vladivostok to the USA. Everything that was of at least some material value was exported from the Far East and Siberia.

During the intervention, the Americans tried to expand the lands under their control. In the fall of 1918, interventionists operating in the north of the country (mainly Americans) tried to advance south of Shenkursk. However, on January 24, Soviet troops launched a counterattack on Shenkursk and, having captured it, cut off the Americans’ path to retreat. The next day, abandoning their military equipment, the American units fled north along forest paths.

In April 1919, a new attempt was made to advance deep into Russia during the offensive of the Finnish “Olonets Volunteer Army” in the Mezhduozerny region and Anglo-American troops along the Murmansk road. However, at the end of June the interventionists suffered a new defeat. The interventionists also suffered losses in the Far East, where partisans constantly attacked American military units.

The losses suffered by the American interventionists received significant publicity in the United States and led to demands for an end to hostilities in Russia. On May 22, 1919, Representative Mason, in a speech to Congress, stated: “In Chicago, which is part of my district, there are 600 mothers whose sons are in Russia. I received about 12 letters this morning, and I receive them almost every day, asking me when our troops should return from Siberia.” On May 20, 1919, Wisconsin senator and future presidential candidate La Follette introduced a resolution in the Senate that was approved by the Wisconsin Legislature. It called for the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Russia. Somewhat later, on September 5, 1919, the influential Senator Borah said in the Senate: “Mr. President, we are not at war with Russia. Congress did not declare war against the Russian people. The people of the United States do not want to fight with Russia."

Didn't they announce it? Where? Intervention is not a declaration of war? If Hitler invaded with the goal of liquidating the USSR, then he is the aggressor, and the Anglo-Saxons Elton John? NO AND NO AGAIN - IT'S THE SAME THING!

American Arthur Ballard was on a business trip in Russia for 2 years - from 1917 to 1919. Since 1918, he was in Siberia when the main events unfolded there. In 1919, since everything was already clear there who would win, Ballard returned to the USA and, hot on the heels, wrote a book about what was happening in Russia.

Just ask any Russian, even now, what do you know about what happened in Siberia after the Bolshevik coup in Russia? He will answer, they say, there was Kolchak, and then he was defeated by the Red Army, which “... from the taiga to the British seas, the Red Army is the strongest of all.” This is the cut out - “celebratory” - official Bolshevik version, which was communicated both under the communists and now under the capitalists, because history is written by the victors.

Now Arthur Ballard will tell us what happened in order. Of course, he doesn’t tell everything either, no one saw EVERYTHING! But nevertheless, what Ballard tells is enough to make your eyes widen, because this is not in the official version. And we collect individual evidence to create a complete picture. This review will be based on the material of one half of the book, where only Siberia. Arthur Ballard was one of many thousands and thousands of American and British spies and saboteurs sent to Russia at the beginning of the century in order to prepare the result that the United States and the British Empire received at the Versailles Conference of 1919 in the outcome of the World War and two catastrophic state coups in Russia and Germany. The only difference between them was that the Bolshevik-type coup in Germany stopped, so to speak, at the stage of the “German Kerensky” and did not reach the Bolshevik ultra-radical genocidal stage.

Here you need to understand the psychology of Americans. They will protest if you call them spies and saboteurs, even if he has the credentials of a CIA agent. Americans are raised to firmly believe that the United States is the beacon of the world; and it is the sacred duty and responsibility of Americans to drag all humanity with an iron fist to happiness in the American understanding and to punish those who do not want their happiness, in the American understanding.

Therefore, any American is de facto an agent and saboteur. Even if he is just a trader or engineer in another country.

For example, when real US secret agents return from a foreign country and write reports to the CIA, then many of their reports are then drawn up in the form separate book. Because everyone understands that a person wants to earn extra money. Why not? You just need to remove from the report the technical details related specifically to secret activities, and, please, publish it!

The classic spy and saboteur-writer was the British agent in Russia Bruce Lockhart with his book "The British Agent". It turns out it was published in Russian? In our library we have the main things related to Russia from another book by Lockhart

Hundreds of thousands of such literary-formatted secret agent reports, framed as literary and scientific works, have circulated in the United States over the past 100 years. The USA is the only remaining Empire, and therefore the country of global espionage. The USA supplies spies and saboteurs to the world market - 100 thousand of them - this is the most continuous American product - spies and saboteurs. And all Americans are freelance spies - “patriots” of their “homeland”. Stalin warned!

Ballard begins the section on Siberia with chapter 18 about the Siberian Railway!

“The whole life of Siberia winds around TRANSIB. The liquid population of Siberia lives only around TRANSIB railway stations and river stops. It is also in Canada of the 19th century that all life was only along the border with the USA. Until the recent construction of TRANSIB, only tribes of local nomads lived in Siberia, and the journey by postal horses from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok was 5 months. And this was literally just a few years ago, since the Trans-Siberian Railway was completed only in 1916. (And it was too tasty a morsel for the United States to miss the opportunity to take possession of it)
I personally spoke with one old tsarist serviceman, whose first job was to drive convicts through convicts. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of TRANSIBA for Siberia. The Trans-Siberian Railway, as an artery, brought blood and life to the frozen body of Siberia and revived Siberia. Perhaps in the future some local Siberian Homer will write an epic poem about TRANSIB and call it "ARTERY"!

Tsar Nicholas II made Siberia part of Russia. Before this, Siberia belonged to Russia only formally. For example, after the annexation of Alaska to the United States, the Americans did not touch it at all for 100 years. Alaska stood there and couldn't reach her. The development of Alaska became possible only after World War II with the beginning of the era of airplanes and helicopters.

English-speaking countries, and, at their suggestion, the whole world, have always considered Russia only as far as the Urals, and then there was “TARTARY” - UNDEVELOPED VIRGIN LANDS.

The start of construction of TRANSIBA in the 1890s and the threat of the development of Siberia by the Russians themselves became the real reason for the Japanese-Russian War; with Japan supported by the US and Britain. If TRANSSIB stops working now, it will cause the death of many thousands of people from hunger and cold, because food is transported by rail. TRANSSIB is the goal of any military operations in Siberia. Who owns the TRANSSIB, owns Siberia.

The blockade of TRANSSIB by the Czechs in August-September 1918 immediately paralyzed all of Siberia. Cities along the TRANSSIB were filled with refugees. In the city of Omsk before the revolution there were 200 thousand inhabitants, and in 1918 this number tripled to 600 thousand with the same housing stock! One of my Russian acquaintances from working in an office in Vladivostok came from Petrograd. In Vladivostok he became one of the active workers of the zemstvo. Before the revolution, he worked in the Petrograd branch of the Cooperative Bank. Right before the Bolshevik putsch, he was sent on a business trip to Moscow and there he was caught by the Bolshevik coup. The bank immediately gave him another business trip from Moscow, this time to Siberia. From Omsk, he managed to call his wife and children in St. Petersburg so that she and the children could urgently go to Omsk with him. And this was his last conversation with his family. We talked in Vladivostok a year after he separated from his family. And he has no way to find out what’s happening to his family.

The Holodomor in Siberia and the blockade of TRANSSIB was achieved by American interventionists with the help of the mercenary Czechoslovak army with the aim of suppressing any resistance in Siberia and the breakaway of Siberia from Russia, which happened in 1920 - the formation under the auspices of the USA of the Far Eastern Republic - the Far Eastern Republic with its capital on Lake Baikal in Verkhneudinsk and with the president of the Far Eastern Republic - an American citizen - a Russian Jew, a former emigrant to the USA, Abram Moiseevich Krasnoshchek, who had a passport of an American citizen Stroller Tobinson. The Americans liquidated the Far Eastern Republic only after they were convinced that power in Siberia and the Far East, after the completion of joint punitive operations in Siberia with Trotsky, was also transferred to an American citizen, like Krasnoshchek, who came from New York - Leibe Bronstein-Trotsky, who at that time for a time he was the unlimited dictator of the Soviet of Deputies in the position of the Pre-Revolutionary Council. The last interventionists, the Japanese, left Vladivostok only in November 1923).

Under the influence of defeats and pressure within the United States, in the summer of 1919, the withdrawal of American interventionist troops from the North of Russia began. By April 1920, American troops had also withdrawn from the Far East. Veterans of the intervention in the north built a monument in honor of the 110 killed in battle and the 70 who died from disease in Russia. The monument is made of white marble and depicts a huge polar bear.

By the time the Americans left Russia, our country had suffered enormous human losses and suffered enormous material damage as a result of the intervention and the Civil War. There is no doubt that responsibility for the atrocities and robberies of the interventionists, the ruin of the country (the total amount of damage to the national economy of the country from foreign intervention amounted to over 50 billion gold rubles) and the death of 10 million people in 1918-1920. are also carried by the American interventionists.

Considerable damage was caused to the country as a result of the fact that Russia lost the grain market, which was captured by the States after the First World War. Francis and his friends in the grain trading business could rejoice.

Today, neither the British nor the Americans like to remember these events. No one has apologized for that intervention to this day (what did you expect?). When US President Dwight Eisanhower, at a meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, stated that Russia and America had never fought with each other, he was somewhat disingenuous. The last veteran interventionist of those events died on March 11, 2003.

The most notable military clash between Russians and Americans in the Far East was the battle near the village of Romanovka, on June 25, 1919, near Vladivostok, where Bolshevik units under the command of Yakov Tryapitsyn attacked the Americans and inflicted losses of 24 people killed. Despite the fact that the red units eventually retreated, American historians call this battle a “Pyrrhic victory.” But let’s not refer to their “historians” - do not forget that our people have always had, have and should have the psychology of a victorious people.

The last American soldier left Siberia on April 1, 1920. During their 19-month stay in Russia, the Americans lost 200 soldiers in the Far East.

Our days

Interview with Rick Rosoff, owner of the Stop NATO website:

The events we are talking about are best known as the Polar Bear Expedition. But there are two different official names: "Northern Russian Campaign" and "American Expeditionary Force in Northern Russia". What was it? It was the introduction of about five thousand American soldiers, from September 1918 and at least until July 1919, into Russian territory. The troops had to fight against the army of the Russian government, which came to power after The October Revolution, that is, against Lenin's government.

American soldiers were sent to fight in the Russian Arctic from France and Michigan. Often after the signing of a peace treaty.

In 1972, I spoke with my maternal grandfather, shortly before his death. I knew that he served in the Allied army under General Pershing, they joined the French army during the First World War. Once I asked him, then I was still a boy, so I asked him what happened after the signing of the peace treaty, when the military was demobilized in France. And he answered me: “We were sent to fight the Bolsheviks.” This is his exact quote, I remember it, although 41 years have passed since then.

I knew that his unit had trained at Camp Custer, named after General George Custer. The camp then became the military town of Custer near Battle Creek, Michigan.

Grandfather was born in Michigan, although he lived most of his life in Ontario, Canada. But when the United States entered World War I in 1917, he enlisted and trained at Custer Training Camp. It was with the 85th Division, which trained at the camp, that he was sent to Russia and participated in the Polar Bear Expedition.

More than 100 American soldiers died in action during the campaign, many more died in influenza and other illnesses, and perhaps a hundred were wounded. I don't think it's worth saying how many Russians were killed by American soldiers at that time.
And 4 years ago, a film was made that was shown in cinemas in Michigan, right where the camp was located. Among the people who came to see the film and pay tribute to the so-called Polar Bear Expedition was Michigan's senior senator, Carl Levin, who at the film's premiere said, quoting a Michigan newspaper from 2009: "Now is the time appropriate place and time for our meeting. There are lessons to be learned from history, and those lessons are here."

I'm not sure what lessons Senator Levin was referring to, but one might assume that over the past four years the United States has renewed its claims to the Arctic Ocean, largely at the expense of other states such as Canada and, undoubtedly, Russia. The very fact that the United States marks its first attempt to gain a foothold in the Arctic region, during the operation in Russia in 1918-1919, seems to me to say a lot.
I remember how my grandfather told me about his stay in Murmansk. As far as I understand, it was not that far from Arkhangelsk, where they were landed American soldiers. Winston Churchill, then British Secretary of War, was able to convince US President Woodrow Wilson of the need to send soldiers to perform various tasks, the main one being the protection of military equipment warehouses supplied by the Allies during the First World War, even before the October Revolution.

The second task was to overthrow the Bolshevik government. The third task was to support the Czechoslovak corps, which fought on the side of the Russian army in the First World War, and then opposed the government formed in November 1917.

It seems to me that the third reason, namely the support of the Czechoslovak corps, is the most plausible explanation for the participation of American soldiers in those events; they were interested in overthrowing the Russian government. This is the main reason for US participation.

Can you talk about any surgery that listeners might not know about?

From the sources that I consulted, I learned that, naturally, not the entire division was sent to Russia. About two or three regiments of the 85th Division were sent. They arrived in Arkhangelsk at the very beginning of September 1918, or so it was stated in one of the sources, and they found themselves under the command of the British army, which was already there.

The British army had probably landed at Arkhangelsk a month earlier, in early August 1918, and the Russian army had probably already removed all the ammunition supplies that the British planned to seize. Thus began an expedition up the Dvina River, which was accompanied by fierce fighting between the Russian and American armies.

According to my calculations, it was October, which means winter has already arrived. And the American campaign reached a dead end, it failed. Their attempts to link up with the Czech army to oppose the government in Moscow were unsuccessful. Then they decided to postpone the campaign until the summer of 1919, but then it was completely abandoned.

Losses, according to some sources, amounted to 110 American soldiers killed in battles with the Russian army.

But did the American military also kill Russians on Russian territory?

Yes, although these people defended their territory, their land.

Why were American soldiers under British command?

It seems to me because British soldiers were sent to the same region: to the Arkhangelsk and Murmansk regions, a month earlier, in order to prepare and to make it easier to carry out the operation, as it seems to me. In addition, we know what role Great Britain played in Russia during the transition period between the February and October revolutions of 1917, under the Provisional Government of Kerensky. And how she wanted to drag the Russian government into the war, no matter what it was.

Summary

I want to say once again that anti-Americanism needs to be drilled into our youth from the cradle. It is very useful to learn this from North Korea, where extreme anti-Americanism is enshrined at the highest level state level and is actively being implemented in school curriculum, in contrast to Russia, where the cult of the Second World War and the “Medved-Roputin culture of drunken tears and balalaikas” are overly promoted. Never forgive the Anglo-Saxon atrocities during the Civil War and encourage in every possible way teachers of universities, secondary schools, gymnasiums, and lyceums who dwell in detail on the consideration of English and American atrocities on Russian territory. The inflexibility of the Russian people and their resistance to the Americans showed that we must and are always able to win together. Victories, after which in the vastness from the Far East to the Russian North, the Hyperborean Lands, there will be no Slavic land, neither a Pindo-Saxon foot nor a Jewish foot. In conclusion, I will add that our youth should be brought up on a special patriotism (not Putin’s and Navalno’s-State Department) - patriotism based on National Great Russian Exceptionalism, and those who dare to encroach on our integrity (all sorts of assholes, NATO) should be dealt with cruelly and ruthlessly. Russia is eternal and indivisible!

“Export of democracy” is not a new phenomenon. Western countries already tried to do this in Russia 100 years ago. And they became convinced that complex geopolitical calculations against the conviction of the masses are inexpensive.

Union of Opponents

It is observed in the issue of anti-Russian intervention of 1819-1921, since both camps of opponents in the world war sent their troops to Russia - the states of the Entente and the Quadruple Alliance with their allies.

Moreover, the declarations of both sides were equally lofty. On paper, the interventionists sought:

• restoration of the “constitutional system” (it is not known what kind of structure is meant by this concept);
• suppression of the spread of the “Bolshevik infection”;
• protection of property of foreigners;
• ending the “red terror”, preserving the lives of the innocent (the white terror did not bother anyone);
• ensuring the fulfillment of treaty obligations (allied within the Entente or the terms of the Brest Peace).

In this case, only the second statement was true. Western governments were really afraid of revolutions in their own states - Bolshevism and the Soviets were popular. The fear of “exporting the revolution” then became one of the reasons for the withdrawal of troops from Russia - they successfully re-agitated there. Georges Clemenceau, announcing the withdrawal of French troops, explained this by the fact that France does not need to import 50 thousand Bolsheviks (50 thousand is the size of the French intervention corps).

For the rest, foreigners needed

• weaken Russia militarily;
• provide yourself with access to its strategic resources;
• get a government that is convenient for you in the country.

Some British leaders absolutely insisted on the need to dismember Russia, but not everyone agreed with them on this issue.

Spheres of influence section

14 states took part in foreign intervention during the Civil War. They operated in different regions, in accordance with their own geographical location, opportunities and interests. Representatives of the white movement all had contacts with the interventionists and received help from them (which they could not do without). But at the same time, various white leaders had their “sympathizers” among the intervening states. Thus, the Ukrainian Hetman Skoropadsky and General Krasnov bet on Germany, preferred England and France, and sympathized with the United States.

The division of spheres of influence looked something like this.

1. Germany is the territory of Ukraine, part of Western Russia, Transcaucasia.
2. Türkiye - Transcaucasia.
3. Austria-Hungary - Ukraine.
4. England - Black Sea region, Far East, Caspian Sea, Baltic, northern ports (Murmansk, Arkhangelsk).
5. France - Black Sea region (Crimea, Odessa), northern ports.
6. USA - northern ports, Far East.
7. Japan - Far East, Sakhalin.

Newly created states (Poland, Finland) and “second league players” (Romania, Serbia) were able to participate in the intervention. At the same time, everyone tried to “snatch theirs” from the occupied territories to the maximum.

An inglorious end

After the victory of the Soviets, the interventionists even managed to “shift everything from a sore head to a healthy one”, blaming the intervention... on the Soviet leadership, no matter how difficult it is to suspect the Bolsheviks of such stupidity. All this was necessary to cover up the inglorious collapse of all the political ambitions of the West.

You can say whatever you want about the Bolsheviks, but it’s a fact: no terror, no mobilization could provide the Red Army with victory over the white movement, the counter-revolutionary underground, the ataman and 14 interventionist countries combined. This could only be ensured by mass popular support. It was even present in the homeland of the interventionists themselves: they signed up as volunteers to fight FOR the Soviets, the West was rocked by pro-Soviet strikes and demonstrations, and the interventionist soldiers scolded their commanders and could not understand what they had forgotten in Russia.

American troops at the parade in Vladivostok. 1918.

Armed intervention of foreign states in the events of revolution and civil war on the territory of the former Russian Empire.

Preconditions for the intervention

The Entente states did not recognize Soviet power and considered the Bolsheviks a pro-German force. The British War Cabinet discussed the possibility of military intervention in Russia as early as December 7, 1917. On December 7-10 (20-23), 1917, an Anglo-French agreement was reached on the division of spheres of influence when interfering in Russian affairs. France had to interact with anti-Bolshevik forces in Ukraine, Crimea and Bessarabia, Great Britain - in the Caucasus. Although the Allies formally refused to interfere in Russian internal affairs, they considered themselves "obligated to maintain ties with Ukraine, the Cossacks, Finland, Siberia and the Caucasus, because these semi-autonomous regions represent a significant part of Russia's strength."

Central Block Intervention

Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire took advantage of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty of 1918 to occupy Ukraine, the Baltic states, Finland, part of Transcaucasia and Belarus. Contrary to the peace conditions, their troops also continued to move into the RSFSR. Germany's strategic goal was to establish control over the eastern coast of the Black Sea. On April 18, 1918, the Germans entered Crimea, took Taganrog on May 1, and occupied Rostov on May 8. Near Bataysk, German troops clashed with the forces of the Kuban-Black Sea Republic, which was part of the RSFSR. After several days of fighting, on May 30, 1918, Bataysk was taken by German-Cossack troops. A demarcation line was established beyond Bataysk, but on June 10 the Red Army landed troops in Taganrog. On June 12, the Germans defeated it and, as a retaliatory measure, landed on the Taman Peninsula on June 14, but under pressure from the Reds they were forced to withdraw.

On May 25, 1918, the Germans landed in Poti and, with the consent of the authorities of the Georgian Democratic Republic, occupied Georgia. The Ottoman Empire launched an offensive against Baku, which was controlled by the Baku Commune and then by the Central Caspian. A British detachment took part in the defense of Baku. On September 15, 1918, Baku was captured by the Turks. On November 8, 1918 they also took Port Petrovsky (Makhachkala). Germany provided support to the anti-Bolshevik movements in Russia, primarily to the Don Army of P. Krasnov.

Entente intervention

The Entente intervention gradually developed. Romania was the first to oppose Soviet Russia. On December 24, 1917 (January 6, 1918), a shootout occurred between a Romanian detachment moving from Kyiv and Russian soldiers at the station. Kishinev. The Romanians were disarmed. On December 26, 1917 (January 8, 1918), Romanian troops crossed the Prut, but they were repulsed. On January 8 (21), 1918, Romanian troops launched an offensive in Bessarabia. The Romanian command claimed that they came at the invitation of the Moldovan representative body of power, Sfatul Tarii, who officially denied this. On January 13 (26), 1918, Romanian troops occupied Chisinau, and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR broke off relations with Romania. The Romanian command formally restored the power of Sfatul Tarii and launched repressions against leftist forces. Supporters of Soviet power and the preservation of Moldova as part of Russia retreated to Bendery. The Revolutionary Committee for the Salvation of the Moldavian Republic was created here. In the Danube Delta, battles broke out between Romanian and Russian ships around Vilkovo. Having taken Bendery on February 7, 1918, Romanian troops carried out executions of the captured defenders of the city. In February there were battles between Soviet and Romanian troops on the Dniester. On March 5-9, 1918, a Soviet-Romanian agreement was signed, according to which Romania pledged to withdraw troops from Bessarabia within two months. However, in the conditions of the Austro-German offensive in Ukraine, which was abandoned by Soviet troops, Romania did not comply with the agreement. Moreover, the Romanians captured Belgorod-Dnestrovsky. On April 9, 1918, Romania annexed Bessarabia (Moldova).

On March 5, 1918, a small British detachment, with the consent of L. Trotsky and the Murmansk Council, landed in Murmansk to protect Entente property from a possible attack by pro-German forces. On May 24, 1918, the US Navy ship Olympia arrived in Murmansk. On March 5, 1918, in response to the murder of Japanese citizens, a Japanese landing force of 500 soldiers and a British force of 50 soldiers were landed in Vladivostok. However, the city was not captured by them; Soviet power remained in it.

A large-scale civil war in Russia broke out in May 1918, in particular thanks to the action of the Czechoslovak Corps. Since the corps was formally subordinate to the French command, this action can be considered an act of intervention, although initially the Czechoslovak soldiers acted on their own initiative. In July 1918, the Supreme Union Council left the corps in Russia, turning its movement from the east, aimed at evacuation to France, to the west, in the direction of Moscow.

On June 1-3, 1918, the Supreme Military Council of the Entente decided to occupy Murmansk and Arkhangelsk by the allied forces.

In August, Japanese and American contingents of 7 thousand soldiers each were sent to Vladivostok. Japanese troops, whose numbers increased to more than 25 thousand, occupied the Trans-Siberian Railway to Verkhneudinsk and Northern Sakhalin.

On July 17, representatives of the Murmansk Council, contrary to the position of the central Soviet government, signed an agreement with the allies to invite their troops to Murmansk. The Allies increased their force here to 12-15 thousand soldiers.

On August 2, 1918, Entente troops landed in Arkhangelsk. With their support, an anti-Bolshevik government in the north of Russia was created, headed by N. Tchaikovsky. On August 23, 1918, a concentration camp was created by the occupiers on Lake Mudyug.

On July 29, 1918, speaking at an extended meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Lenin declared: “our civil war has now... merged with the external war into one inseparable whole... We are now at war with Anglo-French imperialism and with everything that is bourgeois, capitalist, which makes an effort to disrupt the whole thing socialist revolution and drag us into war." The intervention became a factor in deepening the civil war in Russia, without contributing to the success of the Entente in the fight against Germany and its allies, which was the official motive for the intervention. In reality, the intervention was aimed at eliminating Soviet power.

After the defeat of the Central Bloc in the World War by Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire had to evacuate its troops, giving way to the Entente.

After the departure of Austro-German troops, French and Greek troops landed in the Black Sea ports in December 1918. Italy and Serbia sent small contingents. In Transcaucasia, the Turks were replaced by the British, who also entered Turkestan. On November 14, 1918, a battle took place between the Red and British troops for the Dushak station. The battlefield remained with the Reds.

Intervention continued in the Far East, where Japan and the United States played a key role, but other Entente states also participated, including China. In 1918-1920, there was a war between Soviet Russia and the new states formed on the territory of the former Russian Empire - Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. These events are related to the intervention and at the same time are integral part civil war on the territory of the former Russian Empire. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania defended themselves from the Red troops, which included Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians. German troops, with the sanction of the Entente, fought in Latvia. Thus, nine Entente powers (Great Britain and its dominions, France, USA, Japan, Greece, Italy, Serbia, China, Romania), German troops and soldiers of five new states (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland) took part in the intervention. .

There were about 80 thousand interventionists in Ukraine, and more than 100 thousand in the Far East. In the north - about 40 thousand. However, these forces did not conduct an active attack on Moscow and Petrograd.

Each of the intervention participants pursued their own goals. The leading powers of the Entente hoped that a dependent liberal government would emerge in Russia, neighboring states from Romania to Japan hoped to receive part of the territory of the disintegrating Russian Empire, new states pushed the border as far east as possible, coming into conflict with other claimants to these lands and with the white movement , who was helped by the Entente.

In the Entente states themselves, the intervention was unpopular; the soldiers and population were tired of the war. In March 1919, under the attacks of the Red Army division under the command of N. Grigoriev, the French, Greeks and White Guards abandoned Kherson and Nikopol and were defeated at Berezovka. On April 8, 1919, the Reds entered Odessa, abandoned by the interventionists.

Japanese troops actively participated in the battles in the Far East. On April 5, 1920, in the midst of negotiations on the withdrawal of Japanese troops from the Far East, the Japanese attacked Soviet troops and, with the help of Cossack formations, carried out terror. More than 7 thousand people died, including the leader of the coastal partisans S. Lazo. On April 6, 1920, to prevent a clash between Japan and the RSFSR, a “buffer” Far Eastern Republic was created.

In April 1919, France and its allies withdrew from the northern Black Sea coast. In March 1919, a decision was made to begin the evacuation of British troops from Turkestan. In August, the British and their allies abandoned Transcaucasia and Central Asia, and by October 12, 1919 - North. After the withdrawal of intervention troops from the European part of Russia, support by the Entente states continued White movement. In October 1918 - October 1919, Great Britain alone supplied whites with about 100 thousand tons of weapons, equipment and uniforms. In the second half of 1919, Denikin received more than 250 thousand rifles, 200 guns, 30 tanks, etc. The United States left the Far East only in 1920. Japan tried to maintain control over the Russian Far East for longer, but this was contrary to US policy. By July 15, 1920, an agreement was reached on the evacuation of Japanese troops from the Russian Far East, but its implementation was delayed by the Japanese side. In 1922, under US pressure, Japan was forced to evacuate its troops from the Russian Far East. However, Japan returned Northern Sakhalin to Russia only in 1925.