After the revolution in 1917, Russia was desperate for stability in their country. There were two major groups, the Red army, who owned all of the major industrial cities and railroads in Russia and stood with the Bolshevik theories of socialism led by Vladimir Lenin. The somewhat untrustworthy allies of The White Army, which was made up of Tsarists, monarchism, capitalism, and some forms of socialism. There were also the small armies of the Green and Black. The Green Army was made up of socialist, towns folk, and non ideological and the Black Army harbored the farmers, anarchists and workers from other southern countries. Some called the Green and Black armies Guerrillas because for their inhumane organization and tactics.
At this time in Russian all of the southern and western borders were controlled by the Green, Black, and white armies who although not necessarily allies marched against the main Bolshevik states in northern Russia. The Red Army and its military forces of one million men were able to prevent the whites led by Aleksandr kolchak from taking over the major strongholds of the bolsheviks territory. In 1918, the Bolsheviks prevented the Czechoslovakian armies from the east from battling their Austrian enemies by taking the cities along the Serbian railway. The Bolsheviks were feeling the pressure of the enemies and they only really had control over the industrial sector of the county in the west but still were supported all over the country. In November of 1918, WW1 had ended leaving a jumbled mess of Northern Europe and also creating less pressure from the allied on Russia and the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks sought the opportunity to move there revolution as far westward as Poland. This was possible due to the increase of the Red army's size which grew due to force conscription by Leon Trotsky in 1919. This Push to Poland from the Red Army ended up failing, leaving the Red Army only in control of Belarus. The Red Army had more success in the east. During this time the White Army’s eyes were set on Moscow. They launched an invasion on Moscow but the Red Army asked their Ukrainian and black Army allies for their assistance. The Black Army agreed and cut of the white Army's supply lines leaving them in retreat from Moscow. The Bolsheviks realized that they couldn't break the Baltic states and they decided to withdraw from them while the jumble of countries gained their independence. In the east the White Army had been close to wiped out by the bolsheviks leaving them to turn in their leader Kolchek to be executed but although the Red Army conquered back all of their old territory, they left the Eastern Republic as a buffer state between the Bolsheviks and Japan. The Polish and the Ukrainians at this time joined forces and launched an attack on the Bolsheviks in pursuit of the reuniting of their Ukrainian state. They were firmly met by the brute force of the Red Army and the polish and Ukrainians were pushed back even further than before ending in the battle of Warsaw in August of 1920.This led the Polish to sign a peace treaty with the Bolsheviks giving them their independence but this left the Ukraine and Belarus to the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks then turned on the Black Army leaving them in a mass flee from Russia. The Bolsheviks then continued to take the southern border states and the Eastern Republic in 1922, ending the war in and creating the soviet union. http://alphahistory.com/russianrevolution/russian-civil-war/ https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Civil-War |