The Civil War was sparked by opposition to the Bolsheviks after November 1917. By the end of that year, the Bolsheviks controlled Petrograd, Moscow, and the area between them. As Nicholas II's regime collapsed, various regions within the Russian empire took the chance to declare independence, with Finland doing so in March 1918 and subsequently facing its own civil war.
The main opposing groups in the conflict were the Red Army, supporting Lenin's Bolshevik government, and the loosely allied forces known as the White Army. The White Army represented various interests, including monarchism, capitalism, and alternative forms of socialism, each with democratic and antidemocratic factions.
On July 16, 1918, the Bolsheviks executed the Romanovs. In the following years, the Red Army achieved victory over the White Armed Forces in South Russia and Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak's army in Siberia in 1919. The remaining White forces, led by Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel, were defeated in Crimea and withdrew in late 1920.
The Russian Civil War concluded in 1923, with Lenin's Red Army emerging victorious and establishing the Soviet Union.
The Bolsheviks triumphed in the Russian Civil War because the White faction failed to gain support from diverse national groups, key foreign powers, and the peasantry, while the Bolsheviks held greater authority within Russia, allowing them to assert their dominance over the Whites. Additionally, White disorganization and disunity were significant factors, as their forces fought as separate units, lacking coordination in strategy and offensives.
Russian Civil War (7 November 1917 — 16 June 1923)
