Russian Civil War

The Russian Civil War was fought between 1918 and 1922. Following the success of the Russian Revolution, the new Russian (Bolshevik) government made peace with Germany at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ratified on March 6 1918. This negotiated peace was the only option because the Russian army was in a chaotic and undisciplined state when the Germans advanced in February 1918, although the old Russian army had been re-organized in January into the "Workers' and Peasants' Red Army".

Aftermath

At the end of the Civil War, Soviet Russia was exhausted and ruined. The droughts of 1920 and 1921 and the 1921 famine worsened the disaster. The War had taken an estimated 8 million lives, only a few years after the nearly bloodless October Revolution.

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Another million had left Russia -- with General Wrangel, through the Far East, or in numerous other ways -- in order to escape the ravages of the war, the famine, or the rule of either warring faction. These emigres included a large part of the educated and skilled population.

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War Communism saved the Soviet government during the Civil War, but much of the Russian economy ground to a standstill. Private industry and trade was proscribed, and the newly established (and barely stable) state was unable to run the economy on a sufficient scale. It is estimated that the total output of mines and factories in 1921 had fallen to 20 percent of the pre-World War level, and many crucial items experienced an even more drastic decline. For example, cotton production fell to 5 percent, and iron to 2 percent of pre-war levels.

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The peasants responded to requisitions by refusing to till the land. By 1921, cultivated land had shrunk to 62 per cent of the prewar area, and the harvest yield was only about 37 percent of normal. The number of horses declined from 35 million in 1916 to 24 million in 1920, and cattle from 58 to 37 million. The exchange rate of the US dollar declined from two Rubles in 1914 to 1,200 in 1920.

Related Topics:
US - Dollar - Rubles

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Although Russia eventually recovered and even experienced an extremely rapid economic growth in the 1930s, the combined effect of World War One and the Civil War left a lasting scar in Russian society, and had permanent effects on the Soviet regime.

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