The above cited Russia/Polish War of 1920 appears to me in need of further explanation. It is a little revealed fact that Poland began the War with an unprovoked assault on Red Russia by seizing Kiev in Soviet Ukrainia. Additional insult, a year earlier, the Poles controlled western territories of Belorussia. This happens despite the Russia peacefully recognized Poland's independence around December 1917. The Polish had secured the consent of Petlyura (a counterrevolutionary leader of White Ukraine forces) to capture Kiev. The Polish invasion had the full support of France who poured in money and war materials. The Poles had imperialist dream of creation of a Great Poland.
White, Red and Green Russia in the Russian Civil War in 1917-1922
- Thread starter Nykyus
- Start date
Joined Jan 2017
11,739 Posts | 5,015+
Sydney
Pilzusky formulated the idea of a "great Poland " to recreate the great past glories
this involved considering as "Polish" any territory where there was a local Polish majority , no matter how marginal in the countryside
this resulted in a Lithuanian/Polish war with the taking , loosing and taking again of Vilnius ( for many years the Lithuanians didn't forgive )
then Western Belorussian , up to having claims on Smolensk ??!!
the City of Lwov had a strong Polish minority who rose and took arms against the Ukrainians nationalists , the whole of Galicia became a battle ground
for 1919 the Reds were busy enough with their own survival but soon responded to the Lithuanians and Ukrainian pleas for support
the Western powers were a bit concerned and a committee led by Lord Curzon suggested a line for Poland Eastern border based on overall population ethnicity
the Poles flatly rejected it , as did the Bolsheviks for that matter .
after much fighting , devastation and troops movement , Poland got the lion share of their objective even though it included some very dubious territories
with Stalin rise , a certain amount of collaboration took place ,
the Poles continued to be true to their lack of principle , assisting Hitler in destroying Czechoslovakia , even as a price for their treachery getting a small morsel of land
they even approved the Nazis dictat , with direct threat of force , to occupy the then Lithuanian town of Memel in March 1939 with the very silent approval of the Western allies
no need to cry too much over this one , the Lithuanian had stolen it anyway
After WW2 things became clearer , Lithuania recovered Vilnius and Memel but lost their independence ,
Galicia was reunited with Ukraine on the somewhat dubious ground that they are one and the same people
from the very beginning of the alliance with Britain and the US , Stalin insisted in the Curzon line as Poland Eastern border ,
they were compensated with very large territory which had never been Polish , millions of people moved or were forcibly transferred to the new borders
Poland Western border being ( as of now ) the Oder / Neisse line
on the whole the present national set up is about as reasonable as Eastern politics goes ,
not for much historical reasons but because massive population transfers made the old kaleidoscope of nationalities a thing of the past
the big looser being Germany
this involved considering as "Polish" any territory where there was a local Polish majority , no matter how marginal in the countryside
this resulted in a Lithuanian/Polish war with the taking , loosing and taking again of Vilnius ( for many years the Lithuanians didn't forgive )
then Western Belorussian , up to having claims on Smolensk ??!!
the City of Lwov had a strong Polish minority who rose and took arms against the Ukrainians nationalists , the whole of Galicia became a battle ground
for 1919 the Reds were busy enough with their own survival but soon responded to the Lithuanians and Ukrainian pleas for support
the Western powers were a bit concerned and a committee led by Lord Curzon suggested a line for Poland Eastern border based on overall population ethnicity
the Poles flatly rejected it , as did the Bolsheviks for that matter .
after much fighting , devastation and troops movement , Poland got the lion share of their objective even though it included some very dubious territories
with Stalin rise , a certain amount of collaboration took place ,
the Poles continued to be true to their lack of principle , assisting Hitler in destroying Czechoslovakia , even as a price for their treachery getting a small morsel of land
they even approved the Nazis dictat , with direct threat of force , to occupy the then Lithuanian town of Memel in March 1939 with the very silent approval of the Western allies
no need to cry too much over this one , the Lithuanian had stolen it anyway
After WW2 things became clearer , Lithuania recovered Vilnius and Memel but lost their independence ,
Galicia was reunited with Ukraine on the somewhat dubious ground that they are one and the same people
from the very beginning of the alliance with Britain and the US , Stalin insisted in the Curzon line as Poland Eastern border ,
they were compensated with very large territory which had never been Polish , millions of people moved or were forcibly transferred to the new borders
Poland Western border being ( as of now ) the Oder / Neisse line
on the whole the present national set up is about as reasonable as Eastern politics goes ,
not for much historical reasons but because massive population transfers made the old kaleidoscope of nationalities a thing of the past
the big looser being Germany
I thought that the Greens were small groups of peasants defending their villages, their property, harvests and families from the provision raids of the Whites guards and Red expropriators, ergo operating locally. In comparison the Black guards of Nestor Makhno, tried hard to clear their Free Territory from Red and White enemies in their attempt to form an anarchist state and unlike the Greens, the Black army of Anarchism was relatively organised (the irony) with a vision for the future. Why this turncoat Kakurin merged into one these two completely different groups of ppl it puzzles me a bit, i guess the civil war color palette was too complex and he tried to simplify it a bit, me no likey the end result, it is like the term fascist for the commies after ww2, every enemy of theirs was a fascist, monarcho-fascists, western fascists, religious fascists, alien fascists etc.
No. The armies of the Greens, for example, Grigoriev in the Ukraine, the Izhevsk-Votkinsk workers, the Tambov peasants of Antonov, were organized as a regular army, that is, with hospitals, barracks, officers, logistics, and so on. With headquarters, divisions.
There were also separatists there: Kuban, Alash-Orda in Kazakhstan, Muslim pan-Turkist groups in Central Asia, there was also an uprising of nationalists in Yakutia, and Yakutia was ruled by a parallel government until 1922. Ataman Semenov in Transbaikalia acted as a puppet of the Japanese and led a position independent of Kolchak. Baron Ungern emerged from the group of Far Eastern whites, who defeated the Chinese garrisons in Mongolia and gave independence to this people.
Separate groups of whites broke into East Turkestan. There he committed atrocities, committed atrocities Annenkov.
Separate groups of whites broke into East Turkestan. There he committed atrocities, committed atrocities Annenkov.
This means that the program of the greens and the anarchists did not differ. They advocated the suppression, liquidation of the central government, that is, complete freedom. That is, the peasant community is their ideal, primitive communism.
Joined Jan 2017
11,739 Posts | 5,015+
Sydney
there also was the Baron Von Ungern- Sternberg
reincarnation of Genghis-Khan , monarchist , Buddhist terror of the reds , great hope of the Tibetans ans loopy madman all around
reincarnation of Genghis-Khan , monarchist , Buddhist terror of the reds , great hope of the Tibetans ans loopy madman all around
Joined Jan 2017
11,739 Posts | 5,015+
Sydney
in a spirit of balance here is the march of the red cavalry also called "budienny march"
Russia is deeply musical
Russia is deeply musical
Congratulations to all on the 105th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution! Proletarians of all countries unite!
"You have fallen victim". Revolutionary Requiem
This song was sung mainly by Pink Russia, the heirs of Narodnaya Volya (People's Will). It is known for sure that the leader of the Left Social Revolutionaries Maria Spiridonova sang it along with her associates.
The Social Revolutionaries considered the Bolsheviks a counter-revolutionary force, agents of the German imperialists. Lenin, because he arrived in a German sealed carriage. In the elections to the Constituent Assembly in December 1917, the Social Revolutionaries won a landslide victory, so Lenin and the anarchists, the sailor Zheleznyakov, dissolved it. Therefore, the war with the Bolsheviks was considered as a war with Germany
Anthem of the People's Will Party. Narodnaya Volya - the forerunner of all revolutionary parties in Russia. Students who studied in Europe in the 1860s and became infected with the idea of socialism and (or) anarсhism
Anthem of the Comintern in German. The positions of the Trotskyists in Germany were very strong
"The Red Army is the strongest of all!" Song with the mention of Trotsky's name
Well, well-known revolutionary songs, probably everyone knows
"Varshavyanka" - Hostile whirlwinds blow over us
"International" - the first anthem of the Soviet Union
"You have fallen victim". Revolutionary Requiem
This song was sung mainly by Pink Russia, the heirs of Narodnaya Volya (People's Will). It is known for sure that the leader of the Left Social Revolutionaries Maria Spiridonova sang it along with her associates.
The Social Revolutionaries considered the Bolsheviks a counter-revolutionary force, agents of the German imperialists. Lenin, because he arrived in a German sealed carriage. In the elections to the Constituent Assembly in December 1917, the Social Revolutionaries won a landslide victory, so Lenin and the anarchists, the sailor Zheleznyakov, dissolved it. Therefore, the war with the Bolsheviks was considered as a war with Germany
Anthem of the People's Will Party. Narodnaya Volya - the forerunner of all revolutionary parties in Russia. Students who studied in Europe in the 1860s and became infected with the idea of socialism and (or) anarсhism
Anthem of the Comintern in German. The positions of the Trotskyists in Germany were very strong
"The Red Army is the strongest of all!" Song with the mention of Trotsky's name
Well, well-known revolutionary songs, probably everyone knows
"Varshavyanka" - Hostile whirlwinds blow over us
"International" - the first anthem of the Soviet Union
March Budyonny. Budyonny and Voroshilov - Stalinists who fought in the Civil War on Tsaritsyn, the future Stalingrad, front.
The "March of the Cavalry Army" also applies to them. Song from an old record for a gramophone
The Russians Civil War is even more complex then being three sided. The US, France, UK, Canada and Japan in greater numbers ( 72k) sent troops to Russia to safeguard supply lines to the Czarist forces late in WWI and after WWII ended to support the White Russians and the Czechoslovakian Legion against the Bolsheviks. To make matters more confusing there were independent Russian War Lords in Siberia supported by the Japanese expeditionary troops who at one point fired in the American troops who they where supposedly allied with. The expedition was a disaster and by April 1920 the US forces where withdrawn. Several hundred US troops died plus many wounded and they inflicted heavy casualties on the Bolshevik forces.
Leftyhunter
Joined Jan 2017
11,739 Posts | 5,015+
Sydney
A bit too schematic , the Whites had a full range of goal , the pure monarchists were rare ,
only the Reds were consistent in their program and propaganda
The American and British intervention official motive was to retrieve the military supplies given ( or sold ) to Russia as a war ally
that was mostly true for the American expedition plus keeping an eye on the Japanese intentions
the British as usual were more duplicitous and wished to help the constitutional Whites ,using them as proxy
the French wanted to eliminate the bolsheviks who had reneged on the very large loans to the Czar government and punish them for withdrawing from the great war
they also provided support to the Polish army in their fight against the Reds
none of those intervention was popular at home with sailors of the French fleet in the black sea mutinied
ultimately , except for retrieving mountains of war supplies all other objectives failed
only the Reds were consistent in their program and propaganda
The American and British intervention official motive was to retrieve the military supplies given ( or sold ) to Russia as a war ally
that was mostly true for the American expedition plus keeping an eye on the Japanese intentions
the British as usual were more duplicitous and wished to help the constitutional Whites ,using them as proxy
the French wanted to eliminate the bolsheviks who had reneged on the very large loans to the Czar government and punish them for withdrawing from the great war
they also provided support to the Polish army in their fight against the Reds
none of those intervention was popular at home with sailors of the French fleet in the black sea mutinied
ultimately , except for retrieving mountains of war supplies all other objectives failed
Joined Apr 2019
89 Posts | 20+
Reno, NV
I think this is an oversimplification.
Also wasn't most of the whites comprise of moderate social democrats and liberals who wanted a parliamentary democracy, Possibly with a ceremonial king (like in the UK)? I would associate the theocratic absolute monarchist faction as black Russia (after the ultra Conservative Black Hundreds, which still exists today called the Union of Orthodox Banner Bearers)
President Putin would not be a black he is pretty liberal although not as liberal compared to say Joe ..... or formal prime minister Tony Blair.
Also wasn't most of the whites comprise of moderate social democrats and liberals who wanted a parliamentary democracy, Possibly with a ceremonial king (like in the UK)? I would associate the theocratic absolute monarchist faction as black Russia (after the ultra Conservative Black Hundreds, which still exists today called the Union of Orthodox Banner Bearers)
President Putin would not be a black he is pretty liberal although not as liberal compared to say Joe ..... or formal prime minister Tony Blair.
Joined Apr 2019
89 Posts | 20+
Reno, NV
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously pointed this out in his book Two Hundred Years Together. The empire was a multi-ethnic hodgepodge. Jews (Lenin, Trotsky), Tartars (Lenin), and Georgians (Stalin, Beria) resented the Tsar so many joined the Bolsheviks and overthrew the Tsar and committed atrocities against the Russian, Belarussian, Rusyn, and Ukrainian populations. Take note that while many Jews, Tartars, and Georgians took part in the horrors of the USSR, obviously not every person within these tribes is guilty.
Weren't the majority of Bolsheviks Russian ethnics?
Leftyhunter
Lenin is of Jewish and Tartar heritage? I never heard that one before. The Russian people didn't stand up for themselves and allowed ethnic minorities to kill them at will? Jews, Georgians and Tartars are a tribal people? Since when ? Maybe back in the Roman era.
Leftyhunter
Joined Apr 2019
89 Posts | 20+
Reno, NV
Maybe "tribe" is not the right word. No, the Russian, Rusyn, Ukrainian, and Belarusian people resisted but were punished through imprisonment and starvation. Conflict is inevitable in a multicultural empire because humans are tribal.
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