WI: The Whites win the Russian Civil War?

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The problem with assessing the White's chances during the Russian Civil War is partly due tot eh many misconceptions about why the Reds, and in particular the Bolsheviks, won the war. Let's first address the reasons given for why the Whites lost:

1. the whites had no popular support from the peasants

The Reds didn't have much support from the peasants either, especially the Bolsheviks. Very few Russians were mobilized on either side, in comparison to the numbers that were mobilized by the Russian Empire during WW I. Most of those who fought were conscripts, particularly during the latter part of the civil war, and especially among the Bolsheviks.

2. they were badly organised

The Whites were better organized, and better led, than the Red forces. Trotsky deserves credit for creating a Red Army, but not for creating a good one.

3. The communists were experts at propaganda

This is closest to one of the more important reasons for the Red victory, but they were not 'experts' at propaganda. One goal they achieved was to hide their vulnerabilities well against the Allied Powers. But the Whites had skills at propaganda too.

4. The White armies lacked Discipline

The White Army, outside of the Cossacks, were better trained and more disciplined than the Red Army.

5. Corruption was rife

Corruption was rife on both sides.

6. They had lack of external support.

Both the Reds and Whites enjoyed external support. The Whites, of course, were supported by Great Britain and France. The Reds were supported by the Germans early on, and bought weapons from them.

Now let me offer my own reasons for why the Reds won:

1. Interior lines, and
2. Control of the most populated parts of Russia.

After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks managed to seize control of the core of Russia. This region had most of the people and most of the industrial productive capacity. They never lost control of this core region during the civil war period.

3. Successful use of cruelty and terror to control their population.

The Bolsheviks were never particularly popular, and never enjoyed widespread support. They were not popular among the peasants, but they didn't need to be. With their loyal Chekists, and through the judicious use of murder against the peasants, they were able to maintain some semblance of control among the regions they occupied. Even so, desertions were a constant problem for the Bolsheviks throughout the war.

4. Successful use of cruelty and terror to control the Red Army.

The Red Army wasn't a particularly good army, and units could and did dissolve once they came in contact with the enemy. They were notorious for it when fighting against German regulars, which is one reason why Lenin was so keen to sign the Brest-Litovsk surrender. How Trotsky eventually addressed the Red Army's morale problems was through a commissar system, wherein Red officers could be shot on the spot. Other methods involved stationing more loyal units with machine guns behind their own units, so that those who dared retreat could be cut down.

5. Large scale mobilization and conscription.

The Bolsheviks at first wanted to create something akin to a citizen's militia, but they found this impossible given their lack of support among the people. Later they concentrated on putting as many bodies they could into the field, arming them as best they could, then throwing them in front of or at White formations.

The Red Army took terrible casualties with this strategy, but this wasn't important. Because of logistic constraints and the lack of food and general infrastructure, the Bolsheviks couldn't support a huge army - but by creating large formations of ill-equipped and badly trained men, then motivating them through terror tactics into suicidal charges against White troops, they would over time cause attritional losses against the better led, better equipped and better trained White Army troops - and dead Red soldiers no longer needed to be fed. Because the White Army did not have control of the populated areas of Russia, they could not easily replace their losses, and what replacements they did get were not up to the quality of the men they lost. Because Red Army soldiers were poorly trained cannon fodder, they could easily be replaced with peasant conscripts.

I would not argue that the Bolsheviks were experts at propaganda so much as experts at policing their own people. Their main advantage was their expertise at insurgency war - how to fight one, but also how to combat the efforts of others to do the same thing. Remember that the Bolsheviks did not only have to fight off the Romanov loyalists, but also other rival Leftist groups as well, many of whom had much more popular support among the common people. Their agents had to be identified, apprehended and killed efficiently and quickly. The real reason for the Bolshevik success was in creating effective and holistic political institutions and police forces, both at the civilian and military level, for accomplishing these goals. The unprecedented level of control this gave the Bolsheviks over the day-to-day lives of their own people meant that they could treat the public atrociously, throw their soldiers away in combat and absorb huge losses, and still maintain their authority. Given their control over information coming out of the zones they occupied, they could even pretend to the outside world that this authority was voluntarily accepted and based on popular support.
 
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