Russian Civil War and Russian Wars I BETWEEN 2 WARS I 1919 Part 2 of 4 - YouTube

It's 1919, and the Great War, World War I, ended last fall,

But though that war is over, war is not.

And now, while the winning powers from the World War gather in Paris to discuss peace,

All over the world we see smaller wars, civil wars, revolutions and uprisings.

The fighting is not by any means over, and it doesn't look like it will be any time soon.

Welcome to Between 2 Wars, a summary of the interwar years,

From the uncertainty and hedonism of the 1920's,

To humanity's descent into the darkness of the Second World War.

I'm Indy Neidell.

In 1919, while part of the world was returning to civilian life and industry,

much of the world was still at war,

And, as it has often looked for the past four years, these wars seem endless.

In what was only two years ago Imperial Russia,

and in the parts of that empire that had now become brand new nations in their own right,

the fighting was the worst.

When the World War ends, the Bolsheviks are hellbent on

taking back the lands that have declared independence from Russia,

or were lost to Germany under the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, most of which are now independent nations.

There are two reasons for this:

On a practical economical level, these regions are rich in resources,

and have more industry than the southern and eastern parts of Russia,

But, the Bolsheviks are not ideologically interested in nationalism—

—their aim is to achieve the international proletariat,

Their ideal vision is a world of peace and prosperity,

where everyone receives according to their needs, and gives according to their ability.

In 1919, this vision seems...

...a distant chimera, because all they do is fight, murder, and oppress.

Inside Russia itself, the civil war continues to rage,

but in spite of that, the Bolsheviks aggressively move into what is today

Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic states; new countries that are at war with each other...

...AND themselves.

Estonia is fighting Russia, mostly unified,

but Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus are split into factions that either want to stay independent...

...or want to join the Communist Internationale,

that is to say become part of Russia again.

Polish forces are fighting with Ukraine for control of eastern Galicia,

which contains Europe's biggest oil reserves.

So, Ukraine...

...is facing

THREE enemies at once,

since they're also fighting with Romania in the south over territories in Bessarabia,

recently annexed by Romania, but that now want to join Ukraine instead.

Right?

Okay.

To make things even more complicated,

parts of the Russian White Army have retreated south through Ukraine, and are about to enter Crimea.

Anyhow, Ukraine is so new that it's not yet a unified country,

but is still just different political factions controlling various parts

that have yet to come together in one governing system.

But let's look North first for a moment...

In January, Soviet Russian forces are only 40 kilometers from Talinn, the Estonian capital,

but the Estonians launch a successful counteroffensive,

and by February 1st, and the liberation of Valga and Voru,

the Red Army is expelled from all of Estonia.

Further south, on January 5th,

the Red Army enters Minsk,

almost without opposition,

which puts an end to the Belarusian People's Republic after its ten months of existence.

The Red Army presses on into Lithuania and Latvia.

At the same time, the Bolsheviks under command of,

among others, Joseph Stalin are mounting an offensive

against the Cossacks, part of the White Army.

The Cossacks are defeated and forced to retreat into Ukraine,

and soon the Red Army surrounds the whole area around Kyiv.

They take large chunks of Ukraine.

In Bessarabia, —part of Romania,—

on January 23rd, the Khotin Uprising begins.

Now, there is a Ukrainian People's Republic...

...and a West Ukrainian People's Republic

across the border in Ukraine that they hope will help them fight,

but the first is at war with the Bolsheviks,

and the second with Poland,

and neither can spare troops to help the uprising against Romania.

Romania doesn't really consider the Hotin region of major importance,

but when Romanian war hero General Stan Poetas is killed

in a Hotin suburb,

the Romanian Army come in force,

and the rebels cannot possibly fight it off.

Thousands of the rebels, and as many as 50,000 refugees flee across the Dniester

into Ukrainian territory, during the two weeks of the uprising.

They at least manage to avoid the reign of terror the Romanian Army conducts,

killing as many as 15,000 people, and burning dozens of villages to the ground.

Further north, on February 27th,

the Lithuanian–Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic is proclaimed,

but Polish and Belorusian self-defense units are

springing up all over western Belarus and Lithuania.

These are mostly poorly-equipped locals,

so Poland sends troops east to support them.

Poland is concerned about having the Bolsheviks on their doorstep

near the valuable oilfields at Eastern Galicia,

and about protecting the ethnic Poles in the region.

On February 14th, 1919,

the Polish-Soviet War begins, with the battle of Bereza Kartuska.

Okay, some historians call this the beginning;

some say it didn't officially start until 1920.

In any case...

The Red Army's offensive grinds to a halt.

In early March, Polish units begin an offensive of their own,

crossing the Memel River, taking Pinsk, and reaching the outskirts of Lida.

There the offensive is halted for the time being.

The Bolsheviks are, as you can imagine,

getting stretched thin;

and while they fight in the west, they're also facing a major offensive by the Whites in Siberia

under the command of Alexander Kolchak.

It looks promising at first, as he captures Ufa in mid-March,

but his advance is soon halted.

Back in Western Ukraine,

L'Viv, the capital of Eastern Galicia, has been under Polish control since November of last year,

but now Ukrainian forces have mostly surrounded the city.

Just before they move in to take L'Viv itself,

the Entente nations of Western Europe demand that the Ukrainians cease hostilities.

The Ukrainians suspend the offensive.

When it begins again in March,

the Poles have organized a large enough relief force to secure L'Viv.

Back in Lithuania and Belarus, Polish forces start a new offensive against the Red Army.

They take Vilnius in April, and in August, they take Minsk.

General Anton Denikin's southern White Army forces are now attacking all along the frontline,

from the Volga to the Dneiper.

By June, they have chased the Reds out of the Crimea and captured Odessa,

after taking Karkov near the Russian border,

they force the Bolsheviks back into Russia,

taking Belgorod in mid June.

Further east, they take Tsaritsyn.

The advance looks promising, and Denikin hopes to connect with Kolchak in the east.

On June 20th, he issues the Moscow Directive,

ordering the armed forces of South Russia to prepare for a decisive drive on Moscow.

The Red Army is forced out of Kyiv on August 20th.

By late September, Denikin's forces have taken tons and tons of territory.

However...

...they are dangerously overextended

In Siberia, Kolchak starts an offensive, hoping to move closer to Denikin,

but the Red Army has reinforced, and is now larger than the White Army.

Kolchak's offensive is in vain,

and his men are forced into a general retreat in the region.

In the west, by the end of the summer,

Denikin has lost both depth and stability of his forces.

Without any hope of joining Kolchak,

they start retreating towards Odessa.

Kolchak is now on a forced retreat that will lead to the Great Siberian Ice March,

when his forces try to flee on foot

through the Siberian winter across Lake Baikal.

Many of them freeze to death,

and behind them, the Red Army continues to gain ground.

In the west, Denikin continues to retreat as well,

and in December, the Reds retake Kyiv.

Further north,

yet another White Army advance fails,

when General Nikolai Yudenich tries to take Petrograd.

Although the offensive is well prepared after months of regrouping in Estonia,

Yudenich faces a determined population

of men, women and children,

who have all been armed by Leon Trotsky, in charge of Petrograd's defense.

Yudenich is beaten back, and his forces disband

since they can't retreat to Estonia, now in peace negotiations with the Bolsheviks.

As the year ends, it does not look good for the White Army.

Civilian refugees flee Russia in droves all year, and will continue to do so in the new year.

They flee in every direction:

To the Baltic States, to Anatolia,

to the East, to China and the United States.

Everywhere.

They endure hunger,

they endure disease,

and many will die on their journey.

As many as 12 million people will, or have already died

during the Russian Civil War,

most of them civilians.

If you look at that as casualties per year,

it's one of the most deadly conflicts in human history.

But wars are not confined to Eastern Europe or Central Asia:

The United Kingdom is at war with Ireland,

the Afghans and the Ikhwan Bedouins in Syria;

France is at war with Hmong rebels in the "War of the Insane" in Indochina;

Italy and Yugoslavia are at opposite ends of a civil war in Montenegro;

Finland is also fighting back Bolshevik Russian forces.

Despite the Ottoman Empire coming to an end,

the War of Turkish Independence pits Turkey against the Allies again,

now with Greece as Allied proxy.

All these wars...

...all this suffering. For what?

Ostensibly it's an effect of an effect of a world that is

in transition from feudality to nation states, governed by the people.

This change... is spreading fear...

...in the world.

Fear of war, and fear of political upheaval

and especially fear of independence;

fear of self-determination, and fear of communism;

and it is scaring the boots out of people everywhere.

In the next part of our videos on 1919, you can see how the world tries to deal with this.

At the Paris Peace Conference,

World leaders will draw up a new world order while...

...all over the world, revolution and upheaval is the order of the day.

Join us for Part 3 of 1919: Peace and Revolution!