Effects of the Russian Civil War

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The successes and failures of peacemaking Territorial changes Political repercussions Economic, social and demographic impact; changes in the role and status of women

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Failures and Successes of Peacemaking

  • November 1920: Defeat of last surviving White general

  • March 1921: Treaty of Riga, peace with Poland, did stabilise the borders. However, Russia lost valuable land in White Russia and Ukraine which was important agricultural land.

  • Poland gained its independence in the long term. This would be a problem for the Soviet Union which still had a significant Polish minority. It also undermined calls for Ukrainian and White Russian (Belorussian) independence as there were significant numbers of those nationalities now in the Polish state.

  • Most of the peace-making was piece-meal around Russia’s borders, not in one large conference à la Treaty of Versailles

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Territorial Changes

  • Soviet Federative Socialist Republic set up

  • Poland gained independence, areas of Ukraine and Belorussia lost to Poland

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Political Repercussions

  • Bolshevik government defended, became legitimised, Soviet Union became a one-party state

  • Shorter term, Bolsheviks made some concessions towards self-government

  • Also, the Kronstadt uprising and the war spurred the move from War Communism to NEP

  • Anti-Bolshevik sentiment among Western nations solidified

  • Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin war heroes

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Economic Impacts

  • Wheat-rich areas of Ukraine were out of Bolshevik control

  • economy had been destroyed by WWI and was further suffering with inefficient management

  • urban populations shrunk by 60%

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Social Impacts

  • Red and White Terrors claimed thousands of lives

  • pogroms in the southern Ukraine region by the Whites are thought to have taken over 100,000 Jewish lives

  • famine in 1921 killed 5 million

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Demographic Impacts

  • Biggest killer was disease, especially typhus

  • over 1m killed by typhus and typhoid fever in 1920

  • Red Terror killed around 300,000

  • 1-2m fled Russia

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Impacts on Women

  • Suffrage following February Revolution

  • could divorce following October Revolution

  • People's Commissar for Social Welfare decreed that women could have 2 months paid maternity leave before and after birth

  • abortion legalised in 1920

  • heavily affected by the civil war

  • men came back from war and women lost jobs, proportion of women in workforce in 1929 was the same as in 1913

  • women made up 13% of party membership(Alexander Kollontai)