Am I the only one who feels exasperated at reading about the Whites in the Russian Civil War?
They simply seem so... so incompetent. They comprised the remnant of the Imperial Army and military apparatus and bureaucracy in large parts of the former Empire, yet they lost to the Reds, who despite being a popular movement, managed to organize and establish both an administration and chain of command much more efficiently.
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They were, by and large, the leftovers from the Czar's extremely incompetent government. What exactly were you expecting?
because the White movement was anything under the sun that wasn't Communism. Monarchists, anarchists, republicans, all groups that had mutual distrust and hate for each other.
it wasn't uncommon for white units to fight over white units over conflicting views, and this tore each other apart while the Reds remained united.
it's pretty acceptable to say that the Russian civil war wasn't Red vs. White movements, but an all out brawl between each conflicting ideology, with the whites having a bare minimum agreement to work together in fighting communism.
They were incompetent because it was considered in bad taste and revolutionary for a tsarist officer to engage in politics. Because of that they failed to enforce social and administrative reforms on the home front and gather international allies on the foreign front.
Also the Reds controlled Moscow which was obviously the central railway junction of all of Russia, which allowed them to concentrate their forces where they were needed. OTOH the Whites failed to conquer Tsaritsyn early on which would allow the southern and eastern fronts to unite.
As long as Whites remained volunteers, they kept winning battle after battle. But they couldn't win the war with that.
Of course, there was a large degree of incompetence too, such as May-Maevsky spending the crucial moments of the Tula-Orel fights stone fucking drunk, and had a Bolshevik spy as one of his top aides.
t. Whiteaboo
>As long as Whites remained volunteers
The Red Army was almost exclusively manned by volunteers too, early on. Eventually, they started forcing peasants in (at literal gunpoint), but I can't imagine that their morale was better than that of the White troops.
>Of course, there was a large degree of incompetence too
That's an understatement, honestly. One of the most incompetent moments I can think of is Denikin being unwilling to grant some concessions to the Cossacks - the military caste, for God's sake - in return for their service against the Reds. For this, the Cossacks defected from the White movement to create the Kuban Republic, which was steamrolled by the Reds.
And once the Cossacks were largely out of the way, it was only a matter of time.
>They were incompetent because it was considered in bad taste and revolutionary for a tsarist officer to engage in politics
Is this similar to the concept in Ancien Regime France that noblemen should not participate in business because it was "ungentlemanly"?
That's because they were just that incompetent.
>Disunited, Bolsheviks were united
>Zero propaganda skills, Bolsheviks had a vast underground network of agents everywhere and they mass produced propaganda
>Bolsheviks held the Russian core
>Whites took foreign aid which made notoriously xenophobic Russian suspicious of them
In fact, plenty of Russian Imperial officers actually served Bolsheviks just fine despite memery, Brusilov was one of them, by the way. Look at this fucking list, and it's only generals.
ru.wikipedia.org
I think the only competent person tangentially related (he was neutral to """allied""" with them) to Whites was Pavlo Skoropadsky and even he made a bunch of terrible decisions which led to him being deposed and Directorate installed.
Despite realizing the Reds were objectively better - both in ideology and in warfare and tactics and administration - I can't help but feel some sympathy for the Whites for being underdogs.
One of my favorite episodes in the Civil War was the evacuation of Crimea by Wrangel's Fleet to Constantinople. I can imagine the chaos it must have been, and its attained somewhat of a mythological status amongst Russian emigres.
Weren't many of those former Imperial officers and military men later purged by Stalin in the 30s?
Some were, some weren't. Many peacefully died of all age prior to that too.
>tfw royalist scum BTFO by their own arrogance and incompetence
Glorious
>Reds were objectively better - both in ideology
I hope your home country experiences several decades of communism so you can get acquainted personally with a superior ideology.
Where the Whites really the underdogs? Sure the reds had the mass support and le international jewry meme, but they also had most of the great powers on their ass intervening.
>Reds were objectively better - both in ideology and in warfare
put down your copy of Das Kapital and go get a job.
But Whites were predominantly republicans.
Nothing can unite a country as well as foreign intervention and no powers were actually that interested in maintaining control. Remember, WW1 had just ended. Plus Bolsheviks had the Russian core territory, meaning logistics, resources and popular support were on their side.
They certainly had better "ideology" than the Whites, who were literally just reactionary faggots.
The Whites had the problem of having too many leaders and not enough followers.
Ever heard the expression "too many cooks spoil the soup"?
Nobody could agree on who was in charge or what the overarching goal was.
The communists didn't have that problem. Everybody knew that Lenin was in charge.
Also, can you link me to what exactly you were reading? Curious.
And yet the only place where an white army won, Finland, became the best country in the world.
No matter how bad reactionary aristocratic politics is, it's still better than communism.
Wrangel was a competent officer in the Crimea that managed to set up decent civil administrations of the areas conquered. But then he had to deal with people as incompetent as Kolchak and Semenov who were busier trying to fuck everything up than to fight the Reds.
Have any books on the Russian Civil War? So far I've only read a couple, and I'd like to expand my library.
white army were fags who wanted to turn russia into a weimar republic
>Finland
>winning
They ended up ceding Karelia. Also, I would hardly count the Finnish White army as being the same movement as the Russian Whites, since the Russian Whites were in general terms very opposed to separatism or the idea of different peoples within the former Empire breaking away to form states.
#triggered
>Wrangel was a competent officer in the Crimea that managed to set up decent civil administrations of the areas conquered
But he was undermined by a so-called General [Commander?] Slaschov in the Crimea, who was known for antagonizing the local population with harsh methods (hangings) and for putting too much confidence in the Perekop wall and virtually ignoring the pass through Sivash, which, according to the Soviet mythos, froze over that year, allowing the Reds an entry into the Crimea. Rumor has it he was a drug-user, as well, which might have impaired his decision-making ability.
Some were republicans, some were monarchists.
>implying this wouldn't have fixed literally all of European history
What would Hitler have even done if there were no Bolsheviks? Probably annex Austria at most.
still need lebensraum
and as is customary in any thread relating to the white movement or the Russian Civil War, pic related
Green was the best movement
Prove me wrong faggots
There would be no lebensraum fantasies about Russia if Russia remained under the tsar.
No Bolsheviks, no Hitler.
Gotta agree. Many of the people who voted for Hitler did so out of fear of the communists.
The different' fractions among the whites didn't cooperate like at all. The Bloody Baron did his thing in Siberia and the anarchists in Ukraine mostly fought for their own independence just to mention a few.
>They ended up ceding Karelia.
I think you're mixing up 1918 with 1939 there.
Other than that, yeah, the Russian White Movement's unwillingness to accept any kind of secession is yet another manifestation of their incompetence. Just say "yes" and then re-subjugate them once you've secured your position you fucking mongs.
Why aren't there more games on the Russian Revolution? It had giant armored trains fighting it out. The only game I know that covers this is Revolution Under Seige
>Anarchists in Ukraine
>"White"
They were called the anarchist "Blacks", very different movement from the generally monarchical Whites.
They didn't even have to grant them full secession, all they had to do was grant these people greater autonomy and power once a new state was created. But no, the White's lack of ability to compromise effectively led to them being abandoned by their Allies.
The only good Imperialist is a dead one.