Russian Civil War

The Russian Civil War began after the Bolshevik Party took control of Russia’s government in the October (or November, in the Western, or New Style, calendar) phase of the Russian Revolution. The Bolsheviks, who had a militant socialist agenda, were opposed by the moderate socialist parties—the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks—and the Whites, who represented Russia’s elite business and landowning class. Fearing the development of a Bolshevik dictatorship, the moderate socialists sought to establish a government that would include all socialist parties. The Whites opposed the socialist revolution and wanted to set up a conservative government. Left-wing factions in the moderate socialist parties, who saw a White victory as more undesirable than a Bolshevik one, often sided with the Bolsheviks or remained neutral. Without a common ideology to unite them, the Bolsheviks’ major opponents cooperated only on a limited basis.