How did two revolutions and a civil war bring communist control of Russia?

Answer 1

The October and February Revolutions brought the end of the tzarist regime and brought the Bolsheviks into power. The civil war ended all communist opposition in Russia, leading to communist takeover.

Answer 2

The first revolution happened in February 1917. People were dissatisfied with conditions in Russia during World War I- people were starving, the Russian Army was being defeated over and over, badly, by Germany, and the Tsar had gone off to command the army, leaving his unpopular wife behind to rule. Riots started, which eventually turned into the full blown revolution (especially once the soldiers and police decided not to fight the protesters).

The Tsar was forced to abdicate, and after some wrangling, a "Provisional Government" was formed. Even though the new leaders were leftists, including socialists and mensheviks (non-bolshevik communists), they decided to honor the old agreements and kept fighting in World War I. So the Provisional Government became unpopular too, since the conditions were not improving.

Lenin and his Bolshevik communists took advantage of this and led some rioting. The Provisional government was weak, and in fall 1917, supposedly had secret talks with a popular military leader to organize some sort of military Dictatorship. When the general's troops went to St. Petersburg to impose some sort of order on the populace, the prime minister, Kerensky, demanded that the general and his army be arrested for trying to overthrow the government. Kerensky gave workers in St Petersburg weapons to do so- and these workers then defected to Lenin and the Bolsheviks. In one swift stroke, Kerensky had alienated the Russian Army and given weapons to his greatest foes.

In October 1917, Lenin and his Bolsheviks launched a new revolution, where they easily overthrew Kerensky and what remained of his government. Kerensky fled and eventually wound up in New York. The Bolsheviks (mainly Trotsky, one of the primary leaders) initially intended to keep fighting in World War I too, but with the chaos after the October Revolution and the beginning of the Civil War, they quickly made a treaty with Germany and quit the war.

The Civil War came almost immediately as the Bolsheviks seized power. Powerful groups who opposed the Communists began organizing and building up armies to fight. The problem was that the various groups were not unified, and had no major plan to win the war. There were various "movements", each with a color to identify them. They were:

• The Reds - the Bolshevik communists and allied parties, one of the two major groups.
• The Whites - the other major group, it was a loose grouping of various anti-Red factions, including Romanov loyalists, nationalists, conservatives, and even some independent-minded warlords (one went off and conquered Mongolia for some reason!)
• The Greens - a small, loose army of peasants who didn't particularly like the Reds
• The Blacks - Ukrainian anarchists
• Allied powers from World War I (including the USA and Britain) even briefly invaded parts of Russia.
• Some parts of old Russia broke away and resisted being retaken.
• Poland tried to take advantage of the war to conquer territory in Ukraine.

The problem, as seen in the list, is that only really the Reds were well organized. They had seized the power centers in the cities from the crumbling Kerensky government, and were well led by charismatic leaders like Lenin and Trotsky. There were certainly capable, charismatic leaders in the other factions, but they didn't have the organization and manpower that the Reds had. So it became a grinding war where the powerful Reds slowly crushed the various groups arrayed against them. The sheer size of Russia itself made it almost guaranteed that the Civil War would not end quickly.

Answer 3

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