Building the Bolshevik State: Civil War, Dictatorship and the NEP (1917–1921)

The Bolsheviks signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk for military, political and ideological reasons that all pointed to peace at almost any price.

The most pressing reason was military collapse. By early 1918 the Russian army had disintegrated; soldiers were deserting in huge numbers and there was no force capable of resisting the German advance. With no means of fighting on, Lenin argued that continued war would simply destroy the new regime, so a peace treaty was unavoidable however harsh the terms.

A second reason was the survival of the revolution. The Bolsheviks had seized power promising 'Peace, Bread, Land' and had issued the Decree on Peace. They needed to end the World War in order to free their forces and attention for the struggle to consolidate power at home, especially as civil war loomed. Peace with Germany meant they could turn to fighting their domestic enemies.

Finally, Lenin took an ideological gamble. He believed that revolution would soon break out in Germany and across Europe, which would sweep away the treaty and its harsh terms. This conviction allowed him to overrule opponents like Bukharin's Left Communists, who wanted a revolutionary war. For Lenin, accepting humiliating losses now was worth it to keep the revolution alive long enough for the wider European revolution he expected.

Lenin introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921 mainly because of economic collapse, mounting unrest, and the need to keep the Bolsheviks in power.

The first reason was economic catastrophe. After the Civil War, War Communism had wrecked the economy: industrial output had collapsed, trade had broken down, and famine was spreading. Grain requisitioning had destroyed the incentive for peasants to grow food, so output fell disastrously. Lenin recognised that the war economy could not rebuild the country, so a new approach was essential.

A second reason was rising unrest, above all the Kronstadt Mutiny of 1921. When the Kronstadt sailors — once the 'pride and glory' of the revolution — revolted against War Communism and the lack of freedoms, it was a profound shock. Lenin called it the flash that lit up reality, and it convinced him that the regime would not survive unless it eased the burden on the peasants and workers.

Finally, the NEP was a pragmatic retreat to preserve Bolshevik power. By replacing requisitioning with a tax in kind, letting peasants sell their surplus, and allowing small private trade, Lenin hoped to revive production and win back popular tolerance. He presented it as 'one step back to take two steps forward' — a temporary economic concession to save the political revolution.

Similarity. Both sources agree that the OUTCOME of the Civil War was decided by the human factors of leadership and unity rather than by chance or sheer numbers. Source A attributes Red victory to 'iron discipline and unbreakable unity', while Source B explains White defeat by the absence of exactly those qualities — generals who 'would not act together'. Both therefore treat unity and organisation as the decisive variable; they simply look at it from opposite sides.

Difference. The sources disagree about WHERE the explanation lies. Source A locates the cause in Bolshevik strengths — the 'genius' of the leadership, the discipline of the Red Army and its mass support. Source B locates it in White weaknesses — divided generals, personal ambition, and the failure to win the peasants because of the land question. Where A presents victory as something the Reds actively achieved, B presents defeat as something the Whites inflicted on themselves ('doomed… by ourselves').

Explaining the difference (provenance and context). The contrast is best explained by who produced each source and why. Source A is a Soviet textbook of the 1950s, written to glorify the regime and the revolution, so it naturally credits Bolshevik genius and unity and would never admit the victory owed anything to enemy blunders. Source B is the memoir of a defeated, exiled White general (1925), who has every reason to explain away his own side's failure by blaming his rivals' divisions and the impossible land question rather than admitting Red superiority. The opposite purposes and viewpoints explain why one celebrates Red strength and the other dwells on White weakness — and together they remind us that BOTH Bolshevik strengths and White divisions contributed to the result.

White weaknesses were certainly a major reason for the Bolshevik victory, but they worked alongside genuine Bolshevik strengths, and it is argued here that those weaknesses created the opportunity which Bolshevik strengths then decisively exploited.

The case for White weaknesses. The Whites were a fatally divided coalition. Their leading generals — Kolchak, Denikin, Yudenich and Wrangel — were scattered around the vast periphery, distrusted one another and never launched a coordinated attack, allowing the Reds to defeat them one front at a time. They suffered chronic supply problems and relied on unwilling conscripts. Above all, their association with the landlords and the old order meant the peasant majority, fearing the loss of the land they had seized, would not rally to them, while their dependence on foreign intervention let the Bolsheviks brand them as puppets of foreigners. These were crippling handicaps.

The case for Bolshevik strengths. Yet a divided enemy still has to be defeated, and that required Bolshevik advantages. Trotsky built and led a disciplined Red Army, using ex-tsarist officers under political supervision and inspiring the fronts from his armoured train. The Reds held the central position — the core cities, the factories and the railway network — letting them shift troops rapidly along interior lines. They had unity under a single party and leader, and War Communism ruthlessly mobilised the economy to feed and arm the army. Relative peasant support, born of fear of the Whites, completed the picture.

Judgement. If 'mainly' means the single decisive cause, then White weaknesses gave the Reds their opening, but it was Bolshevik strengths that seized it. The two are linked: the Whites' fatal association with the landlords was the mirror image of the Bolsheviks' advantage on the land question. White divisions were therefore a necessary condition of Red victory, but not a sufficient one — without Bolshevik unity, the central position and Trotsky's organisation, even a divided enemy might not have been beaten. Bolshevik strengths were thus the more decisive factor, operating upon the opportunity that White weaknesses created.

White weaknesses were a profound cause of the Bolshevik victory, but they explain why the Reds had the OPPORTUNITY to win rather than why they actually won; they must be weighed against the positive Bolshevik strengths that converted opportunity into victory. This answer judges the 'main' cause as the factor without which the Reds could not have won, even against a flawed enemy.

The case for White weaknesses as decisive. The Whites destroyed themselves. Their generals — Kolchak in Siberia, Denikin and later Wrangel in the south, Yudenich near Petrograd — were geographically scattered and politically disunited, sharing no agreed leader or programme beyond opposition to the Bolsheviks. They never coordinated their offensives, so the Reds faced them sequentially rather than together. They suffered severe supply problems on the periphery, depended on demoralised conscripts, and were politically poisoned by their association with the landlords and the tsarist past, which alienated the peasants, and by their reliance on foreign intervention, which let the Reds pose as defenders of Russia. These were not minor flaws but structural handicaps that made White victory almost impossible.

The case for Bolshevik strengths. Yet weaknesses on one side do not automatically deliver victory to the other; the Reds had to be capable of exploiting them. Trotsky's creation and command of a disciplined Red Army — recruiting ex-tsarist officers under political control and driving the fronts from his armoured train — provided the military instrument. The central position gave the Reds the industrial heartland and, crucially, the railway network, so they could move forces along interior lines to meet each uncoordinated White attack in turn — directly exploiting the White failure to combine. Bolshevik unity under Lenin and the ruthless economic mobilisation of War Communism kept the army supplied, while peasant fear of a White restoration gave the Reds the lesser-evil advantage on the land question.

Judgement. White weaknesses were the most important ENABLING cause: a united, popular White movement would probably have won, and their divisions gave the Reds repeated openings. But the most important OPERATIVE cause was Bolshevik strength — the unity, central position and Trotskyite organisation that turned a divided enemy into a defeated one. The two are inseparable: the Reds' use of the railways to beat the Whites piecemeal was a Bolshevik strength acting directly upon a White weakness. The victory was therefore due to White weaknesses to a considerable extent, but ultimately the Bolsheviks won because they were organised and united enough to exploit those weaknesses — strength operating upon opportunity.

The sources offer real support for the view that the Bolsheviks relied on terror and force, but taken together they show that force operated alongside genuine popular appeal and propaganda rather than alone.

Sources that support the view (terror and force). Sources A and C provide direct support. Source A, the decree establishing the Cheka to crush 'counter-revolution and sabotage' by 'all necessary means', is clear evidence that the regime built an apparatus of state terror from the very start. Source C reinforces this by describing how the Bolsheviks, unable to 'win an honest vote', dispersed the Constituent Assembly 'at bayonet point' — 'the rule of the gun', not the people. Cross-referenced, A and C agree that coercion and the suppression of opposition were central to how the Bolsheviks held power.

Sources that challenge the view. Sources B and D qualify this picture. Source B, a peasant's recollection, shows that the Decree on Land won genuine acquiescence: peasants would 'tolerate them' because the Bolsheviks had legalised the land seizures. This is consent born of self-interest, not terror. Source D, a recruitment poster, shows the regime mobilising support through propaganda and popular slogans — 'bread, land and freedom' — appealing to enthusiasm rather than fear. Together, B and D suggest that the Bolsheviks also rested on real, if conditional, popular backing.

Evaluation of the sources. Provenance affects how much weight each carries. Source A is an official decree and is reliable evidence that terror was deliberate policy, though it states intention rather than scale. Source C is a Menshevik opponent's account, so it is hostile and may exaggerate the violence — yet the closure of the Assembly is well documented, so its central claim is sound, and its bias makes it valuable evidence of how opponents experienced the regime. Source B, a later recollection, may be coloured by hindsight but is candid about a transactional loyalty rooted in the land. Source D is government propaganda designed to recruit, so it reveals the IMAGE the regime wished to project rather than reality — but that itself shows the Bolsheviks needed to court popular support, not merely terrorise it.

Judgement on 'how far'. The sources strongly support terror and force as A major method of establishing power (A and C), but they do NOT support it as the SOLE means: B shows the land decree bought genuine peasant tolerance and D shows the regime actively cultivated popular enthusiasm. The most candid sources point both ways — the decree (A) confirms deliberate terror, while the peasant's recollection (B) confirms real, if self-interested, support. The sources therefore support the view to a considerable but limited extent: terror was central to crushing opposition, but the Bolsheviks also held power through popular concessions and propaganda, so force was decisive against enemies rather than the whole basis of their rule.