Could the Whites have won the Russian Civil War? What would have needed to happen differently for that to occur?
>>368032
If they could put aside the political backstabbing and maneuverings for positions in a post Civil War Russia and unite against the Reds.
So no.
If the whites completely unified and the Red Army never got of the ground the way it did. Also if the US and the other intervening nations decided to full on involver themselves instead of trying to maintain deniability
>>368259
Most of that land at the time and even some of it now was just empty and useless strategically. The Red Army had control of the really important parts with the most people. the exception was the Ukraine which was highly important but even then the black army was kicking them in the duck there. Also the whites were so fractured and disorganized all that land was more like a bunch of separate smaller groups.
>>368127
This pretty much, solidarity + more Allied support
Better yet let this guy take charge
Wikipedia for what it's worth. How strong of a superpower might Russia have become if it wasn't for this catastrophe?
>At the end of the Civil War the Russian SFSR was exhausted and near ruin. The droughts of 1920 and 1921, as well as the 1921 famine, worsened the disaster still further. Disease had reached pandemic proportions, with 3,000,000 dying of typhus alone in 1920. Millions more also died of widespread starvation, wholesale massacres by both sides and pogroms against Jews in Ukraine and southern Russia. By 1922 there were at least 7,000,000 street children in Russia as a result of nearly ten years of devastation from the Great War and the civil war.
>Another one to two million people, known as the White émigrés, fled Russia, many with Gen. Wrangel—some through the Far East, others west into the newly independent Baltic countries. These émigrés included a large percentage of the educated and skilled population of Russia.
>The Russian economy was devastated by the war, with factories and bridges destroyed, cattle and raw materials pillaged, mines flooded and machines damaged. The industrial production value descended to one-seventh of the value of 1913 and agriculture to one-third. It is estimated that the total output of mines and factories in 1921 had fallen to 20% of the pre-World War level, and many crucial items experienced an even more drastic decline. For example, cotton production fell to 5%, and iron to 2%, of pre-war levels.
>>368032
They could have won if they cut the loses and recognized the independence of the newly formed states. Especially Poland and Finland, since those had the most formidable military. But no, they claimed that Holy Russia is one and indivisible. As a consequence, the new states were far more terrified of the Whites than of the Reds. Because as it turned out, the Reds were the ones actually willing to recognize them.
Had the Poles or Finns attacked while the Bolsheviks were at their low ebb, there would be no USSR.
It wasn't that hard. They were simply too stupid to know what to do.
>>368259
In all honesty, nobody cares about "most of what would become the USSR at one point"
>>371439
>Finns
Had their own civil war going on at the same time. And the Whites, who won in Finland, would have wanted lots of territory for any help they might have given, which wasn't much 2bh.
>>368032
Wasn't there a green and a black army too? Who the fuck were they? Where they even relevant for the war?
>>371494
>Wasn't there a green and a black army too? Who the fuck were they? Where they even relevant for the war?
>Greens
were peasant rebels who fought both against Whites and Reds. Most known example is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tambov_Rebellion
There were some Green movements in Siberia, they often supported Siberian independence, which was a thing at one point.
>Blacks
were anarchists. The best example is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestor_Makhno
>>368032
No, not really.
>>368259
>Didn't they lose control over most of what would become the USSR at one point?
But they kept control of Moscow, which is where all the railways crossed. See, the thing about Russia is that it's mindboggingly huge. Controling railway junctions allowed the Reds to relatively quickly reinforce the fronts that needed it. First they broke Kolchak in the East, then they put all their forces to stop Denikin in the South-West. Then, when Denikin (later Wrangel) was reduced to just Crimea, they went west, to beat back Poles, who were attacking Ukraine and Belarus. Then an armistice with Poles was reached, so forces were pulled back from Poland and the far east to deal the final blow to Wrangel.
On the opposite, the Whites never joined fronts or synchronized their advances. Kolchak was already retreating when Denikin got in full swing, and Denikin didn't make it his main objective to join fronts with Kolchak.* Yudenich in the north-west had to make his own deals with the Germans and later Finns.
*Interestingly, the turning point in that regard would be capturing Tsaritsyn on the Volga river, where both fronts were the closest. Advanced scouts of Denikin and Kolchak met, but not much more. Tsaritsyn was attacked too late, only in June 1919, even though a lot of Denikin's staff saw its importance. Earlier, the White cossacks attacked it, but failed. The defence of the city by one Joseph Stalin got it its later name, Stalingrad. Then of course it became a turning point in another war
The red were controlling the industrial heart of Russia. If the whites got more supplies from the intervenning countries and if the got more men,yes
>>371607
cont.
>>371439
>It wasn't that hard. They were simply too stupid to know what to do.
The thing is, in Russia it was considered improper for an officer to engage in politics. It was thought to be a sign of a greasy politician or revolutionary. An officer should be strictly apolitical.
The White movement was mostly led by officers, and the officer corps remained its largest support. Even after draft was introduced, Denikin's army had volunteer units made entirely from officers.
But in White administration, there was a lot of constitutional democrats and even moderate socialists, including people from the mostly Socialist-Revolutionary government which the Soviets deposed.
So you had two kinds of members in the White movement, both of whom were by definition against recognizing the independence of border countries. The officers opposed it, because they were largely monarchist, and had a knee-jerk reaction against any diplomacy or compromise. Then you had the democracts who were largely for a legalist solution - that is, the independence should be voted by the parliament.
(This wasn't universal though - an example to the contrary is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Savinkov)
So the answer to former subjects was understandably that the Whites couldn't grant them autonomy, because it was unconstitutional, and that they should wait until the parliament could convene and vote. Any other answer would risk alienating the majority of White supporters. On the other hand, the answer given was unacceptable for the independence movements, especially in Poland, given their past experiences with tsarist authorities promising them anything.
Which gets us to the last point
>>371657
because in september 1919, the Entente powers started withdrawing their support for the Whites. The causes for this were manifold, from war-weariness to socialist protests in the facilities tasked with shipping war materiel to the Whites. A lot of this help was then directed to Poland.
>>368032
The Whites suffered from "Too Many Cooks" syndrome: They had too many leaders, not enough followers. The commies didn't have that problem. They knew exactly what they wanted and they had no shortage of disgruntled workers willing to bust some heads for them. The Whites.........didn't really know what they wanted. They never really had a core leader who could shape the group into an effective whole centered around a common vision.
>>370841
Amazing how a country can go through this and then immediately turn the corner into decades of rapid economic growth. I'm starting to think that wars in general are meme events.
