AP European History

## Learning Outcomes

- Explain how the Bolshevik takeover in **November 1917** helped trigger the Russian Civil War
- Distinguish clearly between the **February Revolution**, the **October Revolution**, and the later civil war
- Identify the main causes of anti-Bolshevik resistance, including the **Constituent Assembly**, **Brest-Litovsk**, and repression
- Compare the **Reds** and the **Whites** and explain why the Reds won
- Understand how **War Communism**, the **Cheka**, and the **Red Terror** shaped the new Soviet state
- Assess the effects of Bolshevik victory inside Russia and across Europe

## AP European History Syllabus

For the AP European History, you are expected to understand how the Bolshevik seizure of power led to civil war and how that conflict shaped the early Soviet state, with a focus on the following syllabus points:

- Know that the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government in the **October Revolution of 1917** and that this did not settle the question of who would rule Russia
- Identify why opposition grew after the Bolshevik takeover, including the dissolution of the **Constituent Assembly** in **January 1918** and the **Treaty of Brest-Litovsk** in **March 1918**
- Explain the difference between the **Reds** and the **Whites**, and why the Whites were a loose coalition rather than a united movement
- Understand the role of **Leon Trotsky** in building the **Red Army**
- Explain **War Communism**, including grain requisitioning, nationalization, and state control of resources
- Understand the role of the **Cheka** and the **Red Terror** in Bolshevik consolidation of power
- Assess why the Bolsheviks won the civil war and how victory encouraged one-party rule and coercive government

## Test Your Knowledge

_Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, look more closely at that area during your revision._

1. Why did the Bolshevik takeover in **1917** lead to civil war rather than stable rule?
2. How did the **Treaty of Brest-Litovsk** increase opposition to the Bolsheviks?
3. What was the difference between the **Reds** and the **Whites**?
4. Why did the Reds defeat the Whites in the **Russian Civil War**?
5. How did **War Communism** help the Bolsheviks survive but also create new opposition?

## Introduction

The Bolshevik seizure of power in **November 1917** was not the end of the Russian Revolution. It was the start of a new and far more violent struggle over who would control the former Russian Empire. The Bolsheviks had taken Petrograd, but they had not won broad national consent. Russia was still at war, the economy was breaking down, peasants were taking land, and rival political groups all had different ideas about Russia’s future.

For AP European History, this topic matters because it is a strong case study in **causation** and **continuity and change**. The Bolsheviks claimed to act in the name of popular revolution, but the civil war pushed them toward centralized rule, political repression, and economic coercion. In other words, the civil war did not just defend the revolution. It changed what the revolution became.

> **Key Term: Russian Civil War**
> The struggle, usually dated **1918–1921**, between the Bolshevik **Reds** and a range of anti-Bolshevik forces, though some fighting continued beyond 1921.

### From revolution to civil war: why the takeover did not settle power

The Bolsheviks succeeded in overthrowing the **Provisional Government** because that government had already lost authority. It had stayed in **World War I**, failed to solve food shortages, and delayed land reform. Lenin’s slogan of **“Peace, Land, Bread”** therefore had real appeal. But winning support in Petrograd was not the same as winning Russia.

The first key point is that the Bolshevik takeover was a seizure of power by a disciplined minority, not a nationwide democratic victory. Elections for the **Constituent Assembly** soon showed this clearly: the Bolsheviks did badly and failed to win a majority. Instead of accepting a shared political future, they dissolved the assembly by force in **January 1918**.

> **Key Term: Constituent Assembly**
> An elected body meant to write a constitution for post-tsarist Russia; the Bolsheviks shut it down after failing to win control.

That decision mattered because it signaled something larger. It told rivals that the Bolsheviks would not tolerate a plural political system. Moderate socialists, liberals, conservatives, monarchists, and national minorities now had stronger reason to resist. The issue was no longer just whether the old regime had fallen. It was whether Russia would become a Bolshevik one-party state.

The second cause of civil war was repression. The Bolsheviks created the **Cheka** in **December 1917** to crush opposition. This made armed resistance more likely because opponents no longer expected legal politics to survive.

> **Key Term: Cheka**
> The Bolshevik secret police, created in **December 1917**, used to arrest, terrorize, and eliminate opponents.

The third cause was the collapse of central authority across the empire. Borderlands such as Ukraine, the Baltics, and other regions were not simply waiting to choose between Red and White. Many groups wanted independence or local control. That made the conflict more than a two-sided war. It was also a struggle over nationality, land, class, and the future shape of the state.

> **Test Tip:** In an SAQ or LEQ, do not say “the Bolsheviks won Russia in 1917.” A stronger answer says they seized power in Petrograd in **November 1917**, but their takeover created wider resistance and civil war.

### Brest-Litovsk, the Whites, and the widening of conflict

The **Treaty of Brest-Litovsk** in **March 1918** turned political crisis into broader armed resistance. Lenin accepted a harsh peace with Germany because he believed saving Bolshevik rule mattered more than territory. From his point of view, leaving the war gave the new regime time to survive. From the point of view of many Russians, however, the treaty was humiliating.

> **Key Term: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk**
> The peace treaty signed in **March 1918** that removed Russia from World War I but forced it to give up large territories.

Why did this matter so much? First, it made the Bolsheviks look unpatriotic to many officers, conservatives, and nationalists. Second, it angered other socialists, including the **Left Socialist Revolutionaries**, who believed Lenin had surrendered too much. Third, it encouraged anti-Bolshevik organization in the regions. A government already viewed as dictatorial now also seemed willing to dismember Russia.

The anti-Bolshevik side became known as the **Whites**, but that label can mislead students. The Whites were not one unified movement. They included monarchists who wanted the old order back, liberals who wanted constitutional government, conservatives, and some moderate socialists who hated Bolshevik dictatorship more than they trusted one another.

> **Key Term: Whites**
> The loose coalition of anti-Bolshevik forces in the civil war, including monarchists, liberals, conservatives, and some socialists.

This disunity was a major Bolshevik advantage. The Whites agreed on what they opposed, but not on what they wanted instead. That weakened military coordination and made political support harder to build. Peasants, for example, often feared that a White victory might restore landlords and take back seized land. So even peasants who disliked the Bolsheviks were often unwilling to back the Whites fully.

The conflict widened sharply in **1918** with the **Czech Legion revolt**. Czech and Slovak soldiers, trying to leave Russia along the Trans-Siberian Railway, clashed with Bolshevik authorities and helped open major anti-Bolshevik fronts in Siberia and along the Volga. This was important because it turned scattered resistance into a wider military emergency.

Foreign intervention also mattered, but you must handle it carefully. British and American forces became involved, officially to protect supplies and keep Germany from gaining advantage. Their presence helped the Whites somewhat, but it was limited. More importantly, it gave the Bolsheviks propaganda value. Lenin could claim the Reds were defending Russia from outside interference as well as from internal enemies.

> **Test Tip:** If a question asks why the Whites lost, do not overstate foreign intervention. A high-scoring answer usually argues that internal Russian factors mattered more: White disunity, weak coordination, and Bolshevik control of central Russia.

### Why the Reds won: organization, geography, and terror

The Bolshevik **Reds** had one huge advantage over their enemies: they were far more organized. Their leadership was centralized, disciplined, and willing to use force consistently. The Whites were scattered and divided; the Reds had a command structure.

> **Key Term: Reds**
> The Bolshevik and later Communist forces that fought to defend and extend Soviet power during the civil war.

The central military figure was **Leon Trotsky**, who organized the **Red Army**. This was not a minor detail. Bolshevik survival depended on turning revolutionary enthusiasm into military discipline. Trotsky imposed strict command, used former tsarist officers under supervision, and moved troops rapidly by rail.

> **Key Term: Red Army**
> The military force organized by Trotsky to defend the Bolshevik regime during the civil war.

Geography also favored the Reds. They held **central Russia**, including **Moscow** and **Petrograd**. That gave them access to the main population centers, much of the remaining industry, and the rail network. The Whites attacked from the edges of the former empire, which made coordination much harder. A force in Siberia, another in the south, and others elsewhere could threaten the Bolsheviks, but not easily combine.

This created a clear cause-and-effect chain:

- Bolshevik control of the center meant better communications
- Better communications meant faster troop movement
- Faster troop movement meant the Reds could defeat enemies one at a time
- White separation on distant fronts made mutual support difficult

Specific turning points show this pattern. White offensives under leaders such as **Kolchak** in Siberia and **Denikin** in the south threatened the regime but ultimately failed. By **1920**, the defeat of major White forces, including **Wrangel** in Crimea, left Bolshevik power much more secure.

The Reds also benefited from White political weakness in the countryside. Many peasants hated grain seizures under Bolshevik rule, but they feared the Whites might restore landlord power. This did not make peasants loyal Bolsheviks. It often meant they chose the lesser danger or simply refused to help the Whites.

A final reason for Red victory was terror. The **Red Terror**, launched in **1918**, used arrests, executions, and intimidation against “counterrevolutionaries.” This was brutal, but it helped destroy opposition networks and frighten potential enemies.

> **Key Term: Red Terror**
> A campaign of Bolshevik repression during the civil war, especially from **1918**, carried out through the Cheka against suspected enemies.

Students sometimes separate military victory from repression, but the Bolsheviks did not. For them, terror was part of warfare and state-building.

### War Communism, unrest, and the effects of Bolshevik victory

During the civil war, the Bolsheviks introduced **War Communism**, an emergency system designed to feed cities and the army and keep the regime alive.

> **Key Term: War Communism**
> The Bolshevik wartime economic system of **1918–1921**, marked by grain requisitioning, nationalization, restrictions on private trade, and centralized control.

Its main features included:

- state control of major industry
- grain requisitioning from peasants
- suppression of much private trade
- directing resources to the army and urban centers

From one angle, War Communism was practical wartime survival. The Bolsheviks needed food, transport, and arms. From another angle, it also reflected ideological ambition: some Bolsheviks believed they were already moving toward a socialist economy. For AP essays, the strongest answers often show both sides. It was both an emergency response and a coercive political project.

The policy helped the Red Army survive, but it deeply damaged relations with peasants. Grain requisitioning felt like state robbery. Peasants responded by hiding grain, reducing production, or rebelling. The result was wider suffering and sharper hostility to Bolshevik rule.

This unrest exploded in episodes such as the **Tambov uprising** and the **Kronstadt Rebellion** in **March 1921**. Kronstadt was especially serious because the sailors there had once been among the Bolsheviks’ strongest supporters.

> **Key Term: Kronstadt Rebellion**
> A revolt in **March 1921** by sailors and others against Bolshevik rule and War Communism, crushed by force.

The lesson for Lenin was clear: the Bolsheviks had won the civil war, but they were in danger of losing the country. So Lenin replaced War Communism with the **New Economic Policy** in **1921**.

> **Key Term: New Economic Policy (NEP)**
> Lenin’s policy from **1921** that replaced grain requisitioning with a tax in kind and allowed limited private trade while the state kept control of major industry.

The NEP is important here because it proves that Bolshevik victory did not mean simple ideological consistency. The regime had to retreat economically in order to survive politically. That is a very useful complexity point in an LEQ.

The long-term effects of Bolshevik victory were enormous. By defeating the Whites, the Bolsheviks secured Communist rule and laid the foundations for the **USSR**, created in **1922**. But the kind of state that emerged was shaped by civil war:

- one-party rule replaced political pluralism
- coercion became normal in government
- secret police methods became part of the state
- economic centralization increased
- violence was treated as a valid political tool

The civil war also affected Europe beyond Russia. Through the **Comintern**, founded in **1919**, the Bolsheviks tried to encourage revolution abroad. At the same time, fear of Bolshevism helped push many Europeans toward anti-Communist politics.

## Key Point Checklist

_This article has covered the following key knowledge points:_

- The Bolshevik takeover in **November 1917** did not settle who would rule Russia
- The Bolsheviks lacked majority support in the **Constituent Assembly** and dissolved it by force in **January 1918**
- The **Cheka** and later the **Red Terror** helped turn political conflict into armed struggle
- The **Treaty of Brest-Litovsk** in **March 1918** intensified hostility to Bolshevik rule
- The **Whites** were a loose anti-Bolshevik coalition, not a unified movement
- The Russian Civil War was more than a simple two-sided war because national and regional struggles also mattered
- **Trotsky** built the **Red Army** into a disciplined fighting force
- The Reds held central Russia, including major cities and railways, which gave them a strategic advantage
- White disunity and peasant distrust of White aims were major reasons for Bolshevik victory
- **War Communism** helped the Reds survive militarily but created severe economic hardship and peasant resistance
- The **Kronstadt Rebellion** helped push Lenin toward the **NEP** in **1921**
- Bolshevik victory created a more centralized, repressive one-party state and laid the foundation of the **USSR**

## Key Terms and Concepts

- Russian Civil War
- Constituent Assembly
- Cheka
- Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
- Whites
- Reds
- Red Army
- Red Terror
- War Communism
- Kronstadt Rebellion
- New Economic Policy (NEP)


The Russian Revolution and Its Effects - Bolshevik takeover sparked civil war