Russia

In January 1918, Lenin, proclaiming the Third Congress of Soviets the supreme power in Russia, had it draft a constitution. At Omsk, which became the centre of the anti-Communists, a new army was hastily trained under the command of Admiral Aleksandr V. Yudenich retreated into Estonia, and Denikin, his communications greatly overextended, was driven back from Oryol in an increasingly disorderly march, which ended with the evacuation of the remnants of his army, in March 1920, from Novorossiysk. He advocated political self-determination in 1917 for every nation in the Russian Empire, but aimed to reunite them subsequently with a Russian socialist state. National independence would be recognized only "upon the demand of the working population. In the Civil War, Russian women fought on every front, and with every weapon; the female machine-gunner made frequent appearances in early Soviet literature. In Belorussia an anti-Communist Hromada declared independence, but the national movement there was less developed and lacked a broad popular following.

August offensive of Eastern Front 3-25. It was this support that allowed the Whites to become the dominant opposition to the Communists. Eventually, in September, the government proclaimed a campaign of "Red terror," including shooting hostages and giving increased powers to the Cheka (political police) of summary arrest, trial, and execution of suspects. In August further British forces landed at Arkhangelsk, and the Japanese forces in the Far Eastern territories of Russia had been greatly reinforced. For the next months the mixed Petlyurist-Galician forces held parts of Ukraine; other areas were in the hands of anarchist bands led by Nestor Makhno; and the main cities were held by the Communists, ruling not directly from Moscow but through a puppet Ukrainian "government" in Kharkov (now Kharkiv). Bolshevik objectives in November 1917 were unclear, but in the merciless civil strife between Reds and Whites were laid the foundations of the autocratic Soviet system. But both cities were saved by Red Army counterattacks.