Editing Russian Civil War (section)

===Eastern Russia, Siberia and the Far East (1918)===
{{Main|Revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion|Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly|Provisional All-Russian Government}}
The revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion broke out in May 1918, and proceeded to occupy the [[Trans-Siberian Railway]] from [[Ufa]] to [[Vladivostok]]. Uprisings overthrew other Bolshevik towns. On 7 July, the western portion of the legion declared itself to be a new eastern front, anticipating allied intervention. According to [[William Henry Chamberlin]], "Two governments emerged as a result of the first successes of the Czechs: the [[Provisional Siberian Government (Omsk)|West Siberian Commissariat]] and the Government of the [[Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly]] in Samara." On 17 July, shortly before the fall of [[Yekaterinburg]], the former tsar and his family were [[Execution of the Romanov family|murdered]].{{Sfn|Chamberlin|1935|pp=6–12, 91}}

[[File:Bolshveki killed at Vladivostok.jpg|thumb|Czechoslovak legionaries of the 8th Regiment at [[Nikolsk-Ussuriysky]] killed by Bolsheviks, 1918. Above them stand also members of the Czechoslovak Legion.]]
The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries supported [[peasant]]s fighting against Soviet control of food supplies.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Muldoon |first=Amy |title=Workers' Organizations in the Russian Revolution |url=https://isreview.org/issue/107/workers-organizations-russian-revolution |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180221100132/https://isreview.org/issue/107/workers-organizations-russian-revolution |archive-date=21 February 2018 |access-date=20 February 2018 |website=International Socialist Review}}</ref> In May 1918, with the support of the Czechoslovak Legion, they took [[Samara Oblast|Samara]] and [[Saratov]], establishing the [[Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly]]—known as the "Komuch". By July the authority of the Komuch extended over much of the area controlled by the Czechoslovak Legion. The Komuch pursued an ambivalent social policy, combining democratic and socialist measures, such as the institution of an [[eight hour day|eight-hour working day]], with "restorative" actions, such as returning both factories and land to their former owners. After the fall of [[Kazan]], Vladimir Lenin called for the dispatch of Petrograd workers to the Kazan Front: "We must send down the ''maximum'' number of Petrograd workers: (1) a few dozen 'leaders' like [[Benyamin Kayurov|Kayurov]]; (2) a few thousand militants 'from the ranks'".

After a series of reverses at the front, the Bolsheviks' War Commissar, Trotsky, instituted increasingly harsh measures in order to prevent unauthorised withdrawals, desertions, and mutinies in the Red Army. In the field, the Cheka Special Investigations Forces (termed the ''Special Punitive Department of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combat of Counter-Revolution and Sabotage'' or ''Special Punitive Brigades'') followed the Red Army, conducting field tribunals and summary executions of soldiers and officers who deserted, retreated from their positions, or failed to display sufficient offensive zeal.<ref>{{Harvnb|Chamberlin|1987|p=31}} Frequently the deserters' families were taken hostage to force a surrender; a portion were customarily executed, as an example to the others.</ref>{{Sfn|Daniels|1993|p=70}} The Cheka Special Investigations Forces were also charged with the detection of sabotage and counter-revolutionary activity by Red Army soldiers and commanders. Trotsky extended the use of the death penalty to the occasional political commissar whose detachment retreated or broke in the face of the enemy.{{Sfn|Volkogonov|1996|p=175}} In August, frustrated at continued reports of Red Army troops breaking under fire, Trotsky authorised the formation of [[barrier troops]] – stationed behind unreliable Red Army units and given orders to shoot anyone withdrawing from the battle line without authorisation.<ref>{{Harvnb|Volkogonov|1996|p=180}}: By December 1918 Trotsky had ordered the formation of special detachments to serve as blocking units throughout the Red Army.</ref>

[[File:Kolchak1919troops.jpg|thumb|left|Admiral [[Alexander Kolchak]] reviewing the troops, 1919]]

In September 1918, the Komuch, the Siberian Provisional Government, and other anti-Bolshevik Russians agreed during the [[State Meeting in Ufa]] to form a new [[Provisional All-Russian Government]] in Omsk, headed by a Directory of five: two [[Socialist Revolutionary Party|Socialist-Revolutionaries]]. [[Nikolai Avksentiev]] and [[Vladimir Zenzinov]], the [[Kadet]] lawyer V. A. Vinogradov, Siberian Premier Vologodskii, and General [[Vasily Boldyrev]].{{Sfn|Chamberlin|1935|pp=20–21}}

By the fall of 1918, anti-Bolshevik forces in the east included the People's Army ([[Komuch]]), the Siberian Army (of the Siberian Provisional Government) and insurgent Cossack units of Orenburg, the Urals, Siberia, Semirechye, Baikal, and Amur and Ussuri Cossacks, nominally under the orders of Gen. V.G. Boldyrev, Commander-in-Chief, appointed by the Ufa Directorate.

On the Volga, Col. [[Vladimir Kappel|Kappel]]'s White detachment captured Kazan on 7 August, but Red Forces recaptured the city on 8 September 1918 following a counteroffensive. On the 11th [[Simbirsk]] fell, and on 8 October [[Samara, Russia|Samara]]. The Whites fell back eastwards to Ufa and Orenburg.

In Omsk, the Russian Provisional Government quickly came under the influence and later the dominance of its new War Minister, the rear-admiral [[Aleksandr Vasilevich Kolchak|Kolchak]]. On 18 November, a [[Kolchak Coup|coup d'état]] established Kolchak as supreme leader. Two members of the Directory were arrested, and subsequently deported, while Kolchak was proclaimed "Supreme Ruler", and "Commander-in-Chief of all Land and Naval Forces of Russia."{{Sfn|Chamberlin|1935|pp=177–178}} By mid-December 1918, the White armies had to leave Ufa, but they balanced that failure with a successful drive towards [[Perm, Russia|Perm]], which they took on 24 December.

==== Barrier troops ====
In the Red Army, the concept of barrier troops first arose in August 1918 with the formation of the "blocking troops" or "anti-retreat detachments", ({{Langx|ru| заградотряды, заградительные отряды, отряды заграждения}} / ''zagraditelnye otriady'').{{Sfn|Volkogonov|1996|p=180}} The barrier troops comprised personnel drawn from the Cheka punitive detachments or from regular Red Army infantry regiments. <!-- The Red Army numbered some 2.9 million troops at the start of World War II.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McCauley |first=Martin |title=Stalin and Stalinism |date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York, New York |pages=2099}}</ref> -->

The first use of the barrier troops by the Red Army occurred in the late summer and fall of 1918 in the [[Eastern Front (RSFSR)|Eastern front]] during the Russian Civil War, when Leon Trotsky authorized [[Mikhail Tukhachevsky]], the commander of the [[1st Army (RSFSR)|1st Army]], to station blocking detachments behind unreliable Red Army infantry regiments in the 1st Red Army, with orders to shoot if front-line troops either deserted or retreated without permission.{{Sfn|Volkogonov|1996|p=180}}

In December 1918, Trotsky ordered that detachments of additional barrier troops be raised for attachment to each infantry formation in the Red Army. On 18 December he cabled: {{Blockquote|How do things stand with the blocking units? As far as I am aware they have not been included in our establishment and it appears they have no personnel. It is absolutely essential that we have at least an embryonic network of blocking units and that we work out a procedure for bringing them up to strength and deploying them.{{Sfn|Volkogonov|1996|p=180}}}}

In 1919, 616 "hardcore" deserters of the total 837,000 draft dodgers and deserters were executed following Trotsky's draconian measures.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Reese |first=Roger R. |title=Russia's Army: A History from the Napoleonic Wars to the War in Ukraine |date=3 October 2023 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=978-0-8061-9356-4 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=hWS2EAAAQBAJ&dq=trotsky+desertion+612&pg=PA109 109] |language=en}}</ref> According to Figes, "a majority of deserters (most registered as "weak-willed") were handed back to the military authorities, and formed into units for transfer to one of the rear armies or directly to the front". Even those registered as "malicious" deserters were returned to the ranks when the demand for reinforcements became desperate". Forges also noted that the Red Army instituted [[amnesty]] weeks to prohibit punitive measures against desertion which encouraged  the voluntary return of 98,000-132,000 deserters to the army.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Figes |first=Orlando |date=1990 |title=The Red Army and Mass Mobilization during the Russian Civil War 1918-1920 |journal=Past & Present |issue=129 |pages=168–211 |doi=10.1093/past/129.1.168 |issn=0031-2746 |jstor=650938}}</ref>

The barrier troops were also used to enforce Bolshevik control over food supplies in areas controlled by the Red Army as part of Lenin's [[war communism]] policies, a role which soon earned them the hatred of the Russian civilian population.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lih |first=Lars T. |title=[[Bread and Authority in Russia, 1914–1921]] |date=1990 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=0-5200-6584-0 |page=131 |ol=4169456W}}</ref>
These policies in part led to the [[Russian famine of 1921–1922]], which killed about five million people.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=War Communism |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopaedia Britannica]] |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/War-Communism |date=8 June 2023 |author=((The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica))}}{{Dubious|date=December 2023}}</ref>{{Sfn|Mawdsley|2007|p=[https://archive.org/details/russiancivilwar00evan/page/287 287]}} However, the famine was preceded by bad [[harvests]], harsh winter, [[drought]] especially in the [[Volga region|Volga Valley]] which was exacerbated by a range of factors including the war, the presence of the White Army and the methods of war communism.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Götz |first=Norbert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wILoDwAAQBAJ&dq=war+communism+1921+famine&pg=PA44 |title=Humanitarianism in the Modern World: The Moral Economy of Famine Relief |last2=Brewis |first2=Georgina |last3=Werther |first3=Steffen |date=23 July 2020 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-1084-9352-9 |page=44 |language=en}}</ref>  The outbreaks of diseases such as [[cholera]] and [[typhus]] were also contributing factors to the famine casualties.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Heinzen |first=James W. |title=Inventing a Soviet Countryside: State Power and the Transformation of Rural Russia, 1917-1929 |date=1 February 2004 |publisher=University of Pittsburgh Pre |isbn=978-0-8229-7078-1 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=qICRs_f68KQC&dq=cholera+russian+famine+1921&pg=PA52 52] |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Raleigh |first=Donald J. |title=Experiencing Russia's Civil War: Politics, Society, and Revolutionary Culture in Saratov, 1917-1922 |date=11 May 2021 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-4374-9 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=U00gEAAAQBAJ&dq=cholera+russian+famine+1921&pg=PA202 202] |language=en}}</ref>