Editing History of Russia (section)

===Russian Civil War===
{{Main|Russian Civil War}}

[[File:Russian civil war in the west.svg|thumb|right|Russian Civil War in the European part of Russia]]
The Bolshevik grip on power was by no means secure, and a lengthy struggle broke out between the new regime and its opponents, which included the Socialist Revolutionaries, the anti-Bolshevik [[White movement]], and large numbers of peasants. At the same time the [[Allied intervention in Russia|Allied powers sent several expeditionary armies]] to support the anti-Communist forces in an attempt to force Russia to rejoin the world war. The Bolsheviks fought against both these forces and national independence movements in the former Russian Empire. By 1921, they had defeated their internal enemies and brought most of the newly independent states under their control, with the exception of Finland, the Baltic States, the [[Moldavian Democratic Republic]] (which elected to unite with [[Romania]]), and Poland (with whom they had fought the [[Polish–Soviet War]]).<ref>See Orlando Figes: ''A People's Tragedy'' (Pimlico, 1996) ''passim''</ref> Finland also annexed the [[region Pechenga]] of the Russian [[Kola Peninsula]]; Soviet Russia and allied Soviet republics conceded the parts of its territory to Estonia ([[Petseri County]] and [[Leander Reijo|Estonian Ingria]]), Latvia ([[Pytalovo]]), and Turkey ([[Kars]]). Poland incorporated the contested territories of [[Western Belarus]] and [[Ukraine|Western Ukraine]], the former parts of the Russian Empire (except [[Galicia (Central Europe)|Galicia]]) east to [[Curzon Line]].<ref name=redvictory/>

Both sides regularly committed brutal atrocities against civilians. During the civil war era for example, Petlyura and [[Denikin]]'s forces massacred 100,000 to 150,000 Jews in Ukraine and southern Russia.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x6RAAAAAYAAJ&q=100,000+jews+denikin++Petlyura+Florinsky |title=Encyclopedia of Russia and the Soviet Union |first=Michael T. |last=Florinsky |page=258 |publisher=McGraw-Hill |year=1961 |access-date=22 July 2009 |archive-date=22 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230122071934/https://books.google.com/books?id=x6RAAAAAYAAJ&q=100,000+jews+denikin++Petlyura+Florinsky |url-status=live }}</ref> Hundreds of thousands of Jews were left homeless and tens of thousands became victims of serious illness. These massacres are now referred to as the [[White Terror (Russia)]].

Estimates for the total number of people killed during the [[Red Terror]] carried out by the Bolsheviks vary widely. One source asserts that the total number of victims could be 1.3 million,<ref>{{cite book |last1= Rinke|first1=Stefan|last2= Wildt|first2=Michael|date=2017 |title= Revolutions and Counter-Revolutions: 1917 and Its Aftermath from a Global Perspective|publisher=Campus Verlag|pages=57–58 |isbn=978-3593507057}}</ref> whereas others give estimates ranging from 10,000 in the initial period of repression<ref>{{cite book|last=Ryan|first=James|year=2012|url=https://www.routledge.com/Lenins-Terror-The-Ideological-Origins-of-Early-Soviet-State-Violence/Ryan/p/book/9781138815681|title=Lenin's Terror: The Ideological Origins of Early Soviet State Violence|location=London|publisher=[[Routledge]]|isbn=978-1-138-81568-1|page=114|access-date=10 September 2019|archive-date=11 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111070149/https://www.routledge.com/Lenins-Terror-The-Ideological-Origins-of-Early-Soviet-State-Violence/Ryan/p/book/9781138815681|url-status=live}}</ref> to 140,000<ref name="anatomy">The Anatomy of Revolution Revisited: A Comparative Analysis of England, France, and Russia. Bailey Stone. Cambridge University Press, 25 November 2013. p. 335</ref><ref>"The Russian Revolution", Richard Pipes, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 13 July 2011, p. 838</ref> and an estimate of 28,000 executions per year from December 1917 to February 1922.{{sfnp|Ryan|2012|p=2}} The most reliable estimations for the total number of killings put the number at about 100,000,<ref>{{cite book |last=Lincoln |first=W. Bruce |author-link= W. Bruce Lincoln |year=1989 |title=Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War |publisher= Simon & Schuster |page=384 |isbn=0671631667 |quote= ...the best estimates set the probable number of executions at about a hundred thousand.}}</ref> whereas others suggest a figure of 200,000.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lowe |first=Norman |year=2002 |title=Mastering Twentieth Century Russian History |publisher=Palgrave |isbn=9780333963074 |page=151}}</ref>

The Russian economy was devastated by the war, with factories and bridges destroyed, cattle and raw materials pillaged, mines flooded and machines damaged. The droughts of 1920 and 1921, as well as the [[Russian famine of 1921|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. 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.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20130621173456/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3763/is_/ai_n8801575 And Now My Soul Is Hardened: Abandoned Children in Soviet Russia, 1918–1930], Thomas J. Hegarty, Canadian Slavonic Papers</ref> Another one to two million people, known as the [[White émigré]]s, fled Russia, many were [[Evacuation of the Crimea (1920)|evacuated from Crimea]] in the 1920, 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.