Russian Civil War

[WMS]

The Whites, because I would've been a Kerensky supporter during the real Russian Revolution that toppled the Czar and would've turned against those traitorous backstabbing Reds following their coup.

I guess, you are unaware that Kerensky didn't become a PM (or, for that matter, a major player), until about 4 months after the overthrough of the Czar.  He may have been in the first Provisional Government (in fact, I vaguely recall he was), but in some very secondary role (something like directing the post office? I am, probably, wrong here). The first PM after the abdication, in early March (late February by the Julian calendar) was Prince Lvov, the largest party in the first Provisional Government was the Constitutional Democratic Party, whose head was the Provisional Foreign Minister P.N. Milukov. The Kerensky's Popular Sociallists weren't really significant until almost the summer.

*reads rest of thread*
I am unaware of quite a lot about the Russian Civil War, it appears.

Given what you wrote...I think I would've supported the Constitutional Democratic Party, the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and the Mensheviks...if that makes any sense at all.

[NewFederalist]

The Constitutional Democratic Party (or the Cadets) were not averse to the monarchy but wanted it based on the British model (constitutional monarch with only very limited power).

[WMS]

The Constitutional Democratic Party (or the Cadets) were not averse to the monarchy but wanted it based on the British model (constitutional monarch with only very limited power).

They would have no problems with me on that account.

[NewFederalist]

The Constitutional Democratic Party (or the Cadets) were not averse to the monarchy but wanted it based on the British model (constitutional monarch with only very limited power).

They would have no problems with me on that account.

God Save The Tsar!

[ag]

The Constitutional Democratic Party (or the Cadets) were not averse to the monarchy but wanted it based on the British model (constitutional monarch with only very limited power).

They actually had a difference of opinion within the party on this - some preferred a Republic, others wanted a very limited constitutional monarchy. In general, they believed this was the issue to be decided in the Constituent Assembley and were willing to compromise on this.

[ag]

(Propped up by Germany btw.)[quote]

Actually, not exactly. Germany propped the government of the hetman (an old Ukrainian title, resurrected for the purpose) Skoropads'ky.  While this was officially a Ukrainian nationalist government, it never had any certain footing, legal, military, or conceptual. When the Germans were withdrawing (due to their own capitulation in the West), Skoropads'ky fled with them. It was at that point that Petlura entered Kiev and established his government. As long as Germans were there, they prevented this from happening, though, of course, Petlura still controlled much of the countryside where he could engage in his pillaging and "pogroming" to his heart's satisfaction.

[12th Doctor]

First off, there were several groups that made up the "Whites" and the "Reds"... there were not just two blocks.  The Monarchists, Cadets, Republicans, Mensheviks, Bolsheviks, etc.

Secondly, it has been estimated that, combined, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks only had the support of about 15% of the population.

[ag]

Secondly, it has been estimated that, combined, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks only had the support of about 15% of the population.

Thirdly, at no post-revolutionary point were the Mensheviks allied to Bolsheviks (or, viewed as "red"), though Bolsheviks and Left Sociallist Revolutionaries were allied, for about 8 months after their joint takeover of power, as I've discussed elsewhere.  So, adding up Bolsheviks and Mensheviks is not really meaningful. That is, even if it were possible to calculate the support levels - what we have is a single snapshot, mostly in the first half of November 1917, when the elections to the Constituent Assembley happened (they actually took a few weeks). Of course, the civil war didn't start in serious until a few months later.  I don't think there was any other polling done during the entire period

[minionofmidas]

First off, there were several groups that made up the "Whites" and the "Reds"... there were not just two blocks.  The Monarchists, Cadets, Republicans, Mensheviks, Bolsheviks, etc.

Secondly, it has been estimated that, combined, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks only had the support of about 15% of the population.

"Russian Constituent Assembly election, 1917
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly that were organised as a result of events in the Russian Revolution of 1917 were held on November 25, 1917 (although some districts had polling on alternate days).

The result was a clear victory for the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SRs) who polled far more votes than the Bolsheviks. However, the Bolsheviks had captured power in the October Revolution and they dispersed the Assembly after its first sitting - making the results of the election null and void.

Various academic studies have given alternative results but all clearly indicate that whilst the Bolsheviks were clear winners in Russia's urban centres, as well as taking around two-thirds of the votes of soldiers on the "Western Front", it was the SRs who topped the polls having won the massive support of the country's rural peasantry.

Radkey study results:

Party Votes % Deputies
Socialist Revolutionary Party 17,100,000 41.0 380
Bolsheviks 9,800,000 23.5 168
Kadets 2,000,000 4.8 17
Mensheviks 1,360,000 3.3 18
Others 11,140,000 26.7 120
Total 41,700,000

Note: The figures for Socialist Revolutionaries includes the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries; whilst the Kadets includes other "rightists" as well; and the total number of deputies returned for "Others" includes 39 Left Socialist Revolutionaries and 4 Popular Socialists, as well as 77 others from various localised groupings.

Results from George Mason University Website:

Party Votes %
Socialist Revolutionary Party 17,943,000 40.4
Bolsheviks 10,661,000 24.0
Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries 3,433,000 7.7
Kadets 2,088,000 4.7
Mensheviks 1,144,000 2.6
Georgian Mensheviks 662,000 1.5
Musavat (Azerbaijan) 616,000 1.4
Dashnaktsutiun (Armenia) 560,000 1.3
Left SRs 451,000 1.0
Alash Orda (Kazakhstan) 407,000 0.9
Various Liberal Parties 1,261,000 2.8
Various National Minority Parties 407,000 0.9
Various Socialists 401,000 0.9
Unaccounted 4,543,000 10.2

  This Russia-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. "

This isn't quite as I remembered it... I didn't know the Right was quite that badly thrashed. And I'd somehow moved these elections a couple of months ahead in my mind...

[ag]

Good. I remembered both the around 25% vote share that the Bolsheviks got, and the November as the month of elections (actually, you'd have to find out, which calendar - November 25 sounds to me like it is the "New Style" date; the "Old Style" Julian date would be in the first half of November, and "Old Style" was still in force for another couple months).  I also remembered that all non-sociallists were in single digits - Kadets had been banned back in August for being a party to (or, more like, being privy to) the Kornilov coup attempt,  so they could not campaign, and no other non-sociallist and non-ethnic party survived the fall of the Empire.  The only surprise for me is that left SR ran separately and performed miserably - though, I suspect, in reality most of them just ran as undiferntiated SR, since, I believe, the split was still in process at the time of the election. The fact that the Menshevik vote was this small shouldn't be surprising: they got most of their vote from the workers, especially the skilled workers, among whom they were a big force, but there were still very few factory workers in agricultural Russia. Still, I thought they had something like 5%. Perhaps, I was including the Georgians.

And, by the way, I posted all this from memory a few days back (minus the exact numbers - though, clearly, given the difference between the sources these are not very "exact" anyway). Here is a passage from my earlier post:

"When the Bolsheviks took over (overthroughing what was by then a 5-party sociallist coalition), they still allowed an election to the Constituent Assembley to happen (they took over just a couple of weeks prior). They lost, and they lost miserably. The winner of the election was the Sociallist Revolutionary Party ("eser") - a non-Marxist Agrarian Sociallist party, that had always been viewed as the main violent threat to the Imperial Government, since it was linked to a major terrorist organization. Bolsheviks got just under a quarter of the seats, mostly from the military, since they were the only party calling for the immediate withdrawal from the war. Mensheviks (non-Communist Marxist Social-Democrats), other sociallists, Constitutional Democrats (though barely, due to them having been banned for most of the campaign) and a whole bunch of ethnic minority parties were represented as well. Most of the rural vote went to the Sociallist Revolutionaries, most of the working class vote went to Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks took the soldiers' vote."

[12th Doctor]

First off, there were several groups that made up the "Whites" and the "Reds"... there were not just two blocks.  The Monarchists, Cadets, Republicans, Mensheviks, Bolsheviks, etc.

Secondly, it has been estimated that, combined, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks only had the support of about 15% of the population.

"Russian Constituent Assembly election, 1917
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly that were organised as a result of events in the Russian Revolution of 1917 were held on November 25, 1917 (although some districts had polling on alternate days).

The result was a clear victory for the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SRs) who polled far more votes than the Bolsheviks. However, the Bolsheviks had captured power in the October Revolution and they dispersed the Assembly after its first sitting - making the results of the election null and void.

Various academic studies have given alternative results but all clearly indicate that whilst the Bolsheviks were clear winners in Russia's urban centres, as well as taking around two-thirds of the votes of soldiers on the "Western Front", it was the SRs who topped the polls having won the massive support of the country's rural peasantry.

Radkey study results:

Party Votes % Deputies
Socialist Revolutionary Party 17,100,000 41.0 380
Bolsheviks 9,800,000 23.5 168
Kadets 2,000,000 4.8 17
Mensheviks 1,360,000 3.3 18
Others 11,140,000 26.7 120
Total 41,700,000

Note: The figures for Socialist Revolutionaries includes the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries; whilst the Kadets includes other "rightists" as well; and the total number of deputies returned for "Others" includes 39 Left Socialist Revolutionaries and 4 Popular Socialists, as well as 77 others from various localised groupings.

Results from George Mason University Website:

Party Votes %
Socialist Revolutionary Party 17,943,000 40.4
Bolsheviks 10,661,000 24.0
Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionaries 3,433,000 7.7
Kadets 2,088,000 4.7
Mensheviks 1,144,000 2.6
Georgian Mensheviks 662,000 1.5
Musavat (Azerbaijan) 616,000 1.4
Dashnaktsutiun (Armenia) 560,000 1.3
Left SRs 451,000 1.0
Alash Orda (Kazakhstan) 407,000 0.9
Various Liberal Parties 1,261,000 2.8
Various National Minority Parties 407,000 0.9
Various Socialists 401,000 0.9
Unaccounted 4,543,000 10.2

  This Russia-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. "

This isn't quite as I remembered it... I didn't know the Right was quite that badly thrashed. And I'd somehow moved these elections a couple of months ahead in my mind...

The SR's were not the kinda "Reds" that we are talkign about.  Also, compared to the number of people in Russia (Russia's population was massive at that time, the birth rate was low for the entire Soviet period, and when one considered massive Soviet losses during the revolution, mass starvations and WWII, the population of Russia must have been huge), the number of people who voted is pretty small.

[minionofmidas]

Of course the SRP weren't "Reds" in the Bolshie sense... I wasn't claiming that. They weren't "rightwing" either ... hence my "Right got trashed" line. Of course ag has just explained that.

Turnout was low because there were areas (towards the West of the country) under German occupation where no vote was held, and rural areas where conditions were just plain anarchic. Probably some uncontested seats, too.

[12th Doctor]

Of course the SRP weren't "Reds" in the Bolshie sense... I wasn't claiming that. They weren't "rightwing" either ... hence my "Right got trashed" line. Of course ag has just explained that.

Sorry, I misunderstood your point.  I thought you were refuting me.

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More than likely, turn out was low because no one really cared about voting, and the left wing parties were just better mobilized.  Also, the areas in the west under German occupation likely would more right wing than the areas that did come out in force to vote, since you are talking about the difference between the peasants ("petty bourgeoisie") and city workers ("the proleteriat").  Thus, had they been able to vote, the left wing vote would have been even smaller.

[WMS]

The Constitutional Democratic Party (or the Cadets) were not averse to the monarchy but wanted it based on the British model (constitutional monarch with only very limited power).

They would have no problems with me on that account.

God Save The Tsar!

Or not, as ag has pointed out. A pity they didn't win out...