Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CMC Senior Theses CMC Student Scholarship 2011 Lev Trotsky and the Red Army in the Russian Civil War, 1917-1921 John M. Kelsey Claremont McKenna College Recommended Citation Kelsey, John M., "Lev Trotsky and the Red Army in the Russian Civil War, 1917-1921" (2011). CMC Senior Theses. Paper 105. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/105 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you by Scholarship@Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in this collection by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. CLAREMONT McKENNA COLLEGE LEV TROTKSY AND THE RED ARMY IN THE RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR, 1917- 1921 SUBMITTED TO PROFESSOR GARY HAMBURG AND DEAN GREGORY HESS BY JOHN M KELSEY FOR SENIOR HONORS THESIS SPRING SEMESTER 2011 04/20/2011 2 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my family, my friends, and my girlfriend for putting up with me during my long periods of absence in the computer lab. Most of all, I would like to thank my thesis reader and adviser, Professor Gary Hamburg. Over four years Professor Hamburg has offered invaluable insights both inside and outside of the classroom. Without his patient assistance this thesis would not have been possible. 4 Table of Contents Introduction 5 Chapter One 14 Chapter Two 39 Chapter Three 70 Conclusion 102 Bibliography 112 5 Introduction: Spirit of the 1917 Revolution “During the first two months of 1917 Russia was still a Romanov monarchy. Eight months later the Bolsheviks stood at the helm…You will not find another such sharp turn in history.”- Lev Trotsky, 1 By 1917 Russia had been at war for nearly two-and-a-half years.