Question 3

To what extent was Trotsky responsible for the victory of the Red Army in the Civil War?

• Discuss the organisation and leadership of Trotsky.
• Refer to:

• Trotsky’s abilities as a motivator,
• his morale-boosting use of the railways as he travelled from front to front with propaganda and supplies,
• his ruthless imposition of discipline,
• his use of ex-Tsarist officers and his use of conscription.

• Such discussion needs to be balanced against other factors which may well focus on other relative advantages and strengths of the Bolshevik forces: the central strategic position and control of key transport links and industries, undivided leadership and aims, the relative preference of the peasantry for the ‘Reds’ over the ‘Whites’, the quality of generalship relative to the Whites, the size of the Red Army.
• Also point to the relative weaknesses of the Whites:

• the patchwork of opposition to the Bolsheviks,
• the lack of coordination of efforts, the lack of clear or agreed aims,
• the resistance of the peasants (and Green forces),
• the strategic difficulties,
• the quality of leadership and size of armies,
• the ambivalent attitude of the Entente powers despite their presence and supply of arms