Learning Objectives

• To have knowledge of the Red Army.• To have knowledge of the White

Army.• To understand what the difference

was between the White Army and the Red Army.

• To understand what Red Terror was.• To know about the role of the Cheka.

Success Criteria

• To have gone over the questions you were working on last week.

• To have worked in a group to produce a poster on a key group or key element of the early stages of the civil war.

• To have helped your group present back your findings to the rest of the class.

• To have a series of notes in your jotter on a key group or key element of the early stages of the civil war.

“We will turn our hearts into steel, which we will temper in the fire of suffering and the

blood of fighters for freedom. We will make our hearts cruel, hard, and immovable, so that no mercy will enter them, and so that they will not quiver at the sight of a sea of

enemy blood. We will let loose the floodgates of that sea. Without mercy, without sparing,

we will kill our enemies in scores of hundreds. Let them be thousands; let them

drown themselves in their own blood. For the blood of Lenin and Uritsky, Zinovief and

Volodarski, let there be floods of the blood of the bourgeois - more blood, as much as

possible.”

Background

The Civil War can be said to have started immediately after Lenin declared that the

Bolsheviks had taken power on the 26th October 1917.

This is because not everybody in Russia supported the Bolsheviks in their take over. In fact, the peasants wanted the Social Revolutionaries in

power. Even Kerensky was determined to oppose them.

It took the Bolsheviks 4 years of terrible civil war to extend their control over the entirety of Russia.

Today, you will be concerned with establishing the key players and events of the early stages of the Civil War. You have already looked at this in the

questions you were answering using the textbooks. Today, you are going to work in groups to gain

more information on each of these.

Group Work

• You will be working in groups of approximately 5.

• Each group will get a list of key questions and background information.

• Each group should work together to produce a poster on their topic that answers all of the key questions.

Group Work Continued…

• Red Guards• Red Army• White Army• The Cheka• Red Terror

You have 15 minutes!

Red Guards

Role before the Civil War

Positive reactions to the Red Guards

Criticisms levelled at the Red Guards

Red ArmyWhen established

Appointed head of the Red Army

When and why conscription was introduced.

Inspiration of Trotsky

Ensuring the loyalty of the Red Army

Justification of the use of Terror

Disobeying Orders

Red Terror

Head of the Cheka

Events/tactics of Red Terror

Typical Execution

Mood in Russia

The Cheka

Official title of the Cheka

Leader of the Cheka

Description of the leader of the Cheka

Effect of the Cheka on the people of Russia

Estimated victims of the Cheka

Usual victims of the Cheka

Justification of executions

The White Army

Kerensky’s actions

Role of General Lavr Kornilov

Typical White Army recruits

Countries supporting the White Army

Effects of conscription in the Red Army

Threat of the Whites in 1919

Success Criteria Revisited

To have gone over the questions you were working on last week.

To have worked in a group to produce a poster on a key group or key element of the early stages of the civil war.

To have helped your group present back your findings to the rest of the class.

To have a series of notes in your jotter on a key group or key element of the early stages of the civil war.