Conflict	Russian Civil War
Date	9 November 1917– June 1923
Place	Former Russian Empire (including Russian SFSR, Baltic states, Ukraine, Georgia, Poland, Finland, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia), Mongolia, Persia
Casus	Bolshevik Revolution
Territory	Establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922; independence of Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland
Result	*Bolshevik victory in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan Bolshevik defeat in Finland, Poland and in the Baltic states Communist takeover in Mongolia
Combatant1	Pro-Communist forces: Bolshevik Party (not in power until 7 November 1917) (from 30 December 1922) : (from 7 November 1917) : Ukrainian SSR : Byelorussian SSR Red Guards and later Red Army (from 28 January 1918)23px Finnish Red Guards Mongolian communists Black Army Mountainous Republic of the North Caucasus ---- Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (1917)
Combatant2	Anti-Communist forces Russian Republic (to 7 November 1917) White Movement Cossacks: : Kuban Cossacks :: Kuban People's Republic : Don Cossacks Allied Intervention (1918–1922): Czechoslovakia France : : : ---- Local nationalist movements, national states, and decentralist movements Poland Democratic Republic of Georgia Ukrainian People's Republic Free Territory Alash Autonomy Azerbaijan Democratic Republic Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic (1918) Belarusian People's Republic Far Eastern Republic (1920-1922) ---- Green armies ---- Left Socialist-Revolutionaries (1918) ---- Black Army (1920-1921) ---- Mongolia
Combatant3	Central Powers (1917–19): Baltic German National Committee
Strength1	3,000,000
Strength2	2,400,000 White Russians, 155,000 in Allied intervention.
Strength3	several hundred thousand est.
Casualties1	1,212,824 casualties Records are incomplete.
Casualties2	At least 1,500,000
Casualties3	?
Notes	}}

The Russian Civil War (1917–23) was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) and subsequently gained control throughout Russia.

The principal fighting occurred between the Bolshevik Red Army, often in temporary alliance with other leftist pro-revolutionary groups, and the forces of the White Army, the loosely-allied anti-Bolshevik forces. Many foreign armies warred against the Red Army, notably the Allied Forces, and many volunteer foreigners fought on both sides of the Russian Civil War. The Polish–Soviet War is often viewed as a theatre of the conflict. Other nationalist and regional political groups also participated in the war, including the Ukrainian nationalist Green Army, the Ukrainian anarchist Black Army and Black Guards, and warlords such as Ungern von Sternberg. The most intense fighting took place from 1918–20. Major military operations ended on 25 October 1922 when the Red Army occupied Vladivostok, previously held by the Provisional Priamur Government. The last enclave of the White Forces was the Ayano-Maysky District on the Pacific coast, where General Anatoly Pepelyayev did not capitulate until 17 June 1923.

In Soviet historiography the period of the Civil War has traditionally been defined as 1918–21, but the war's skirmishes actually stretched from 1917–23.

Context

After the abdication of Nicholas II of Russia, the Russian Provisional Government was established during the February Revolution of 1917. In the following October Revolution, the Red Guard, armed groups of workers and deserting soldiers directed by the Bolshevik Party, seized control of Saint Petersburg (then known as Petrograd) and began an immediate armed takeover of cities and villages throughout the former Russian Empire. In January 1918, the Bolsheviks had the Russian Constituent Assembly dissolved, proclaiming the Soviets as the new government of Russia.

The Bolsheviks decided to make peace immediately with the German Empire and the Central Powers, as they had promised the Russian people prior to the Revolution. Vladimir Lenin's political enemies attributed this decision to his sponsorship by the foreign office of Wilhelm II, German Emperor, offered by the latter in hopes that with a revolution, Russia would withdraw from World War I. This suspicion was bolstered by the German Foreign Ministry's sponsorship of Lenin's return to Petrograd,but after the fiasco of the Kerensky's Provisional Government summer (June 1917) offensive the promise of peace had become an all powerful one for Lenin That last offensive of the Provisional Government left the Army' structure completely devastated. Even before the summer offensive the Russian population was highly sceptical about the continuation of the war. Western socialists had arrived promptly from France and UK to convince the Russians continue the fight but couldn't change the new pacifist mood.

Beginning

On 16 December 1917, an armistice was signed between Russia and the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk and peace talks began. As a condition for peace, the proposed treaty by the Central Powers conceded huge portions of the former Russian Empire to the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire, greatly upsetting nationalists and conservatives. Leon Trotsky, representing the Bolsheviks, refused at first to sign the treaty while continuing to observe a unilateral cease fire, following the policy of "No war, no peace".

In view of this, on 18 February 1918, the Germans began an all-out advance on the Eastern Front, encountering virtually no resistance in a campaign that lasted 11 days. Signing a formal peace treaty was the only option in the eyes of the Bolsheviks, because the Russian army was demobilized and the newly-formed Red Guard were incapable of stopping the advance. They also understood that the impending counterrevolutionary resistance was more dangerous than the concessions of the treaty, which Lenin viewed as temporary in the light of aspirations for a world revolution.

The Soviets acceded to a peace treaty and the formal agreement, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, was ratified on 6 March. The Soviets viewed the treaty as merely a necessary and expedient means to end the war. Therefore, they ceded large amounts of territory to the German Empire, which created several short-lived satellite buffer states within its sphere of influence in Finland (the "Kingdom of Finland"), Estonia and Latvia ("United Baltic Duchy"), Courland (the "Duchy of Courland and Semigallia"), Lithuania (the "Kingdom of Lithuania"), Poland (the "Kingdom of Poland"), Belarus (the "Belarusian People’s Republic"), Ukraine (the "Hetmanate"), and Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan (the "Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic"). Following the defeat of Germany in World War I, the Soviets eventually recovered the territories they gave up, with the exception of Finland, the Baltic States, and Poland, which remained independent until the onset of World War II.

In the wake of the October Revolution, the old Russian Imperial Army had been demobilized; the volunteer-based Red Guard was the Bolsheviks' main military force, augmented by an armed military component of the Cheka, the Bolshevik state security apparatus. In January, after significant reverses in combat, War Commissar Leon Trotsky headed the reorganization of the Red Guard into a ''Workers' and Peasants' Red Army,'' in order to create a more professional fighting force. Political commissars were appointed to each unit of the army to maintain morale and ensure loyalty.

In June 1918, when it became apparent that a revolutionary army composed solely of workers would be far too small, Trotsky instituted mandatory conscription of the rural peasantry into the Red Army. Opposition of rural Russians to Red Army conscription units was overcome by taking hostages and shooting them when necessary in order to force compliance, exactly the same practices used by the White Army officers too. Former Tsarist officers were utilized as "military specialists" (''voenspetsy''), sometimes taking their families hostage in order to ensure loyalty. At the start of the war, ¾ of the Red Army officer corps was composed of former Tsarist officers.

In the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the Bolsheviks constituted a minority of the vote and dissolved it. In general, they had support primarily in the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets and some other industrial regions.

While resistance to the Red Guard began on the very next day after the Bolshevik uprising, the Brest-Litovsk treaty and the political ban became a catalyst for the formation of anti-Bolshevik groups both inside and outside Russia, pushing them into action against the new regime.

A loose confederation of anti-Bolshevik forces aligned against the Communist government, including land-owners, republicans, conservatives, middle-class citizens, reactionaries, pro-monarchists, liberals, army generals, non-Bolshevik socialists who still had grievances and democratic reformists, voluntarily united only in their opposition to Bolshevik rule. Their military forces, bolstered by forced conscriptions and terror and by foreign influence and led by General Yudenich, Admiral Kolchak and General Denikin, became known as the White movement (sometimes referred to as the "White Army"), and they controlled significant parts of the former Russian empire for most of the war.

A Ukrainian nationalist movement known as the Green Army was active in Ukraine in the early part of the war. More significant was the emergence of an anarchist political and military movement known as the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine or the Anarchist Black Army led by Nestor Makhno. The Black Army, which counted numerous Jews and Ukrainian peasants in its ranks, played a key part in halting General Denikin's White Army offensive towards Moscow during 1919, later ejecting Cossack forces from the Crimea.

The Western Allies also expressed their dismay at the Bolsheviks, (1) upset at the withdrawal of Russia from the war effort, (2) worried about a possible Russo-German alliance, and perhaps most importantly (3) galvanised by the prospect of the Bolsheviks making good their threats to assume no responsibility for, and so default on, Imperial Russia's massive foreign loans; the legal notion of odious debt had not yet been formulated. In addition, there was a concern, shared by many Central Powers as well, that the socialist revolutionary ideas would spread to the West. Hence, many of these countries expressed their support for the Whites, including the provision of troops and supplies. Winston Churchill declared that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle".

The majority of the fighting ended in 1920 with the defeat of General Pyotr Wrangel in the Crimea, but a notable resistance in certain areas continued until 1923 (e.g. Kronstadt Uprising, Tambov Rebellion, Basmachi Revolt, and the final resistance of the White movement in the Far East).

Geography and chronology

[[Image:Russian civil war West 1918-20.png|right|thumb|300px| European theatre of the Russian Civil War]]

In the European part of Russia, the war was fought across three main fronts; the eastern, the southern and the north-western. It can also be roughly split into the following periods.

The first period lasted from the Revolution until the Armistice. Already on the date of the Revolution, Cossack General Kaledin refused to recognize it and assumed full governmental authority in the Don region, where the Volunteer Army began amassing support. The signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk also resulted in direct Allied intervention in Russia and the arming of military forces opposed to the Bolshevik government. There were also many German commanders who offered support against the Bolsheviks, fearing a confrontation with them was impending as well.

During this first period, the Bolsheviks took control of Central Asia out of the hands of the Provisional Government and White Army, setting up a base for the Communist Party in the Steppe and Turkestan, where nearly two million Russian settlers were located.

Most of the fighting in this first period was sporadic, involving only small groups amid a fluid and rapidly shifting strategic scene. Among the antagonists were the Czechoslovaks, known as the Czechoslovak Legion or "White Czechs", the Poles of the Polish 5th Rifle Division and the pro-Bolshevik Red Latvian riflemen.

The second period of the war lasted from January to November 1919. At first the White armies' advances from the south (under General Denikin), the east (under Admiral Kolchak) and the northwest (under General Yudenich) were successful, forcing the Red Army and its leftist allies back on all three fronts. In July 1919, the Red Army suffered another reverse after a mass defection of Red Army units in the Crimea to the anarchist Black Army under Nestor Makhno, enabling anarchist forces to consolidate power in Ukraine.

Leon Trotsky soon reformed the Red Army, concluding the first of two military alliances with the anarchists. In June, the Red Army first checked Kolchak's advance. After a series of engagements, assisted by a Black Army offensive against White supply lines, the Red Army defeated Denikin's and Yudenich's armies in October and November.

The third period of the war was the extended siege of the last White forces in the Crimea. Wrangel had gathered the remnants of the Denikin's armies, occupying much of the Crimea. An attempted invasion of southern Ukraine was rebuffed by the anarchist Black Army under the command of Nestor Makhno. Pursued into the Crimea by Makhno's troops, Wrangel went over to the defensive in the Crimea. After an abortive move north against the Red Army, Wrangel's troops were forced south by Red Army and Black Army forces; Wrangel and the remains of his army were evacuated to Constantinople in November 1920.

The last period of 1921–1923 was characterized by three main events. The first was the defeat and liquidation of Nestor Makhno's anarchist Black Army, together with various other allied dissident leftist movements in Russia. The second was the escalation of peasant uprisings, which had commenced in 1918, but were fueled by the disbandment of local self-government in Ukraine and the demobilization of the Red Army. The last was the continued resistance of White Army, Islamic (''Basmachi''), and autonomous nationalist forces against Bolshevik rule in Eastern Siberia (Transbaikalia, Yakutia), Central Asia, and the Russian Far East. In Soviet historiography the end of the Civil War is dated by the fall of Vladivostok on 25 October 1922, though armed hostilities in the far provinces against Bolshevist rule continued into 1923.

1917

The first attempt to regain power from the Bolsheviks was made by the Kerensky-Krasnov uprising in October 1917. It was supported by the Junker mutiny in Petrograd, but quickly put down by the Red Guards, notably the Latvian rifle Division under I.I. Vatsetis.

The initial groups that fought against the Communists were local Cossack armies that had declared their loyalty to the Provisional Government. Prominent among them were Kaledin of the Don Cossacks and Semenov of the Siberian Cossacks. The leading Tsarist officers of the old regime also started to resist. In November, General Alekseev, the Tsar's Chief-of-Staff during the First world war, began to organize a Volunteer Army in Novocherkassk. Volunteers of this small army were mostly officers of the old Russian army, military cadets and students. In December 1917, Alekseev was joined by Kornilov, Denikin and other Tsarist officers who had escaped from the jail where they had been imprisoned following the abortive Kornilov affair just before the Revolution. At the beginning of December 1917, groups of volunteers and Cossacks captured Rostov.

Central Asia

Having stated in the November 1917 “Declaration of Rights of Nations of Russia”, that any nation under imperial Russian rule should be immediately given the power of self-determination, the Bolsheviks had begun to usurp the power of the Provisional Government in the territories of Central Asia soon after the establishment of the Turkestan Committee in Tashkent. In April 1917, the Provisional Government set up this committee, which was mostly made up of former tsarist officials. The Bolsheviks attempted to take control of the Committee in Tashkent on September 12, 1917, but their mission was unsuccessful and many Bolshevik leaders were arrested. However, because the Committee lacked representation of the native population and poor Russian settlers, they had to release the Bolshevik prisoners almost immediately due to public outcry and a successful takeover of this government body took place two months later in November. The success of the Bolshevik party over the Provisional Government during 1917 was mostly due to the support they received from the working class of Central Asia. The Leagues of Mohammedam Working People, which Russian setters and natives who had been sent to work behind the lines for the Tsarist government in 1916 formed in March 1917, had led numerous strikes in the industrial centers throughout September 1917.

However, after the Bolshevik destruction of the Provisional Government in Tashkent, Muslim elites formed an autonomous government in Turkestan, commonly called the ‘Kokand autonomy’ (or simply Kokand). The White Russians supported this government body, which lasted several months because of Bolshevik troop isolation from Moscow.

1918

South Russia and Ukraine

In January Soviet forces under Lieutenant Colonel Muravyov invaded Ukraine and invested Kiev, where the Central Rada of the Ukrainian People's Republic held power. With the help of a revolt by workers in the Arsenal plant within Kiev, the city was captured by the Bolsheviks on 26 January. As Civil War became a reality, the Bolshevik government decided to replace the provisional Red Guard with a permanent Communist army: the Red Army. The Council of People's Commissars formed the new army by decree on 28 January 1918, initially basing its organization on that of the Red Guard.

Rostov was recaptured by the Soviets from the Don Cossacks on 23 February 1918. The day before, the Volunteer Army embarked on the epic Ice March to the Kuban, where they joined with the Kuban Cossacks to mount an abortive assault on Ekaterinodar. General Kornilov was killed in the fighting on 13 April. Following Kornilov's death, General Denikin took over the command. Fighting off its pursuers without respite, the army succeeded in breaking its way through back towards the Don, where the Cossack uprising against Bolsheviks had started.

On 18 February, as peace negotiations between the Bolshevik government and the Germans broke down, the Germans began an all out advance into the interior of Russia, encountering virtually no resistance in a campaign which lasted 11 days. Despite mass recruitment of new conscripts, the newly-formed Red Army proved incapable of stopping the advance and the Soviets acceded to a punitive peace treaty. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918) which pulled Russia out of the war and gave Germany control over vast stretches of western Russia; this came as a shock to the Allies.

The massive uprising of the Don Cossacks against the Bolsheviks took place in the beginning of April 1918. Their military council elected general Pyotr Krasnov as their Ataman. Don Army was formed.

The British and the French had supported Russia on a massive scale with war materials. After the treaty, it looked like much of that material would fall into the hands of the Germans. Under this pretext began allied intervention in the Russian Civil War with the United Kingdom and France sending troops into Russian ports. There were violent confrontations with troops loyal to the Bolsheviks.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Germans formally ended the war on the Eastern Front. This permitted the redeployment of German soldiers to the Western Front. Then in mid-April, the Cheka made mass arrests of anarchists in a night raid in Petrograd. This was followed up with simultaneous raids against anarchists in Petrograd and Moscow at the end of April.

The Baku Commune was established on 13 April and lasted until 25 July 1918. The Baku Red Army successfully resisted the Ottoman Army of Islam, and was obliged to retreat to Baku. However, the Dashanaks, Right SRs and Mensheviks started negotiations with General Dunsterville, the commander of the British troops in Persia. The Bolsheviks and their Left SR allies were opposed to it but, on 25 July the majority of the Soviet voted to call in the British and the Bolsheviks resigned. The Baku Commune ended its existence and was replaced by the Central Caspian Dictatorship.

In June 1918, "white" Volunteer army, numbering some 9000 men, started its second Kuban campaign. Ekaterinodar was encircled on 1 August and fell on the 3rd. In September–October, heavy fighting took place at Armavir and Stavropol. On 13 October, General Kazanovich's division took Armavir and on November 1, general Pyotr Wrangel secured Stavropol. This time red forces had no escape and by the beginning of 1919, the whole Northern Caucasus was free from bolsheviks.

In October, General Alekseev, the leader for the White armies in Southern Russia, died of a heart attack and was replaced by General Denikin.

On 26 December 1918, agreement was reached between A.I. Denikin, head of the Volunteer Army, And P.N. Krasnov, Ataman of the Don Cossacks, which united their forces under the sole command of Denikin. The Armed Forces of South Russia were created, uniting Volunteer Army and Cossack forces.

Eastern Russia and Siberia

In the East, the Whites set up organizations in various centres in this huge territory. From the Volga to the Pacific Ocean, being remote from the capitals and main Bolshevik centers created relatively favourable conditions for those opposing the Soviet power. Since there were clandestine officers' organisations in the main cities of the Volga, the Urals and Siberia, the prerequisitive conditions for creating a White Army already existed when the Czech corps uprising started.

At the end of May, a marked escalation of the conflict was signalled by the unexpected intervention of the Czechoslovak Legion. The Czech Legion had been part of the Russian army and numbered around 30,000 troops by October 1917. An agreement with the new Bolshevik government to pass by sea through Vladivostok (so they could unite with the Czechoslovak legions in France) collapsed over an attempt to disarm the Corps. Instead, their soldiers disarmed the Bolshevik forces in June 1918 at Cheliabinsk. At the same time as the Czechs moved in, Russian officers' organizations overthrew the Bolsheviks in Petropavlovsk and Omsk. Within a month the Whites controlled most of the Trans-Siberian Railroad from Lake Baikal to the Ural Mountains regions. During the summer, the Bolshevik power in Siberia was totally wiped out. Provisional Siberian Government was formed in Omsk.

By the end of July, Whites had extended their gains, capturing Ekaterinburg on 26 July 1918. Shortly before the fall of Ekaterinburg (on 17 July 1918), the former Tsar and his family were executed by the Ural Soviet, ostensibly to prevent them falling into the hands of the Whites.

The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries supported peasant fighting against Soviet control of food supplies. In May 1918, with the support of the Czechoslovak Legion, they took Samara and Saratov, establishing the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly. By July, the authority of Komuch extended over much of the area controlled by the Czechoslovak Legion. The Komuch pursued an ambivalent social policy, combining democratic and even socialist measures, such as the institution of an eight-hour working day, with "restorative" actions, such as returning both factories and land to their former owners.

In July, two left Socialist-Revolutionaries and Cheka employees, Blyumkin and Andreyev, assassinated the German ambassador, Count Mirbach. In Moscow Left SR uprising was put down by Bolsheviks, using military detachments from the Cheka. Lenin personally apologised to the Germans for the assassination. Mass arrests of Socialist-Revolutionaries followed.

After a series of reverses at the front, War Commissar Trotsky instituted increasingly harsh measures in order to prevent unauthorized withdrawals, desertions, or mutinies in the Red Army. In the field, the dreaded Cheka special investigations forces, termed the ''Special Punitive Department of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combat of Counter-Revolution and Sabotage'', or ''Special Punitive Brigades'' followed the Red Army, conducting field tribunals and summary executions of soldiers and officers who either deserted, retreated from their positions, or who failed to display sufficient offensive zeal. The use of the death penalty was extended by Trotsky to the occasional political commissar whose detachment retreated or broke in the face of the enemy. In August, frustrated at continued reports of Red Army troops breaking under fire, Trotsky authorized the formation of anti-retreat detachments stationed behind unreliable Red Army units, with orders to shoot anyone withdrawing from the battle line without authorization.

In September 1918, Komuch, Siberian Provisional Government and other local anti-Soviet governments met in Ufa and agreed to form a new Provisional All-Russian Government in Omsk, headed by a Directory of five: three Socialist-Revolutionaries (Nikolai Avksentiev, Boldyrev and Vladimir Zenzinov) and two Kadets, (V. A. Vinogradov and P. V. Vologodskii).

By the fall of 1918, Anti-Bolshevik White Forces in the East included the People's Army (Komuch), the Siberian Army (of the Siberian Provisional Government) and insurgent Cossack units of Orenburg, Ural, Siberia, Semirechye, Baikal, Amur and Ussuri Cossacks, nominally under the orders of general V.G. Boldyrev, Commander-in-Chief, appointed by the Ufa Directorate.

On the Volga, Kazan was captured by the colonel Kappel detachement on 7 August, but was recaptured by the Reds on September 8, following the Red counter-offensive. On the 11th, Simbirsk fell; and on 8 October, Samara. The Whites fell back to Ufa and Orenburg.

In Omsk, the Russian Provisional Government quickly came under the influence of the new War Minister, Rear-Admiral Kolchak. On 18 November, a coup d'état established Kolchak as dictator. The members of the Directory were arrested and Kolchak proclaimed the "Supreme Ruler of Russia".

By mid-December 1918, White armies in the East had to leave Ufa but this failure was balanced by the successful drive towards Perm. Perm was taken on 24 December.

Central Asia

In February 1918 the Red Army overthrew the White Russian-supported Kokand autonomy of Turkestan. Although this move seemed to solidify Bolshevik power in Central Asia, more troubles soon arose for the Red Army as the Allied Forces began to intervene. British support of the White Army provided the greatest threat to the Red Army in Central Asia during 1918. Great Britain sent three prominent military leaders to the area. One was Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey, who recorded a mission to Tashkent, from where the Bolsheviks forced him to flee. Another was General Malleson, who assisted the Mensheviks in Ashkhabad (now the capital of Turkmenistan) with a small Anglo-Indian force. However, he failed to gain control of Tashkent, Bukhara, and Khiva. The third was Major-General Dunsterville, who the Bolsheviks drove out of Central Asia only a month after his arrival in August 1918. Despite setbacks due to British invasions during 1918, the Bolsheviks continued to make progress in bringing the Central Asian population under the influence of their party. The first regional congress of the Russian Communist Party convened in the city of Tashkent in June 1918 in order to build support for a local Bolshevik Party.

1919

The stage was now set for the key year of the Civil War. The Bolshevik government was firmly in control of the core of Russia, from Petrograd through Moscow and south to Tsaritsyn (now Volgograd). Against this government in the east, Admiral Kolchak had a small army and had some control over the Trans-Siberian Railroad. In the south, the White Armies controlled much of the Don and Ukraine. In the Caucasus, General Denikin had established a new White army.

The British occupied Murmansk and the British and the Americans occupied Arkhangelsk. Newly established Estonia cleared its territory from the Soviets by January 1919. French forces landed in Odessa, but after having done almost no fighting, withdrew their troops on 8 April 1919. The Japanese occupied Vladivostok.

Siberia

At the beginning of March 1919, the general offensive of the Whites on the Eastern front began. Ufa was retaken on 13 March; by mid-April, the white army stopped at the Glazov-Chistopol-Bugulma-Buguruslan-Sharlyk line. Reds started their counter-offensive against Kolchak's forces at the end of April. Red army, led by the capable commander Tukhachevsky, captured Elabuga on 26 May, Sarapul on 2 June, and Izevsk on the 7th, and continued to push forward. Both sides had victories and losses, but by the middle of summer the Red army was larger than the White army and had managed to recapture territory previously lost.

Following the abortive offensive at Chelyabinsk, the White armies withdrew beyond Tobol. In September 1919, White offensive was launched against Tobol, the last attempt to change the course of events. But on 14 October, the Reds counterattacked and then began the uninterrupted retreat of the Whites to the East.

On 14 November 1919, the Red Army captured Omsk. Admiral Kolchak lost control of his government shortly after this defeat; White Army forces in Siberia essentially ceased to exist by December. Retreat of the Eastern front White armies lasted three months, until mid-February 1920, when the survivors, after crossing the Baikal, reached the Chita area and joined Ataman Semenov forces.

With the retreat of Kolchak's White Army, Great Britain and the U.S. pulled their troops out of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk before the onset of winter trapped their forces in port.

South Russia

The Cossacks had been unable to organize and capitalize on their successes at the end of 1918. By 1919, they were beginning to run short of supplies. Consequently, when the Soviet counter-offensive began in January 1919 under the Bolshevik leader Antonov-Ovseenko, the Cossack forces rapidly fell apart. The Red Army captured Kiev on 3 February 1919.

Denikin's military strength continued to grow in the spring of 1919. During the several months in winter and spring of 1919, hard fighting with doubtful outcomes took place in the Donetz basin where the attacking Bolsheviks met White forces. At the same time, the AFSR completed the elimination of red forces in the Northern Caucasus and advanced towards Tsaritsyn. At the end of April and beginning of May, the AFSR attacked on all fronts from the Dnepr to the Volga and at the beginning of the summer they had won numerous battles. By mid-June the Reds were chased from Crimea and from Odessa area. The cities of Kharkov and Belgorod were liberated. At the same time White troops under command of General Wrangel took Tsaritsyn on 17 June 1919. On 20 June, Denikin issued his famous "Moscow directive", ordering all AFSR units to get ready for a decisive offensive to take Moscow.

Although Great Britain had withdrawn its own troops from the theater, it continued to give significant military aid (money, weapons, food, ammunition, and some military advisors) to the White armies during 1919, especially to General Yudenich. Despite large quantities of aid given to White commanders by Allied nations, many White commanders were unsatisfied with the amount of aid that was given. Yudenich in particular complained that he was receiving insufficient support.

After capture of Tsaritsyn, Wrangel pushed towards Saratov, but Trotsky seeing the danger of the union with Kolchack, against whom the Red command was concentrating large masses of troops, repulsed his attempts with heavy losses. When the Kolchack's army in the East began the retreat in June and July, the bulk of the Red army, free now from any serious danger from Siberia, was directed against Denikin.

Denikin's forces constituted a real threat, and for a time threatened to reach Moscow. The Red army, stretched thin by fighting on all fronts, was forced out of Kiev on 30 August. Kursk and Orel were taken. Cossack Don Army under the command of General Mamontov continued north towards Voronezh, but there they were defeated by Tukhachevsky's army on 24 October. Tukhachevsky's army then turned toward yet another threat, the rebuilt Volunteer Army of General Denikin.

The high tide of the White movement against the Soviets had been reached in September 1919. By this time Denikin's forces were dangerously overextended. White front had no depth or stability. It had become a series of patrols with occasional columns of slowly advancing troops without reserves. Lacking ammunition, artillery, and fresh reinforcements, Denikin's army was decisively defeated in a series of battles in October and November 1919. The Red Army recaptured Kiev on 17 December and the defeated Cossacks fled back towards the Black Sea.

While the White Armies were being routed in the center and the east, they had succeeded in driving Nestor Makhno's anarchist Black Army (formally known as the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine) out of part of southern Ukraine and the Crimea. Despite this setback, Moscow was loath to aid Makhno and the Black Army, and refused to provide arms to anarchist forces in Ukraine.

The main body of White forces, the Volunteers and the Don Army pulled back towards the Don, to Rostov. The smaller body (Kiev and Odessa troops) was withdrawing to the Odessa and Crimea, which it had managed to protect from the Bolsheviks during the winter of 1919-1920.

Northwest Russia: Yudenich's campaign

In the meantime, the Red Army turned to deal with a new threat. This one came from White Army General Yudenich, who had spent the spring and summer organizing a small army in Estonia, with Estonian and British support. In October 1919, he tried to capture Petrograd in a sudden assault with a force of around 20,000 men. The attack was well-executed, using night attacks and lightning cavalry maneuvers to turn the flanks of the defending Red army. Yudenich also had six British tanks that caused panic whenever they appeared.

By 19 October, Yudenich's troops had reached the outskirts of Petrograd. Some members of the Bolshevik central committee in Moscow were willing to give up Petrograd, but Trotsky refused to accept the loss of the city and personally organized its defenses. Trotsky declared, "It is impossible for a little army of 15,000 ex-officers to master a working class capital of 700,000 inhabitants." He settled on a strategy of urban defense, proclaiming that the city would "defend itself on its own ground" that the White Army would be lost in a labyrinth of fortified streets and there "meet its grave".

Trotsky armed all available workers, men and women, ordering the transfer of military forces from Moscow. Within a few weeks the Red army defending Petrograd had tripled in size and outnumbered Yudenich three to one. At this point Yudenich, short of supplies, decided to call off the siege of the city, withdrawing his army across the border to Estonia. Upon his return, his army was disarmed by order of the Estonian government, fearful of reprisals by Moscow and its Red Army War Commissar, which turned out to be well-founded. However, the Bolshevik forces pursuing Yudenich's forces (Yudenich based himself in Helsinki) were beaten back by the Estonian army. Following the Treaty of Tartu most of Yudenich's soldiers went into exile.

The Finnish general Mannerheim planned a Finnish intervention to help the whites in Russia capture Petrograd. In Finland the whites had recently won their own civil war against the reds. He did not, however, gain the necessary support for the endeavor. Had the Finns intervened, the effects could have been decisive. Lenin considered it "completely certain, that the slightest aid from Finland would have determined the fate of Petrograd". Trotsky anticipated the events leading to the Winter War by saying "We cannot live, year after year, under the persisting threat that general Mannerheim, or someone else decides to take Petrograd from us."

Central Asia

By February 1919 the British government had pulled their military forces out of Central Asia. Despite this success for the Red Army, the White Army’s assaults in European Russia and other areas broke communication between Moscow and Tashkent. For a time, Central Asia was completely cut off from the Red Army forces in Siberia. Although this communication failure weakened the Red Army, the Bolsheviks continued their efforts to gain support for the Bolshevik Party in Central Asia by holding a second regional conference in March. During this conference a regional bureau of Muslim organizations of the Russian Bolshevik Party was formed. The Bolshevik Party continued to try and gain support among the native population by giving them the impression of better representation for the Central Asian population, and throughout the end of the year were able to maintain harmony with the Central Asian people.

Communication difficulties with the Red Army forces in Siberia and European Russia ceased to be a problem by mid-November 1919. Due to Red Army success north of Central Asia, communication with Moscow was re-established and the Bolsheviks were able to claim victory over the White Army in Turkestan.

1920

Siberia

In Siberia, Admiral Kolchak's army had disintegrated. He himself gave up command after the loss of Omsk and designated Grigory Semyonov as the new leader of the White Army in Siberia. Not long after this, Kolchak was arrested by the disaffected Czechoslovak Corps as he traveled towards Irkutsk without the protection of the army and turned over to the socialist Political Centre in Irkutsk. Six days later, this regime was replaced by a Bolshevik dominated Military-Revolutionary Committee. On 6–7 February, Kolchak and his prime minister Victor Pepelyaev were shot and their bodies thrown through the ice of a frozen river, just before the arrival of the White Army in the area.

Remnants of Kolchak's army reached Transbaikalia and joined Grigory Semyonov's troops, forming Far Eastern army. With the support of the Japanese Army, it was able hold Chita, but after withdrawal of Japanese soldiers from Transbaikalia, Semenov's position become untenable and in November 1920 he was repulsed by the Red Army from Transbaikalia and took refuge in China.

South Russia

By the beginning of 1920, the main body of the Armed Forces of South Russia was rapidly retreating towards the Don, to Rostov. Denikin hoped to hold the crossings of the Don, rest and reform his troops. But the White Army was not able to hold the Don area, and at the end of February 1920 started a retreat across Kuban towards Novorossiysk. Slipshod evacuation of Novorossiysk proved to be a dark event for the White Army. About 40,000 men were evacuated by Russian and Allied ships from Novorossiysk to Crimea, without horses or any heavy equipment, while about 20,000 men were left behind and either dispersed or captured by the Red Army.

Following the disastrous Novorossiysk evacuation, General Denikin stepped down, and General Pyotr Wrangel was elected new Commander-in-Chief of the White Army by military council. He was able to restore order with dispirited troops and reshape the army which could again fight as a regular force. His army remained an organized force in the Crimea throughout 1920.

After Moscow's Bolshevik government signed a military and political alliance with Nestor Makhno and the Ukrainian anarchists, the Black Army attacked and defeated several regiments of Wrangel's troops in southern Ukraine, forcing Wrangel to retreat before he could capture that year's grain harvest.

Stymied in his efforts to consolidate his hold in Ukraine, General Wrangel then attacked north in an attempt to take advantage of recent Red Army defeats at the close of the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1920. This offensive was eventually halted by the Red Army, and Wrangel and his troops were forced to retreat to Crimea in November 1920, pursued by both Red and Black cavalry and infantry. Wrangel and the remains of his army were evacuated from Crimea to Constantinople on 14 November 1920. Thus ended the struggle of Reds and Whites in Southern Russia.

Central Asia

After 1919, the main concerns of the Red Army were no longer Allied Forces or White Army assaults in Central Asia. The primary opponents of the Bolsheviks in Turkestan and the Steppe were local groups, particularly the Basmachi movement, which began to become popular after the Kokand autonomy was dismantled in 1918 and caused the Bolsheviks problems well into the 1920s. The Communist Party did not completely dismantle this group until 1934.

1921–1923

After the defeat of Wrangel, the Red Army immediately repudiated its 1920 treaty of alliance with Nestor Makhno and attacked the anarchist Black Army; the campaign to liquidate Makhno and the Ukrainian anarchists began with an attempted assassination of Makhno by agents of the Cheka. Red Army attacks on anarchist forces and their sympathizers increased in ferocity throughout 1921. As War Commissar of Red Army forces, Leon Trotsky instituted mass executions of peasants in Ukraine and other areas sympathetic to Makhno and the anarchists. Angered by continued repression by the Bolshevik Communist government and its liberal use of the Cheka to put down peasant and anarchist elements, a naval mutiny erupted at Kronstadt, followed by peasant revolts in Ukraine, Tambov, and Siberia.

The Japanese, who had plans to annex the Amur Krai of Eastern Siberia, finally pulled their troops out as the Bolshevik forces gradually asserted control over all of Siberia. On 25 October 1922, Vladivostok fell to the Red Army and the Provisional Priamur Government was extinguished. General Anatoly Pepelyayev continued armed resistance in the Ayano-Maysky District until June 1923. In central Asia, Red Army troops continued to face resistance into 1923, where ''basmachi'' (armed bands of Islamic guerrillas) had formed to fight the Bolshevik takeover. The regions of Kamchatka and Northern Sakhalin remained under Japanese occupation until their treaty with Soviet Union in 1925, when their forces were finally withdrawn. The Soviets engaged non-Russian peoples in Central Asia like Magaza Masanchi, commander of the Dungan Cavalry Regiment to fight against the Basmachis.

Aftermath

The results of the civil war were momentous. Soviet demographer Boris Urlanis estimated total number of men killed in action in Civil War and Polish-Soviet war as 300,000 (125,000 in the Red Army, 175,500 White armies and Poles) and total number of military personnel died from disease (on both sides) as 450,000.

During the Red Terror, the Cheka carried out an estimated 250,000 summary executions of "enemies of the people".

Some 300,000–500,000 Cossacks were killed or deported during Decossackization, out of a population of around three million. An estimated 100,000 Jews were killed in Ukraine, mostly by the White Army. Punitive organs of the All Great Don Cossack Host sentenced 25,000 people to death between May 1918 and January 1919. Kolchak's government shot 25,000 people in Ekaterinburg province alone.

At the end of the Civil War, the Russian SFSR was exhausted and near ruin. The droughts of 1920 and 1921, as well as the 1921 famine, worsened the disaster still further. Disease had reached pandemic proportions, with 3,000,000 dying of typhus alone in 1920. Millions more were also killed by widespread starvation, wholesale massacres by both sides, and pogroms against Jews in Ukraine and southern Russia. By 1922, there were at least 7,000,000 street children in Russia as a result of nearly 10 years of devastation from the Great War and the civil war.

Another one to two million people, known as the White émigrés, fled Russia—many with General Wrangel, some through the Far East, others west into the newly independent Baltic countries. These émigrés included a large part of the educated and skilled population of Russia.

The Russian economy was devastated by the war, with factories and bridges destroyed, cattle and raw materials pillaged, mines flooded, and machines damaged. The industrial production value descended to one seventh of the value of 1913, and agriculture to one third. According to ''Pravda'', "The workers of the towns and some of the villages choke in the throes of hunger. The railways barely crawl. The houses are crumbling. The towns are full of refuse. Epidemics spread and death strikes—industry is ruined."

It is estimated that the total output of mines and factories in 1921 had fallen to 20% of the pre–World War level, and many crucial items experienced an even more drastic decline. For example, cotton production fell to 5%, and iron to 2% of pre-war levels.

War Communism saved the Soviet government during the Civil War, but much of the Russian economy had ground to a standstill. The peasants responded to requisitions by refusing to till the land. By 1921, cultivated land had shrunk to 62% of the pre-war area, and the harvest yield was only about 37% of normal. The number of horses declined from 35 million in 1916 to 24 million in 1920, and cattle from 58 to 37 million. The exchange rate with the U.S. dollar declined from two rubles in 1914 to 1,200 in 1920.

With the end of the war, the Communist Party no longer faced an acute military threat to its existence and power. However, the perceived threat of another intervention, combined with the failure of socialist revolutions in other countries, most notably the German Revolution, contributed to the continued militarization of Soviet society. Although Russia experienced extremely rapid economic growth in the 1930s, the combined effect of World War I and the Civil War left a lasting scar in Russian society, and had permanent effects on the development of the Soviet Union.

As the British historian Orlando Figes put it, at the root of the Whites' defeat was a failure of politics, more precisely their own dismal failure to break with the ugly past of the oppressive Tsarist régime.

See also

Timeline of the Russian Civil War

In fiction

Literature

''The Road to Calvary'' (1922–41) by Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy.

''Chapaev'' (1923) by Dmitri Furmanov.

''The Iron Flood'' (1924) by Alexander Serafimovich

''Red Cavalry'' (1926) by Isaac Babel

''The Rout'' (1927) by Alexander Fadeyev

''How the Steel Was Tempered'' (1934) by Nikolai Ostrovsky

''Optimistic Tragedy'' (1934) by Vsevolod Vishnevsky

''The Don Flows Home to the Sea'' (1940) by Mikhail Sholokhov.

''Doctor Zhivago'' (1957) by Boris Pasternak.

''The White Guard'' (1966) by Mikhail Bulgakov.

''Byzantium Endures'' (1981) by Michael Moorcock.

''Fall of Giants (novel)'' (1981) by Ken Follett.

''Chevengur (novel)'' (Written in 1927, First published in 1988 in the USSR) by Andrei Platonov.

Film

''Arsenal'' (1928)

''Storm Over Asia'' (1928)

''Chapaev'' (1934)

''Thirteen'' (1936), directed by Mikhail Romm

''We Are From Kronstadt'', directed by Yefim Dzigan

''Knight Without Armour'' (1937)

''The Year 1919'' (1938), directed by Ilya Trauberg

''The Baltic Marines'' (1939), directed by A.Faintsimmer

''Shchors'' (1939), directed by Dovzhenko

''Pavel Korchagin'' (1956), directed by A. Alov and V.Naumov

''The Wind'' (1958), directed by A.Alov and V.Naumov

''Doctor Zhivago'' (1965)

''The Elusive Avengers'' (1966)

''The Red and the White'' (1967)

''Reds'' (1981)

''Corto Maltese in Siberia'' (2002)

''Admiral'' (2008)

''Тихий Дон''

References

Further reading

Vladimir N. Brovkin. ''Behind the Front Lines of the Civil War: Political Parties and Social Movements in Russia, 1918-1922.'' Princeton University Press, 1994. ISBN 0691032785

T.N. Dupuy. ''The Encyclopedia of Military History'' (many editions) Harper & Row Publishers.

Peter Kenez. Civil War in South Russia, 1918: The First Year of the Volunteer Army, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1971.

Peter Kenez. Civil War in South Russia, 1919-1920: The Defeat of the Whites, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1977.

W. Bruce Lincoln. ''Red Victory''.

Evan Mawdsley. ''The Russian Civil War''.

George Stewart. ''The White Armies of Russia: A Chronicle of Counter-Revolution and Allied Intervention''.

David R. Stone. "The Russian Civil War, 1917-1921," in ''The Military History of the Soviet Union''.

Geoffrey Swain. ''The Origins of the Russian Civil War''.

External links

Russian Revolution and Civil War archive at libcom.org/library

"BBC History of the Russian Revolution" (3 February 2007)

"Russian Civil War" (Spartacus History, downloaded 3 January 2006)

"Russian Civil War 1918-1920" (On War website, downloaded 4 January 2006)

"Civil War of 1917 - 1922 at Encyclopedia of Russian History (3 February 2007)

"Russian Civil War Polities" (World Statesmen.org, downloaded 16 February 2007)

Category:Soviet Union Category:Civil wars involving the states and peoples of Europe Category:Civil wars of the Industrial era Category:Revolution-based civil wars Category:History of Russia Category:Russian Revolution Category:Wars involving Russia Category:Wars involving the Soviet Union Russian Civil War Russian Civil War Russian Civil War

ar:الحرب الأهلية الروسية bs:Ruski građanski rat bg:Гражданска война в Русия ca:Guerra Civil Russa cv:Раççейри граждан вăрçи cs:Ruská občanská válka da:Den Russiske Borgerkrig de:Russischer Bürgerkrieg et:Vene kodusõda el:Ρωσικός Εμφύλιος Πόλεμος es:Guerra Civil Rusa eo:Rusia enlanda milito eu:Errusiako Gerra Zibila fa:جنگ داخلی روسیه fr:Guerre civile russe fy:Russyske boargerkriich gl:Guerra Civil Rusa ko:러시아 내전 hi:रूसी गृहयुद्ध hr:Ruski građanski rat id:Perang Saudara Rusia is:Rússneska borgarastyrjöldin it:Guerra civile russa he:מלחמת האזרחים ברוסיה kk:Ресей империясының азамат соғысы la:Bellum Civile Russicum lv:Krievijas pilsoņu karš lt:Rusijos pilietinis karas hu:Polgárháború és intervenció Szovjet-Oroszországban arz:الحرب الاهليه الروسيه ms:Perang Saudara Rusia mwl:Guerra Cebil Russa nl:Russische Burgeroorlog ja:ロシア内戦 no:Den russiske borgerkrigen nds:Russ'sche Börgerkrieg pl:Wojna domowa w Rosji pt:Guerra Civil Russa ro:Războiul Civil Rus ru:Гражданская война в России scn:Guerra civili russa simple:Russian Civil War sk:Ruská občianska vojna sl:Ruska državljanska vojna sr:Руски грађански рат sh:Ruski građanski rat fi:Venäjän sisällissota sv:Ryska inbördeskriget tl:Digmaang Sibil sa Rusya th:สงครามกลางเมืองรัสเซีย tr:Rus İç Savaşı uk:Громадянська війна в Росії vi:Nội chiến Nga fiu-vro:Vinne kodosõda war:Gyera Sibil han Rusya zh:俄国内战

A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state. The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies. The term is a calque of the Latin ''bellum civile'' which was used to refer to the various civil wars of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC.

A civil war is a high-intensity conflict, often involving regular armed forces, that is sustained, organized and large-scale. Civil wars may result in large numbers of casualties and the consumption of significant resources.

Civil wars since the end of World War II have lasted on average just over four years, a dramatic rise from the one-and-a-half year average of the 1900-1944 period. While the rate of emergence of new civil wars has been relatively steady since the mid-19th century, the increasing length of those wars resulted in increasing numbers of wars ongoing at any one time. For example, there were no more than five civil wars underway simultaneously in the first half of the 20th century, while over 20 concurrent civil wars were occurring at the end of the Cold War, before a significant decrease as conflicts strongly associated with the superpower rivalry came to an end. Since 1945, civil wars have resulted in the deaths of over 25 million people, as well as the forced displacement of millions more. Civil wars have further resulted in economic collapse; Burma (Myanmar), Uganda and Angola are examples of nations that were considered to have promising futures before being engulfed in civil wars.

Definition

James Fearon, a scholar of civil wars at Stanford University, defines a civil war as "a violent conflict within a country fought by organized groups that aim to take power at the center or in a region, or to change government policies". Ann Hironaka further specifies that one side of a civil war is the state. The intensity at which a civil disturbance becomes a civil war is contested by academics. Some political scientists define a civil war as having more than 1000 casualties, while others further specify that at least 100 must come from each side. The Correlates of War, a dataset widely used by scholars of conflict, classifies civil wars as having over 1000 war-related casualties per year of conflict. This rate is a small fraction of the millions killed in the Second Sudanese Civil War and Cambodian Civil War, for example, but excludes several highly publicized conflicts, such as The Troubles of Northern Ireland and the struggle of the African National Congress in Apartheid-era South Africa.

Based on the 1000 casualties per year criterion, there were 213 civil wars from 1816 to 1997, 104 of which occurred from 1944 to 1997. If one uses the less-stringent 1000 casualties total criterion, there were over 90 civil wars between 1945 and 2007, with 20 ongoing civil wars as of 2007.

Further definitions

The Geneva Conventions do not specifically define the term "civil war". They do, however, describe the criteria for acts qualifying as "armed conflict not of an international character", which includes civil wars. Among the conditions listed are four requirements:

The party in revolt must be in possession of a part of the national territory.

The insurgent civil authority must exercise ''de facto'' authority over the population within the determinate portion of the national territory.

The insurgents must have some amount of recognition as a belligerent.

The legal Government is "obliged to have recourse to the regular military forces against insurgents organized as military."

Causes of civil war in the Collier-Hoeffler Model

Scholars investigating the cause of civil war are attracted by two opposing theories, greed versus grievance. Roughly stated: are conflicts caused by who people are, whether that be defined in terms of ethnicity, religion or other social affiliation, or do conflicts begin because it is in the economic best interests of individuals and groups to start them? Scholarly analysis supports the conclusion that economic and structural factors are more important than those of identity in predicting occurrences of civil war.

A comprehensive studies of civil war was carried out by a team from the World Bank in the early 21st century. The study framework, which came to be called the Collier-Hoeffler Model, examined 78 five-year increments when civil war occurred from 1960 to 1999, as well as 1,167 five-year increments of "no civil war" for comparison, and subjected the data set to regression analysis to see the effect of various factors. The factors that were shown to have a statistically-significant effect on the chance that a civil war would occur in any given five-year period were:

;Availability of finance A high proportion of primary commodities in national exports significantly increases the risk of a conflict. A country at "peak danger", with commodities comprising 32% of gross domestic product, has a 22% risk of falling into civil war in a given five-year period, while a country with no primary commodity exports has a 1% risk. When disaggregated, only petroleum and non-petroleum groupings showed different results: a country with relatively low levels of dependence on petroleum exports is at slightly less risk, while a high-level of dependence on oil as an export results in slightly more risk of a civil war than national dependence on another primary commodity. The authors of the study interpreted this as being the result of the ease by which primary commodities may be extorted or captured compared to other forms of wealth, for example, it is easy to capture and control the output of a gold mine or oil field compared to a sector of garment manufacturing or hospitality services.

A second source of finance is national diasporas, which can fund rebellions and insurgencies from abroad. The study found that statistically switching the size of a country's diaspora from the smallest found in the study to the largest resulted in a sixfold increase in the chance of a civil war.

;Opportunity cost of rebellion Higher male secondary school enrollment, per capita income and economic growth rate all had significant effects on reducing the chance of civil war. Specifically, a male secondary school enrollment 10% above the average reduced the chance of a conflict by about 3%, while a growth rate 1% higher than the study average resulted in a decline in the chance of a civil war of about 1%. The study interpreted these three factors as proxies for earnings foregone by rebellion, and therefore that lower foregone earnings encourages rebellion. Phrased another way: young males (who make up the vast majority of combatants in civil wars) are less likely to join a rebellion if they are getting an education and/or have a comfortable salary, and can reasonably assume that they will prosper in the future.

Low per capita income has been proposed as a cause for grievance, prompting armed rebellion. However, for this to be true, one would expect economic inequality to also be a significant factor in rebellions, which it is not. The study therefore concluded that the economic model of opportunity cost better explained the findings.

;Military advantage High levels of population dispersion and, to a lesser extent, the presence of mountainous terrain increased the chance of conflict. Both of these factors favor rebels, as a population dispersed outward toward the borders is harder to control than one concentrated in a central region, while mountains offer terrain where rebels can seek sanctuary.

;Grievance Most proxies for "grievance" - the theory that civil wars begin because of issues of identity, rather than economics - were statistically insignificant, including economic equality, political rights, ethnic polarization and religious fractionalization. Only ethnic dominance, the case where the largest ethnic group comprises a majority of the population, increased the risk of civil war. A country characterized by ethnic dominance has nearly twice the chance of a civil war. However, the combined effects of ethnic and religious fractionalization, i.e. the more chance that any two randomly chosen people will be from separate ethnic or religious groups the less chance of a civil war, were also significant and positive, as long as the country avoided ethnic dominance. The study interpreted this as stating that minority groups are more likely to rebel if they feel that they are being dominated, but that rebellions are more likely to occur the more homogeneous the population and thus more cohesive the rebels. These two factors may thus be seen as mitigating each other in many cases.

;Population size The various factors contributing to the risk of civil war rise increase with population size. The risk of a civil war rises approximately proportionately with the size of a country's population.

;Time The more time that has elapsed since the last civil war, the less likely it is that a conflict will recur. The study had two possible explanations for this: one opportunity-based and the other grievance-based. The elapsed time may represent the depreciation of whatever capital the rebellion was fought over and thus increase the opportunity cost of restarting the conflict. Alternatively, elapsed time may represent the gradual process of healing of old hatreds. The study found that the presence of diaspora substantially reduced the positive effect of time, as the funding from diasporas offsets the depreciation of rebellion-specific capital.

Duration of civil wars

Ann Hironaka, author of ''Neverending Wars'', divides the modern history of civil wars into the pre-19th century, 19th century to early 20th century, and late 20th century. In 19th century Europe, the length of civil wars fell significantly, largely due to the nature of the conflicts as battles for the power center of the state, the strength of centralized governments, and the normally quick and decisive intervention by other states to support the government. Following World War II the duration of civil wars grew past the norm of the pre-19th century, largely due to weakness of the many postcolonial states and the intervention by major powers on both sides of conflict. The most obvious commonality to civil wars are that they occur in fragile states.

Civil wars in the 19th and early 20th centuries

Civil wars through the 19th century to early 20th century tended to be short; the average length of a civil war between 1900 and 1944 was one and half years. The state itself was the obvious center of authority in the majority of cases, and the civil wars were thus fought for control of the state. This meant that whoever had control of the capital and the military could normally crush resistance. If a rebellion failed to quickly seize the capital and control of the military for itself, it was normally doomed to a quick destruction. For example, the fighting associated with the 1871 Paris Commune occurred almost entirely in Paris, and ended quickly once the military sided with the government.

The power of non-state actors resulted in a lower value placed on sovereignty in the 18th and 19th centuries, which further reduced the number of civil wars. For example, the pirates of the Barbary Coast were recognized as ''de facto'' states because of their military power. The Barbary pirates thus had no need to rebel against the Ottoman Empire, who were their nominal state government, to gain recognition for their sovereignty. Conversely, states such as Virginia and Massachusetts in the United States of America did not have sovereign status, but had significant political and economic independence coupled with weak federal control, reducing the incentive to secede.

The two major global ideologies, monarchism and democracy, led to several civil wars. However, a bi-polar world, divided between the two ideologies, did not develop, largely due the dominance of monarchists through most of the period. The monarchists would thus normally intervene in other countries to stop democratic movements taking control and forming democratic governments, which were seen by monarchists as being both dangerous and unpredictable. The Great Powers, defined in the 1815 Congress of Vienna as the United Kingdom, Habsburg Austria, Prussia, France, and Russia, would frequently coordinate interventions in other nations' civil wars, nearly always on the side of the incumbent government. Given the military strength of the Great Powers, these interventions were nearly always decisive and quickly ended the civil wars.

There were several exceptions from the general rule of quick civil wars during this period. The American Civil War (1861–1865) was unusual for at least two reasons: it was fought around regional identities, rather than political ideologies, and it was ended through a war of attrition, rather than over a decisive battle over control of the capital, as was the norm. The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) was exceptional because ''both'' sides of the war received support from intervening great powers: Germany, Italy, and Portugal supported opposition leader Francisco Franco, while France and Russia supported the government (see proxy war).

Civil wars since 1945

In the 1990s, about twenty civil wars were occurring concurrently during an average year, a rate about ten times the historical average since the 19th century. However, the rate of new civil wars had not increased appreciably; the drastic rise in the number of ongoing wars after World War II was a result of the tripling of the average duration of civil wars to over four years. This increase was a result of the increased number of states, the fragility of states formed after 1945, the decline in interstate war, and the Cold War rivalry.

Following World War II, the major European powers divested themselves of their colonies at an increasing rate: the number of ex-colonial states jumped from about 30 to almost 120 after the war. The rate of state formation leveled off in the 1980s, at which point few colonies remained. More states also meant more states in which to have long civil wars. Hironaka statistically measures the impact of the increased number of ex-colonial states as increasing the post-WWII incidence of civil wars by +165% over the pre-1945 number.

While the new ex-colonial states appeared to follow the blueprint of the idealized state - centralized government, territory enclosed by defined borders, and citizenry with defined rights -, as well as accessories such as a national flag, an anthem, a seat at the United Nations and an official economic policy, they were in actuality far weaker than the Western states they were modeled after. In Western states, the structure of governments closely matched states' actual capabilities, which had been arduously developed over centuries. The development of strong administrative structures, in particular those related to extraction of taxes, is closely associated with the intense warfare between predatory European states in the 17th and 18th centuries, or in Charles Tilly's famous formulation: "War made the state and the state made war". For example, the formation of the modern states of Germany and Italy in the 19th century is closely associated with the wars of expansion and consolidation led by Prussia and Sardinia, respectively. The Western process of forming effective and impersonal bureaucracies, developing efficient tax systems, and integrating national territory continued into the 20th century; as late as World War I, some French military conscripts from rural regions were unable to name the country they were fighting for. Nevertheless, Western states that survived into the latter half of the 20th century were considered "strong" by simple reason that they had managed to develop the institutional structures and military capability required to survive predation by their fellow states.

In sharp contrast, decolonization was an entirely different process of state formation. Most imperial powers had not foreseen a need to prepare their colonies for independence; for example, Britain had given limited self-rule to India and Sri Lanka, while treating British Somaliland as little more than a trading post, while all major decisions for French colonies were made in Paris and Belgium prohibited any self-government up until it suddenly granted independence to its colonies in 1960. Like Western states of previous centuries, the new ex-colonies lacked autonomous bureaucracies, which would make decisions based on the benefit to society as a whole, rather than respond to corruption and nepotism to favor a particular interest group. In such a situation, factions manipulate the state to benefit themselves or, alternatively, state leaders use the bureaucracy to further their own self-interest. The lack of credible governance was compounded by the fact that most colonies were economic loss-makers at independence, lacking both a productive economic base and a taxation system to effectively extract resources from economic activity. Among the rare states profitable at decolonization was India, to which scholars credibly argue that Uganda, Malaysia and Angola may be included. Neither did imperial powers make territorial integration a priority, and may have discouraged nascent nationalism as a danger to their rule. Many newly independent states thus found themselves impoverished, with minimal administrative capacity in a fragmented society, while faced with the expectation of immediately meeting the demands of a modern state. Such states are considered "weak" or "fragile". The "strong"-"weak" categorization is not the same as "Western"-"non-Western", as some Latin American states like Argentina and Brazil and Middle Eastern states like Egypt and Israel are considered to have "strong" administrative structures and economic infrastructure.

Historically, the international community would have targeted weak states for territorial absorption or colonial domination or, alternatively, such states would fragment into pieces small enough to be effectively administered and secured by a local power. However, international norms towards sovereignty changed in the wake of WWII in ways that support and maintain the existence of weak states. Weak states are given ''de jure'' sovereignty equal to that of other states, even when they do not have ''de facto'' sovereignty or control of their own territory, including the privileges of international diplomatic recognition and an equal vote in the United Nations. Further, the international community offers development aid to weak states, which helps maintain the facade of a functioning modern state by giving the appearance that the state is capable of fulfilling its implied responsibilities of control and order. The formation of a strong international law regime and norms against territorial aggression is strongly associated with the dramatic drop in the number of interstate wars, though it has also been attributed to the effect of the Cold War or to the changing nature of economic development. Consequently, military aggression that results in territorial annexation became increasingly likely to prompt international condemnation, diplomatic censure, a reduction in international aid or the introduction of economic sanction, or, as in the case of 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, international military intervention to reverse the territorial aggression. Similarly, the international community has largely refused to recognize secessionist regions, while keeping some states such as Cyprus and Taiwan in diplomatic recognition limbo. While there is not a large body of academic work examining the relationship, Hironaka's statistical study found a correlation that suggests that every major international anti-secessionist declaration increased the number of ongoing civil wars by +10%, or a total +114% from 1945-1997. The diplomatic and legal protection given by the international community, as well as economic support to weak governments and discouragement of secession, thus had the unintended effect of encouraging civil wars.

There has been an enormous amount of international intervention in civil wars since 1945 that served to extend wars. While intervention has been practiced since the international system has existed, its nature changed substantially. It became common for both the state and opposition group to receive foreign support, allowing wars to continue well past the point when domestic resources had been exhausted. Superpowers, such as the European great powers, had always felt no compunction in intervening in civil wars that affected their interests, while distant regional powers such as the United States could declare the interventionist Monroe Doctrine of 1821 for events in its Central American "backyard". However, the large population of weak states after 1945 allowed intervention by former colonial powers, regional powers and neighboring states who themselves often had scarce resources. On average, a civil war with interstate intervention was 300% longer than those without. When disaggregated, a civil war with intervention on only one side is 156% longer, while intervention on both sides lengthens the average civil war by an addition 92%. If one of the intervening states was a superpower, a civil war is extended a further 72%; a conflict such as the Angolan Civil War, in which there is two-sided foreign intervention, including by a superpower (actually, two superpowers in the case of Angola), would be 538% longer on average than a civil war without any international intervention.

Effect of the Cold War

The Cold War (1945–1989) provided a global network of material and ideological support that perpetuated civil wars, which were mainly fought in weak ex-colonial states, rather than the relatively strong states that were aligned with the Warsaw Pact and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In some cases, superpowers would superimpose Cold War ideology onto local conflicts, while in others local actors using Cold War ideology would attract the attention of a superpower to obtain support. Using a separate statistical evaluation than used above for interventions, civil wars that included pro- or anti-communist forces lasted 141% longer than the average non-Cold War conflict, while a Cold War civil war that attracted superpower intervention resulted in wars typically lasting over three times as long as other civil wars. Conversely, the end of the Cold War marked by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 resulted in a reduction in the duration of Cold War civil wars of 92% or, phrased another way, a roughly ten-fold increase in the rate of resolution of Cold War civil wars. Lengthy Cold War-associated civil conflicts that ground to a halt include the wars of Guatemala (1960–1996), El Salvador (1979–1991), Nicaragua (1970–1990) and Peru (1980–2000).

See also

The Logic of Violence in Civil War

War of Independence (disambiguation)

Wars of national liberation

References

Bibliography

Ali, Taisier Mohamed Ahmed and Robert O. Matthews, eds. ''Civil Wars in Africa: roots and resolution'' (1999), 322 pages

Mats Berdal and David M. Malone, ''Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars'' (Lynne Rienner, 2000).

Paul Collier, ''Breaking the Conflict Trap: civil war and development policy'' World Bank (2003) - 320 pages

Stathis Kalyvas, "'New' and 'Old' Civil Wars: A Valid Distinction?" ''World Politics'' 54, no. 1 (2001): 99-118.

David Lake and Donald Rothchild, eds. ''The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation'' (Princeton University Press, 1996).

Roy Licklider, "The Consequences of Negotiated Settlements in Civil Wars, 1945--1993," ''American Political Science Review'' 89, no. 3 (summer 1995): pp 681–690.

Andrew Mack, "Civil War: Academic Research and the Policy Community," ''Journal of Peace Research'' 39, no. 5 (2002): pp. 515–525.

David T. Mason and Patrick 3. Fett, "How Civil Wars End: A Rational Choice Approach," ''Journal of Conflict Resolution'' 40, no. 4 (fall 1996): 546-568.

Patrick M. Regan. ''Civil Wars and Foreign Powers: Outside Intervention in Intrastate Conflict'' (2000) 172 pages

Stephen John and others., eds. ''Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements'' (2002), 729 pages

Monica Duffy Toft, ''The Geography of Ethnic Violence: Identity, Interests, and the Indivisibility of Territory'' (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003). ISBN 0-691-12383-7.

Barbara F. Walter, ''Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars'' (Princeton University Press, 2002),

Elisabeth Jean Wood; "Civil Wars: What We Don't Know," ''Global Governance,'' Vol. 9, 2003 pp 247+ online version

External links

Royal Air Force Doctrine - The Nature of War and Armed Conflict

Royal Air Force Doctrine - The Nature of War and Armed Conflict

"What makes a civil war?", ''BBC News'', 20 April 2006

Category:Wars by type

als:Bürgerkrieg ar:حرب أهلية an:Guerra civil az:Vətəndaş müharibəsi be:Грамадзянская вайна be-x-old:Грамадзянская вайна bs:Građanski rat br:Brezel diabarzh bg:Гражданска война ca:Guerra civil cv:Граждан вăрçи cs:Občanská válka cy:Rhyfel cartref da:Borgerkrig de:Bürgerkrieg et:Kodusõda el:Εμφύλιος πόλεμος es:Guerra civil eo:Interna milito eu:Gerra zibil fa:جنگ داخلی hif:Civil war fo:Borgarakríggj fr:Guerre civile gd:Cogadh sìobhalta gl:Guerra Civil ko:내전 hr:Građanski rat id:Perang Saudara os:Мидхæст is:Borgarastríð it:Guerra civile he:מלחמת אזרחים kn:ಅಂತಃಕಲಹ krc:Граждан къазауат kk:Азамат соғысы sw:Vita ya wenyewe kwa wenyewe la:Bellum civile lv:Pilsoņu karš lb:Biergerkrich lt:Pilietinis karas li:Burgeroorlog hu:Polgárháború ml:ആഭ്യന്തരയുദ്ധം arz:حرب اهليه ms:Perang saudara mn:Иргэний дайн nl:Burgeroorlog ja:内戦 nap:Guèrr civile no:Borgerkrig nn:Borgarkrig oc:Guèrra civila pnb:کعر دی لڑائی nds:Börgerkrieg pl:Wojna domowa pt:Guerra civil ro:Război civil qu:Mamallaqtayuq maqanakuy rue:Громадяньска война ru:Гражданская война scn:Guerra civili simple:Civil war sk:Občianska vojna sl:Državljanska vojna so:Dagaal Sokeeye sr:Грађански рат sh:Građanski rat fi:Sisällissota sv:Inbördeskrig ta:உள்நாட்டுப் போர் th:สงครามกลางเมือง tg:Ҷанги шаҳрвандӣ tr:İç savaş uk:Громадянська війна ur:خانہ جنگی vec:Guera siviłe vi:Nội chiến fiu-vro:Kodosõda wa:Guere civile war:Gyera sibil yi:בירגער קריג bat-smg:Cėvėlėnė vaina zh:内战

Native name	Российская Федерация''Rossiyskaya Federatsiya''
Conventional long name	Russian Federation
Common name	Russia
National anthem	File:Russian Anthem chorus.oggГосударственный гимн Российской Федерации(tr.: ''Gosudarstvenny gimn Rossiyskoy Federatsii'')(English: State Anthem of the Russian Federation)
Image coat	Coat of Arms of the Russian Federation.svg
Map width	220px
Capital	Moscow
Latns	N
Longew	E
Largest city	capital
Official languages	Russian official throughout the country; 27 others co-official in various regions
Ethnic groups	81% Russians 3.7% Tatars1.4% Ukrainians 1.1% Bashkirs1% Chuvashes11.8% Others and Unspecified
Ethnic groups year	2010
Demonym	Russian
Government type	Federal semi-presidential republic
Leader title1	President
Leader name1	Dmitry Medvedev
Leader title2	Prime Minister
Leader name2	Vladimir Putin
Leader title3	Chairman of the Federation Council
Leader name3	Valentina Matviyenko (UR)
Leader title4	Chairman of the State Duma
Leader name4	Sergey Naryshkin (UR)
Legislature	Federal Assembly
Upper house	Federation Council
Lower house	State Duma
Sovereignty type	Formation
Established event1	Rurik Dynasty
Established date1	862
Established event2	Kievan Rus'
Established date2	882
Established event3	Vladimir-Suzdal Rus'
Established date3	1169
Established event4	Grand Duchy of Moscow
Established date4	1283
Established event5	Tsardom of Russia
Established date5	16 January 1547
Established event6	Russian Empire
Established date6	22 October 1721
Established event7	Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
Established date7	7 November 1917
Established event8	Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Established date8	10 December 1922
Established event9	Russian Federation
Established date9	25 December 1991
Area km2	17,075,400
Area sq mi	6,592,800
Area rank	1st
Area magnitude	1 E13
Percent water	13 (including swamps)
Population estimate	143,030,106
Population estimate year	2012
Population estimate rank	8th
Population density km2	8.3
Population density sq mi	21.5
Population density rank	217th
Gdp ppp year	2011
Gdp ppp	$2.376 trillion
Gdp ppp rank	6th
Gdp ppp per capita	$16,687
Gdp nominal	$1.884 trillion
Gdp nominal rank	9th
Gdp nominal year	2011
Gdp nominal per capita	$13,235
Gini	42.3 (83rd)
Gini year	2008
Hdi year	2011
Hdi	0.755
Hdi rank	66th
Hdi category	high
Currency	Ruble
Currency code	RUB
Utc offset	+3 to +12 (exc. +5)
Date format	dd.mm.yyyy
Drives on	right
Cctld	.ru, .su, .рф
Calling code	+7 }}

Russia or (), officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation (), is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both via Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It also has maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, and the United States by the Bering Strait. At , Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is also the eighth most populous nation with 143 million people. It extends across the whole of northern Asia and 40% of Europe, spanning nine time zones and incorporating a wide range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources and is the number one natural gas producer as well as number one oil producer globally. Russia has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's fresh water.

The nation's history began with that of the East Slavs, who emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, the medieval state of Rus arose in the 9th century. In 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus' ultimately disintegrated into a number of smaller states; most of the Rus' lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion and became tributaries of the nomadic Golden Horde. The Grand Duchy of Moscow gradually reunified the surrounding Russian principalities, achieved independence from the Golden Horde, and came to dominate the cultural and political legacy of Kievan Rus'. By the 18th century, the nation had greatly expanded through conquest, annexation, and exploration to become the Russian Empire, which was the third largest empire in history, stretching from Poland in Europe to Alaska in North America.

Following the Russian Revolution, Russia became the largest and leading constituent of the Soviet Union, the world's first constitutionally socialist state and a recognized superpower, which played a decisive role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the world's first human spaceflight. The Russian Federation was founded following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, but is recognized as the continuing legal personality of the Soviet state.

Russia has the world's 11th largest economy by nominal GDP or the 6th largest by purchasing power parity, with the 5th largest nominal military budget. It is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Russia is a great power and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a member of the G8, G20, the Council of Europe, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Eurasian Economic Community, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and is the leading member of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

==Etymology==

The name ''Russia'' is derived from Rus, a medieval state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this proper name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants "Русская Земля" (russkaya zemlya) which could be translated as "Russian Land" or "Land of Rus'". In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus' by modern historiography. The name ''Rus''' itself comes from Rus people, a group of Varangians (possibly Swedish Vikings) who founded the state of Rus (Русь).

An old Latin version of the name Rus' was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus' that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия (Rossiya), comes from the Greek version of Rus', nowadays spelled Ρωσία [rosˈia] instead of Ρωσσία, which was the denomination of Kievan Rus in the Byzantine Empire.

History

Early periods

One of the first modern human bones of the age of 35 000 years was found in Russia, in Kostenki on the Don River banks. The only remains of the Denisova hominin that lived about 41,000 years ago were discovered in Denisova Cave (South Siberia).

In prehistoric times the vast steppes of Southern Russia were home to tribes of nomadic pastoralists. Remnants of these steppe civilizations were discovered in such places as Ipatovo, Sintashta, Arkaim, and Pazyryk, which bear the earliest known traces of mounted warfare, a key feature in nomadic way of life.

In classical antiquity, the Pontic Steppe was known as Scythia. Since the 8th century BC, Ancient Greek traders brought their civilization to the trade emporiums in Tanais and Phanagoria. In 3rd – 4th centuries AD a semi-legendary Gothic kingdom of Oium existed in Southern Russia till it was overrun by Huns. Between the 3rd and 6th centuries AD, the Bosporan Kingdom, a Hellenistic polity which succeeded the Greek colonies, was also overwhelmed by nomadic invasions led by warlike tribes, such as the Huns and Eurasian Avars. A Turkic people, the Khazars, ruled the lower Volga basin steppes between the Caspian and Black Seas until the 8th century.

The ancestors of modern Russians are the Slavic tribes, whose original home is thought by some scholars to have been the wooded areas of the Pinsk Marshes. The East Slavs gradually settled Western Russia in two waves: one moving from Kiev toward present-day Suzdal and Murom and another from Polotsk toward Novgorod and Rostov. From the 7th century onwards, the East Slavs constituted the bulk of the population in Western Russia and slowly but peacefully assimilated the native Finno-Ugric peoples, including the Merya, the Muromians, and the Meshchera.

Kievan Rus

The establishment of the first East Slavic states in the 9th century coincided with the arrival of ''Varangians'', the traders, warriors and settlers from the Baltic Sea region. Primarily they were Vikings of Scandinavian origin, who ventured along the waterways extending from the eastern Baltic to the Black and Caspian Seas. According to the Primary Chronicle, a Varangian from Rus' people, named Rurik, was elected ruler of Novgorod in 862. In 882 his successor Oleg, ventured south and conquered Kiev, which had been previously paying tribute to the Khazars; so the state of Kievan Rus' started. Oleg, Rurik's son Igor and Igor's son Sviatoslav subsequently subdued all local East Slavic tribes to Kievan rule, destroyed the Khazar khaganate and launched several military expeditions to Byzantium and Persia.

In the 10th to 11th centuries Kievan Rus' became one of the largest and most prosperous states in Europe. The reigns of Vladimir the Great (980–1015) and his son Yaroslav I the Wise (1019–1054) constitute the Golden Age of Kiev, which saw the acceptance of Orthodox Christianity from Byzantium and the creation of the first East Slavic written legal code, the ''Russkaya Pravda''.

In the 11th and 12th centuries, constant incursions by nomadic Turkic tribes, such as the Kipchaks and the Pechenegs, caused a massive migration of Slavic populations to the safer, heavily forested regions of the north, particularly to the area known as Zalesye.

The age of feudalism and decentralization had come, marked by constant in-fighting between members of the Rurik Dynasty that ruled Kievan Rus' collectively. Kiev's dominance waned, to the benefit of Vladimir-Suzdal in the north-east, Novgorod Republic in the north-west and Galicia-Volhynia in the south-west.

Ultimately Kievan Rus' disintegrated, with the final blow being the Mongol invasion of 1237–40, that resulted in the destruction of Kiev and the death of about half the population of Rus'. The invaders, later known as Tatars, formed the state of the Golden Horde, which pillaged the Russian principalities and ruled the southern and central expanses of Russia for over three centuries.

Galicia-Volhynia was eventually assimilated by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, while the Mongol-dominated Vladimir-Suzdal and Novgorod Republic, two regions on the periphery of Kiev, established the basis for the modern Russian nation. The Novgorod together with Pskov retained some degree of autonomy during the time of the Mongol yoke and were largely spared the atrocities that affected the rest of the country. Led by Prince Alexander Nevsky, Novgorodians repelled the invading Swedes in the Battle of the Neva in 1240, as well as the Germanic crusaders in the Battle of the Ice in 1242, breaking their attempts to colonize the Northern Rus'.

Grand Duchy of Moscow

The most powerful successor state to Kievan Rus' was the Grand Duchy of Moscow ("Moscovy" in the Western chronicles), initially a part of Vladimir-Suzdal. While still under the domain of the Mongol-Tatars and with their connivance, Moscow began to assert its influence in the Central Rus' in the early 14th century, gradually becoming the main leading force in the process of the Rus' lands' reunification and expansion of Russia.

Those were hard times, with frequent Mongol-Tatar raids and agriculture suffering from the beginning of the Little Ice Age. Like in the rest of Europe, plagues hit Russia somewhere once every five or six years from 1350 to 1490. However, due to the lower population density and better hygiene (widespread practicing of banya, the wet steam bath), the population loss caused by plagues was not so severe as in the Western Europe, and the pre-Plague populations were reached in Russia as early as 1500.

Led by Prince Dmitry Donskoy of Moscow and helped by the Russian Orthodox Church, the united army of Russian principalities inflicted a milestone defeat on the Mongol-Tatars in the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380. Moscow gradually absorbed the surrounding principalities, including the formerly strong rivals, such as Tver and Novgorod.

Ivan III (''the Great'') finally threw off the control of the Golden Horde, consolidated the whole of Central and Northern Rus' under Moscow's dominion, and was the first to take the title "Grand Duke of all the Russias". After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Moscow claimed succession to the legacy of the Eastern Roman Empire. Ivan III married Sophia Palaiologina, the niece of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI, and made the Byzantine double-headed eagle his own, and eventually Russian, coat-of-arms.

Tsardom of Russia

In development of the Third Rome ideas, the Grand Duke Ivan IV (the "Awesome" or "the Terrible") was officially crowned the first Tsar ("Caesar") of Russia in 1547. The Tsar promulgated a new code of laws (Sudebnik of 1550), established the first Russian feudal representative body (Zemsky Sobor) and introduced local self-management into the rural regions.

During his long reign, Ivan IV nearly doubled the already large Russian territory by annexing the three Tatar khanates (parts of disintegrated Golden Horde): Kazan and Astrakhan along the Volga River, and Sibirean Khanate in South Western Siberia. Thus by the end of the 16th century Russia was transformed into a multiethnic, multiconfessional and transcontinental state.

However, the Tsardom was weakened by the long and unsuccessful Livonian War against the coalition of Poland, Lithuania, and Sweden for access to the Baltic coast and sea trade. At the same time the Tatars of the Crimean Khanate, the only remaining successor to the Golden Horde, continued to raid Southern Russia. In effort to restore the Volga khanates, Crimeans and their Ottoman allies invaded central Russia and were even able to burn down parts of Moscow in 1571. But next year the large invading army was thoroughly defeated by Russians in the Battle of Molodi, forever eliminating the threat of the Ottoman-Crimean expansion into Russia. The raids of Crimeans, however, didn't cease until the late 17th century, though the construction of new fortification lines across Southern Russia, such as the Great Abatis Line, constantly narrowed the area accessible to incursions.

The death of Ivan's sons marked the end of the ancient Rurik Dynasty in 1598, and in combination with the famine of 1601–03 led to the civil war, the rule of pretenders and foreign intervention during the Time of Troubles in the early 17th century. Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth occupied parts of Russia, including Moscow. In 1612 the Poles were forced to retreat by the Russian volunteer corps, led by two national heroes, merchant Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky. The Romanov Dynasty acceded the throne in 1613 by the decision of Zemsky Sobor, and the country started its gradual recovery from the crisis.

Russia continued its territorial growth through the 17th century, which was the age of Cossacks. Cossacks were warriors organized into military communities, resembling pirates and pioneers of the New World. In 1648, the peasants of Ukraine joined the Zaporozhian Cossacks in rebellion against Poland-Lithuania during the Khmelnytsky Uprising, because of the social and religious oppression they suffered under Polish rule. In 1654 the Ukrainian leader, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, offered to place Ukraine under the protection of the Russian Tsar, Aleksey I. Aleksey's acceptance of this offer led to another Russo-Polish War (1654–1667). Finally, Ukraine was split along the Dnieper River, leaving the western part (or Right-bank Ukraine) under Polish rule and eastern part (Left-bank Ukraine and Kiev) under Russian. Later, in 1670–71 the Don Cossacks led by Stenka Razin initiated a major uprising in the Volga region, but the Tsar's troops were successful in defeating the rebels.

In the east, the rapid Russian exploration and colonisation of the huge territories of Siberia was led mostly by Cossacks hunting for valuable furs and ivory. Russian explorers pushed eastward primarily along the Siberian River Routes, and by the mid-17th century there were Russian settlements in Eastern Siberia, on the Chukchi Peninsula, along the Amur River, and on the Pacific coast. In 1648 the Bering Strait between Asia and North America was passed for the first time by Fedot Popov and Semyon Dezhnyov.

Imperial Russia

Under Peter the Great, Russia was proclaimed an Empire in 1721 and became recognized as a world power. Ruling from 1682 to 1725, Peter defeated Sweden in the Great Northern War, forcing it to cede West Karelia and Ingria (two regions lost by Russia in the Time of Troubles), as well as Estland and Livland, securing Russia's access to the sea and sea trade. On the Baltic Sea Peter founded a new capital called Saint Petersburg, later known as Russia's ''Window to Europe''. Peter the Great's reforms brought considerable Western European cultural influences to Russia.

The reign of Peter I's daughter Elisabeth in 1741–62 saw Russia's participation in the Seven Years War (1756–63). During this conflict Russia annexed Eastern Prussia for a while and even took Berlin. However, upon Elisabeth's death, all these conquests were returned to Kingdom of Prussia by pro-Prussian Peter III of Russia.

Catherine II (''the Great''), who ruled in 1762–96, presided over the Age of Russian Enlightenment. She extended Russian political control over the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and incorporated most of its territories into Russia during the Partitions of Poland, pushing the Russian frontier westward into Central Europe. In the south, after successful Russo-Turkish Wars against the Ottoman Empire, Catherine advanced Russia's boundary to the Black Sea, defeating the Crimean Khanate. As a result of victories over the Ottomans, by the early 19th century Russia also made significant territorial gains in Transcaucasia. This continued with Alexander I's (1801–25) wresting of Finland from the weakened kingdom of Sweden in 1809 and of Bessarabia from the Ottomans in 1812. At the same time Russians colonized Alaska and even founded settlements in California, like Fort Ross.

In 1803–06 the first Russian circumnavigation was made, later followed by other notable Russian sea exploration voyages. In 1820 a Russian expedition discovered the continent of Antarctica.

In alliances with various European countries, Russia fought against Napoleon's France. The French invasion of Russia at the height of Napoleon's power in 1812 failed miserably as the obstinate resistance in combination with the bitterly cold Russian winter led to a disastrous defeat of invaders, in which more than 95% of the pan-European Grande Armée perished. Led by Mikhail Kutuzov and Barclay de Tolly, the Russian army ousted Napoleon from the country and drove through Europe in the war of the Sixth Coalition, finally entering Paris. Alexander I headed Russia's delegation at the Congress of Vienna that defined the map of post-Napoleonic Europe.

The officers of the Napoleonic Wars brought ideas of liberalism back to Russia with them and attempted to curtail the tsar's powers during the abortive Decembrist revolt of 1825. At the end of the conservative reign of Nicolas I (1825–55) a zenith period of Russia's power and influence in Europe was disrupted by defeat in the Crimean War. Between 1847 and 1851 a massive wave of Asiatic cholera swept over Russia, claiming about one million lives.

Nicholas's successor Alexander II (1855–81) enacted significant changes in the country, including the emancipation reform of 1861. These ''Great Reforms'' spurred industrialization and modernized the Russian army, which had successfully liberated Bulgaria from Ottoman rule in 1877–78 Russo-Turkish War.

The late 19th century saw the rise of various socialist movements in Russia. Alexander II was killed in 1881 by revolutionary terrorists, and the reign of his son Alexander III (1881–94) was less liberal but more peaceful. The last Russian Emperor, Nicholas II (1894–1917), was unable to prevent the events of the Russian Revolution of 1905, triggered by the unsuccessful Russo-Japanese War and the demonstration incident known as Bloody Sunday. The uprising was put down, but the government was forced to concede major reforms, including granting the freedoms of speech and assembly, the legalization of political parties, and the creation of an elected legislative body, the State Duma of the Russian Empire. Migration to Siberia increased rapidly in the early 20th century, particularly during the Stolypin agrarian reform. Between 1906 and 1914 more than four million settlers arrived in that region.

In 1914 Russia entered World War I in response to Austria's declaration of war on Russia's ally Serbia, and fought across multiple fronts while isolated from its Triple Entente allies. In 1916 the Brusilov Offensive of the Russian Army almost completely destroyed the military of Austria-Hungary. However, the already-existing public distrust of the regime was deepened by the rising costs of war, high casualties, and rumors of corruption and treason. All this formed the climate for the Russian Revolution of 1917, carried out in two major acts.

The February Revolution forced Nicholas II to abdicate; he and his family were imprisoned and later executed during the Russian Civil War. The monarchy was replaced by a shaky coalition of political parties that declared itself the Provisional Government. An alternative socialist establishment existed alongside, the Petrograd Soviet, wielding power through the democratically elected councils of workers and peasants, called ''Soviets''. The rule of the new authorities only aggravated the crisis in the country, instead of resolving it. Eventually, the October Revolution, led by Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Provisional Government and created the world’s first socialist state.

Soviet Russia

Following the October Revolution, a civil war broke out between the anti-communist White movement and the new regime with its Red Army. Russia lost its Ukrainian, Polish, Baltic, and Finnish territories by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that concluded hostilities with the Central Powers in World War I. The Allied powers launched an unsuccessful military intervention in support of anti-Communist forces, while both the Bolsheviks and White movement carried out campaigns of deportations and executions against each other, known respectively as the Red Terror and White Terror. By the end of the civil war the Russian economy and infrastructure were heavily damaged. Millions became White émigrés, and the Povolzhye famine claimed up to 5 million victims.

The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (called ''Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic'' at the time) together with three other Soviet republics formed the Soviet Union, or USSR, on 30 December 1922. Out of the 15 republics of the USSR, the Russian SFSR was the largest in terms of size, and making up over half of the total USSR population, dominated the union for its entire 69-year history.

Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin, an elected General Secretary of the Communist Party, managed to put down all opposition groups within the party and consolidate much power in his hands. Leon Trotsky, the main proponent of the world revolution, was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929, and Stalin's idea of socialism in one country became the primary line. The continued internal struggle in the Bolshevik party culminated in the Great Purge, a period of mass repressions in 1937–38, in which hundreds of thousands of people were executed, including military leaders convicted in coup d'état plots.

The government launched a planned economy, industrialisation of the largely rural country, and collectivization of its agriculture. During this period of rapid economical and social changes, millions of people were sent to penal labor camps, including many political convicts, and millions were deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union. The transitional disorganisation of the country's agriculture, combined with the harsh state policies and a drought, led to the famine of 1932–33. However, though with a heavy price, the Soviet Union was transformed from a largely agrarian economy to a major industrial powerhouse in a short span of time.

The Appeasement policy of Great Britain and France towards Adolf Hitler's annexations of Ruhr, Austria and finally of Czechoslovakia enlarged the might of Nazi Germany and put a threat of war to the Soviet Union. Around the same time the German Reich allied with the Empire of Japan, a rival of the USSR in the Far East and an open enemy in the Soviet–Japanese Border Wars in 1938–39.

In August 1939, after another failure of attempts to establish a counter-Nazism alliance with Britain and France, the Soviet government agreed to conclude the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Germany, pledging non-aggression between the two countries and dividing their spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. While Hitler conquered Poland, France and other countries acting on single front at the start of the World War II, the USSR was able to build up its military and regain some of the former territories of the Russian Empire during the Soviet invasion of Poland and the Winter War.

On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany broke the non-aggression treaty and invaded the Soviet Union with the largest and most powerful invasion force in human history, opening the largest theater of the Second World War. Although the German army had considerable success early on, their onslaught was halted in the Battle of Moscow. Subsequently the Germans were dealt major defeats first at the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942–43, and then in the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943. Another German failure was the Siege of Leningrad, in which the city was fully blockaded on land between 1941–44 by German and Finnish forces, suffering starvation and more than a million deaths, but never surrendering. Under Stalin's administration and the leadership of such commanders as Georgy Zhukov and Konstantin Rokossovsky, Soviet forces drove through Eastern Europe in 1944–45 and captured Berlin in May 1945. In August 1945 the Soviet Army ousted Japanese from China's Manchukuo and North Korea, contributing to the allied victory over Japan.

The 1941–45 period of World War II is known in Russia as the ''Great Patriotic War''. In this conflict, which included many of the most lethal battle operations in human history, Soviet military and civilian deaths were 10.6 million and 15.9 million respectively, accounting for about a third of all World War II casualties. The full demographic loss to the Soviet peoples was even greater. The Soviet economy and infrastructure suffered massive devastation but the Soviet Union emerged as an acknowledged superpower.

The Red Army occupied Eastern Europe after the war, including East Germany. Dependent socialist governments were installed in the Eastern bloc satellite states. Becoming the world's second nuclear weapons power, the USSR established the Warsaw Pact alliance and entered into a struggle for global dominance, known as the Cold War, with the United States and NATO. The Soviet Union exported its Communist ideology to newly formed People's Republic of China and North Korea, and later into Cuba and many other countries. Significant amounts of the Soviet resources were allocated in aid to the other socialist states.

After Stalin's death and a short period of collective rule, new leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced the cult of personality of Stalin and launched the policy of de-Stalinization. Penal labor system was reformed and many prisoners were released and rehabilitated (lots of them posthumously). The general easement of repressive policies became known later as the Khrushchev thaw. At the same time, tensions with the United States heightened when the two rivals clashed over the deployment of the U.S. Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Soviet missiles in Cuba.

In 1957 the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, ''Sputnik 1'', thus starting the Space Age. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth aboard ''Vostok 1'' manned spacecraft on 12 April 1961.

Following the ousting of voluntarist and erratic Khrushchev in 1964, another period of collective rule ensued, until Leonid Brezhnev became the leader. The era of 1970s and the early 1980s was designated later as the Era of Stagnation, a period when the economic growth slowed and social policies became static. The Kosygin reform, aimed into partial decentralization of the Soviet economy and shifting the emphasis from heavy industry and weapons to light industry and consumer goods, was stifled by the conservative Communist leadership.

In 1979 the Soviet forces entered Afghanistan at the request of its communist government. The occupation drained economic resources and dragged on without achieving meaningful political results. Ultimately the Soviet Army was withdrawn from Afghanistan in 1989 because of international opposition, persistent anti-Soviet guerilla warfare (enhanced by the U.S.), and a lack of support from Soviet citizens.

From 1985 onwards, the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the policies of ''glasnost'' (openness) and ''perestroika'' (restructuring) in an attempt to modernize the country and make it more democratic. However, this led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements. Prior to 1991, the Soviet economy was the second largest in the world, but during its last years it was afflicted by shortages of goods in grocery stores, huge budget deficits, and explosive growth in money supply leading to inflation.

In August 1991, a coup d'état attempt by members of Gorbachev's government, directed against Gorbachev and aimed at preserving the Soviet Union, instead led to the end of socialist rule. The USSR was dissolved into 15 post-Soviet states in December 1991.

Russian Federation

Boris Yeltsin was elected the President of Russia in June 1991, in the first direct presidential election in Russian history. During and after the Soviet disintegration, wide-ranging reforms including privatisation and market and trade liberalization were being undertaken, including the radical changes along the lines of "shock therapy" as recommended by the United States and International Monetary Fund. All this resulted in a major economy crisis, characterized by 50% decline of both GDP and industrial output between 1990–95.

The privatization largely shifted control of enterprises from state agencies to individuals with inside connections in the government system. Many of the newly rich businesspeople took billions in cash and assets outside of the country in an enormous capital flight. The depression of state and economy led to the collapse of social services; the birth rate plummeted while the death rate skyrocketed. Millions plunged into poverty, from 1.5% level of poverty in the late Soviet era, to 39–49% by mid-1993. The 1990s saw extreme corruption and lawlessness, rise of criminal gangs and violent crime.

The 1990s were plagued by armed conflicts in the Northern Caucasus, both local ethnic skirmishes and separatist Islamist insurrections. Since the Chechen separatists had declared independence in the early 1990s, an intermittent guerrilla war was fought between the rebel groups and the Russian military. Terrorist attacks against civilians carried out by separatists, most notably the Moscow theater hostage crisis and Beslan school siege, caused hundreds of deaths and drew worldwide attention.

Russia took up the responsibility for settling the USSR's external debts, even though its population made up just half of the population of the USSR at the time of its dissolution. High budget deficits caused the 1998 Russian financial crisis and resulted in further GDP decline.

On 31 December 1999 President Yeltsin resigned, handing the post to the recently appointed Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, who then won the 2000 presidential election. Putin suppressed the Chechen insurgency, although sporadic violence still occurs throughout the Northern Caucasus. High oil prices and initially weak currency followed by increasing domestic demand, consumption and investments has helped the economy grow for nine straight years, improving the standard of living and increasing Russia's influence on the world stage. While many reforms made during the Putin presidency have been generally criticized by Western nations as un-democratic, Putin's leadership over the return of order, stability, and progress has won him widespread popularity in Russia.

On 2 March 2008, Dmitry Medvedev was elected President of Russia, whilst Putin became Prime Minister.

Politics

According to the Constitution of Russia, the country is a federation and semi-presidential republic, wherein the President is the head of state and the Prime Minister is the head of government. The Russian Federation is fundamentally structured as a multi-party representative democracy, with the federal government composed of three branches:

Legislative: The bicameral Federal Assembly, made up of the 450-member State Duma and the 166-member Federation Council, adopts federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse and the power of impeachment of the President.

Executive: The President is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills before they become law, and appoints the Cabinet and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.

Judiciary: The Constitutional Court, Supreme Court, Supreme Court of Arbitration and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the Federation Council on the recommendation of the President, interpret laws and can overturn laws they deem unconstitutional.

The president is elected by popular vote for a six-year term (eligible for a second term, but not for a third consecutive term). Ministries of the government are composed of the Premier and his deputies, ministers, and selected other individuals; all are appointed by the President on the recommendation of the Prime Minister (whereas the appointment of the latter requires the consent of the State Duma). Leading political parties in Russia include United Russia, the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, and Fair Russia.

Western observers have raised questions as to how much of Russia's political system corresponds to Western liberal democratic ideals. Academics have often complained about the difficulty of classifying Russia's political system. According Steve White, during the Putin presidency Russia made clear that it had no intention of establishing a "second edition" of the American or British political system, but rather a system that was closer to Russia's own traditions and circumstances. Richard Sakwa wrote that the Russian government is undoubtedly considered legitimate by the great majority of the Russian people and seeks to deliver a set of public goods without appealing to extra-democratic logic to achieve them, but whether the system was becoming an illiberal or delegative democracy was more contentious.

Foreign relations

The Russian Federation is recognized in international law as successor state of the former Soviet Union. Russia continues to implement the international commitments of the USSR, and has assumed the USSR's permanent seat in the UN Security Council, membership in other international organisations, the rights and obligations under international treaties, and property and debts. Russia has a multifaceted foreign policy. As of 2009, it maintains diplomatic relations with 191 countries and has 144 embassies. The foreign policy is determined by the President and implemented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia.

As the successor to a former superpower, Russia's geopolitical status has been often debated, particularly in relation to unipolar and multipolar views on the global political system. While Russia is commonly accepted to be a great power, in recent years it has been characterized by a number of world leaders, scholars, commentators and politicians as a currently reinstating or potential superpower.

An important aspect of Russia's relations with the West is the criticism of Russia's political system and human rights management by the Western governments, the mass media and the leading democracy and human rights watchdogs. In particular, such organisations as the Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch consider Russia to have not enough democratic attributes and to allow few political rights and civil liberties to its citizens. Freedom House, an international organisation funded by the United States, ranks Russia as "not free", citing "carefully engineered elections" and "absence" of debate. Russian authorities dismiss these claims and especially criticise Freedom House. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has called the 2006 ''Freedom in the World'' report "prefabricated", stating that the human rights issues have been turned into a political weapon in particular by the United States. The ministry also claims that such organisations as Freedom House and Human Rights Watch use the same scheme of voluntary extrapolation of ''"isolated facts that of course can be found in any country"'' into ''"dominant tendencies"''.

As one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Russia plays a major role in maintaining international peace and security. The country participates in the Quartet on the Middle East and the Six-party talks with North Korea. Russia is a member of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations, the Council of Europe, OSCE and APEC. Russia usually takes a leading role in regional organisations such as the CIS, EurAsEC, CSTO, and the SCO. Former President Vladimir Putin had advocated a strategic partnership with close integration in various dimensions including establishment of EU-Russia Common Spaces. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia has developed a friendlier, albeit volatile relationship with NATO. The NATO-Russia Council was established in 2002 to allow the 26 Allies and Russia to work together as equal partners to pursue opportunities for joint collaboration.

Russia maintains strong and positive relations with other BRIC countries. In recent years, the country has sought to strengthen ties especially with the People's Republic of China by signing the Treaty of Friendship as well as building the Trans-Siberian oil pipeline geared toward growing Chinese energy needs.

Military

The Russian military is divided into the Ground Forces, Navy, and Air Force. There are also three independent arms of service: Strategic Rocket Forces, Military Space Forces, and the Airborne Troops. In 2006, the military had 1.037 million personnel on active duty. It is mandatory for all male citizens aged 18–27 to be drafted for a year of service in Armed Forces.

Russia has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. It has the second largest fleet of ballistic missile submarines and is the only country apart from the U.S. with a modern strategic bomber force. Russia's tank force is the largest in the world, its surface navy and air force are among the largest ones.

The country has a large and fully indigenous arms industry, producing most of its own military equipment with only few types of weapons imported. Russia is the world's top supplier of arms, a spot it has held since 2001, accounting for around 30% of worldwide weapons sales and exporting weapons to about 80 countries.

Official government military spending for 2008 was $58 billion, the fifth largest in the world, though various sources have estimated Russia’s military expenditures to be considerably higher. Currently, a major equipment upgrade worth about $200 billion is on its way between 2006 and 2015.

Political divisions

;Federal subjects The Russian Federation comprises 83 federal subjects. These subjects have equal representation—two delegates each—in the Federation Council. However, they differ in the degree of autonomy they enjoy.

46 oblasts (provinces): most common type of federal subjects, with federally appointed governor and locally elected legislature.

21 republics: nominally autonomous; each has its own constitution, president or a similar post, and parliament. Republics are allowed to establish their own official language alongside Russian but are represented by the federal government in international affairs. Republics are meant to be home to specific ethnic minorities.

9 krais (territories): essentially the same as oblasts. The "territory" designation is historic, originally given to frontier regions and later also to the administrative divisions that comprised autonomous okrugs or autonomous oblasts.

4 autonomous okrugs (autonomous districts): originally autonomous entities within oblasts and krais created for ethnic minorities, their status was elevated to that of federal subjects in the 1990s. With the exception of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, all autonomous okrugs are still administratively subordinated to a krai or an oblast of which they are a part.

1 autonomous oblast (the Jewish Autonomous Oblast): historically, autonomous oblasts were administrative units subordinated to krais. In 1990, all of them except for the Jewish AO were elevated in status to that of a republic.

2 federal cities (Moscow and St. Petersburg): major cities that function as separate regions.

;Federal districts Federal subjects are grouped into eight federal districts, each administered by an envoy appointed by the President of Russia. Unlike the federal subjects, the federal districts are not a subnational level of government, but are a level of administration of the federal government. Federal districts' envoys serve as liaisons between the federal subjects and the federal government and are primarily responsible for overseeing the compliance of the federal subjects with the federal laws.

Geography

Russia is the largest country in the world; its total area is . There are 23 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Russia, 40 UNESCO biosphere reserves, 40 national parks and 101 nature reserves. It lies between latitudes 41° and 82° N, and longitudes 19° E and 169° W.

Russia has a wide natural resource base, including major deposits of timber, petroleum, natural gas, coal, ores and other mineral resources.

Topography

The two widest separated points in Russia are about apart along a geodesic line. These points are: the boundary with Poland on a long Vistula Spit separating the Gdańsk Bay from the Vistula Lagoon; and the farthest southeast of the Kuril Islands. The points which are furthest separated in longitude are apart along a geodesic line. These points are: in the west, the same spit; in the east, the Big Diomede Island. The Russian Federation spans 9 time zones.

Most of Russia consists of vast stretches of plains that are predominantly steppe to the south and heavily forested to the north, with tundra along the northern coast. Russia possesses 10% of the world's arable land. Mountain ranges are found along the southern borders, such as the Caucasus (containing Mount Elbrus, which at is the highest point in both Russia and Europe) and the Altai (containing Mount Belukha, which at the is the highest point of Siberia outside of the Russian Far East); and in the eastern parts, such as the Verkhoyansk Range or the volcanoes of Kamchatka Peninsula (containing Klyuchevskaya Sopka, which at the is the highest active volcano in Eurasia as well as the highest point of Asian Russia). The Ural Mountains, rich in mineral resources, form a north-south range that divides Europe and Asia.

Russia has an extensive coastline of over along the Arctic and Pacific Oceans, as well as along the Baltic Sea, Sea of Azov, Black Sea and Caspian Sea. The Barents Sea, White Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, East Siberian Sea, Chukchi Sea, Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk, and the Sea of Japan are linked to Russia via the Arctic and Pacific. Russia's major islands and archipelagos include Novaya Zemlya, the Franz Josef Land, the Severnaya Zemlya, the New Siberian Islands, Wrangel Island, the Kuril Islands, and Sakhalin. The Diomede Islands (one controlled by Russia, the other by the U.S.) are just apart, and Kunashir Island is about from Hokkaidō, Japan.

Russia has thousands of rivers and inland bodies of water providing it with one of the world's largest surface water resources. The largest and most prominent of Russia's bodies of fresh water is Lake Baikal, the world's deepest, purest, oldest and most capacious fresh water lake. Baikal alone contains over one fifth of the world's fresh surface water. Other major lakes include Ladoga and Onega, two of the largest lakes in Europe. Russia is second only to Brazil in volume of the total renewable water resources. Of the country's 100,000 rivers, the Volga is the most famous, not only because it is the longest river in Europe, but also because of its major role in Russian history. The Siberian rivers Ob, Yenisey, Lena and Amur are among the very longest rivers in the world.

Climate

The enormous size of Russia and the remoteness of many areas from the sea result in the dominance of the humid continental climate, which is prevalent in all parts of the country except for the tundra and the extreme southeast. Mountains in the south obstruct the flow of warm air masses from the Indian Ocean, while the plain of the west and north makes the country open to Arctic and Atlantic influences.

Most of Northern European Russia and Siberia has a subarctic climate, with extremely severe winters in the inner regions of Northeast Siberia (mostly the Sakha Republic, where the Northern Pole of Cold is located with the record low temperature of ), and more moderate elsewhere. The strip of land along the shore of the Arctic Ocean, as well as the Russian Arctic islands, have a polar climate.

The coastal part of Krasnodar Krai on the Black Sea, most notably in Sochi, possesses a humid subtropical climate with mild and wet winters. Winter is dry compared to summer in many regions of East Siberia and the Far East, while other parts of the country experience more even precipitation across seasons. Winter precipitation in most parts of the country usually falls as snow. The region along the Lower Volga and Caspian Sea coast, as well as some areas of southernmost Siberia, possesses a semi-arid climate.

Throughout much of the territory there are only two distinct seasons—winter and summer; spring and autumn are usually brief periods of change between extremely low temperatures and extremely high. The coldest month is January (February on the coastline), the warmest usually is July. Great ranges of temperature are typical. In winter, temperatures get colder both from south to north and from west to east. Summers can be quite hot, even in Siberia. The continental interiors are the driest areas.

Biodiversity

From north to south the East European Plain, also known as Russian Plain, is clad sequentially in Arctic tundra, coniferous forest (taiga), mixed and broad-leaf forests, grassland (steppe), and semi-desert (fringing the Caspian Sea), as the changes in vegetation reflect the changes in climate. Siberia supports a similar sequence but is largely taiga. Russia has the world's largest forest reserves, known as ''"the lungs of Europe"'', second only to the Amazon Rainforest in the amount of carbon dioxide it absorbs.

There are 266 mammal species and 780 bird species in Russia. A total of 415 animal species have been included in the Red Data Book of the Russian Federation as of 1997 and are now protected.

Economy

Russia has a market economy with enormous natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas. It has the 10th largest economy in the world by nominal GDP and the 6th largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). Since the turn of the 21st century, higher domestic consumption and greater political stability have bolstered economic growth in Russia. The country ended 2008 with its ninth straight year of growth, averaging 7% annually between 2000 and 2008. Real GDP per capita, PPP (current international $) was 19,840 in 2010. Growth was primarily driven by non-traded services and goods for the domestic market, as opposed to oil or mineral extraction and exports. The average nominal salary in Russia was $640 per month in early 2008, up from $80 in 2000. In the end of 2010 the average nominal monthly wages reached 21,192 RUR (or $750 USD), while tax on the income of individuals is payable at the rate of 13% on most incomes. Approximately 13.7% of Russians lived below the national poverty line in 2010, significantly down from 40% in 1998 at the worst point of the post-Soviet collapse. Unemployment in Russia was at 6% in 2007, down from about 12.4% in 1999. The middle class has grown from just 8 million persons in 2000 to 55 million persons in 2006.

Oil, natural gas, metals, and timber account for more than 80% of Russian exports abroad. Since 2003, the exports of natural resources started decreasing in economic importance as the internal market strengthened considerably. Despite higher energy prices, oil and gas only contribute to 5.7% of Russia's GDP and the government predicts this will be 3.7% by 2011. Oil export earnings allowed Russia to increase its foreign reserves from $12 billion in 1999 to $597.3 billion on 1 August 2008, the third largest foreign exchange reserves in the world. The macroeconomic policy under Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin was prudent and sound, with excess income being stored in the Stabilization Fund of Russia. In 2006, Russia repaid most of its formerly massive debts, leaving it with one of the lowest foreign debts among major economies. The Stabilization Fund helped Russia to come out out of the global financial crisis in a much better state than many experts had expected.

A simpler, more streamlined tax code adopted in 2001 reduced the tax burden on people and dramatically increased state revenue. Russia has a flat tax rate of 13 percent. This ranks it as the country with the second most attractive personal tax system for single managers in the world after the United Arab Emirates. According to Bloomberg, Russia is considered well ahead of most other resource-rich countries in its economic development, with a long tradition of education, science, and industry. The country has more higher education graduates than Eurasia.

The economic development of the country has been uneven geographically with the Moscow region contributing a very large share of the country's GDP. Another problem is modernisation of infrastructure, ageing and inadequate after years of being neglected in 1990s; the government has said $1 trillion will be invested in development of infrastructure by 2020.

Agriculture

The total area of cultivated land in Russia was estimated as 1,237,294 km² in 2005, the fourth largest in the world. In 1999–2009, Russia's agriculture demonstrated steady growth, and the country turned from a grain importer to the third largest grain exporter after EU and USA. The production of meat has grown from 6,813,000 tonnes in 1999 to 9,331,000 tonnes in 2008, and continues to grow.

This restoration of agriculture was supported by credit policy of the government, helping both individual farmers and large privatized corporate farms, that once were Soviet kolkhozes and still own the significant share of agricultural land. While large farms concentrate mainly on the production of grain and husbandry products, small private household plots produce most of the country's yield of potatoes, vegetables and fruits.

With access to three of the world's oceans—the Atlantic, Arctic, and Pacific—Russian fishing fleets are a major contributor to the world's fish supply. The total capture of fish was at 3,191,068 tons in 2005. Both exports and imports of fish and sea products grew significantly in the recent years, reaching correspondingly $2,415 and $2,036 millions in 2008.

Energy

In recent years, Russia has frequently been described in the media as an energy superpower. The country has the world's largest natural gas reserves, the 8th largest oil reserves, and the second largest coal reserves. Russia is the world's leading natural gas exporter and leading natural gas producer, while also the largest oil exporter and largest oil producer, though Russia used to interchange the latter status with Saudi Arabia until 2008. On 1 January 2011, Russia said it had begun scheduled oil shipments to China, with the plan to increase the rate up to 300,000 barrels per day in 2011.

Russia is the 3rd largest electricity producer in the world and the 5th largest renewable energy producer, the latter due to the well-developed hydroelectricity production in the country. Large cascades of hydropower plants are built in European Russia along big rivers like Volga. The Asian part of Russia also features a number of major hydropower stations, however the gigantic hydroelectric potential of Siberia and the Russian Far East largely remains unexploited.

Russia was the first country to develop civilian nuclear power and to construct the world's first nuclear power plant. Currently the country is the 4th largest nuclear energy producer, with all nuclear power in Russia being managed by Rosatom State Corporation. The sector is rapidly developing, with an aim of increasing the total share of nuclear energy from current 16.9% to 23% by 2020. The Russian government plans to allocate 127 billion rubles ($5.42 billion) to a federal program dedicated to the next generation of nuclear energy technology. About 1 trillion rubles ($42.7 billion) is to be allocated from the federal budget to nuclear power and industry development before 2015.

Transport

Railway transport in Russia is mostly under the control of the state-run Russian Railways monopoly. The company accounts for over 3.6% of Russia’s GDP and handles 39% of the total freight traffic (including pipelines) and more than 42% of passenger traffic. The total length of common-used railway tracks exceeds 85,500 km, second only to the U.S. Over 44,000 km of tracks are electrified, which is the largest number in the world, and additionally there are more than 30,000 km of industrial non-common carrier lines. Railways in Russia, unlike in the most of the world, use broad gauge of , with the exception of 957 km on Sakhalin Island using narrow gauge of . The most renown railway in Russia is Trans-Siberian (''Transsib''), spanning a record 7 time zones and serving the longest single continuous services in the world, Moscow-Vladivostok (9,259 km, 5,753 mi), Moscow–Pyongyang (10,267 km, 6,380 mi) and Kiev–Vladivostok (11,085 km, 6,888 mi).

As of 2006 Russia had 933,000 km of roads, of which 755,000 were paved. Some of these make up the Russian federal motorway system. With a large land area the road density is the lowest of all the G8 and BRIC countries.

of inland waterways in Russia mostly go by natural rivers or lakes. In the European part of the country the network of channels connects the basins of major rivers. Russia's capital, Moscow, is sometimes called ''"the port of the five seas"'', due to its waterway connections to the Baltic, White, Caspian, Azov and Black Seas.

Major sea ports of Russia include Rostov-on-Don on the Azov Sea, Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, Astrakhan and Makhachkala on the Caspian, Kaliningrad and St Petersburg on the Baltic, Arkhangelsk on the White Sea, Murmansk on the Barents Sea, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean. In 2008 the country owned 1448 merchant marine ships. The world's only fleet of nuclear icebreakers advances the economic exploitation of the Arctic continental shelf of Russia and the development of sea trade through the Northern Sea Route between Europe and East Asia.

By total length of pipelines Russia is second only to the U.S. Currently many new pipeline projects are being realized, including Nord Stream and South Stream natural gas pipelines to Europe, and the Eastern Siberia – Pacific Ocean oil pipeline (ESPO) to the Russian Far East and China.

Russia has 1216 airports, the busiest being Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, and Vnukovo in Moscow, and Pulkovo in St Petersburg. The total length of runways in Russia exceeds 600,000 km.

Typically, major Russian cities have well-developed and diverse systems of public transport, with the most common varieties of exploited vehicles being bus, trolleybus and tram. Seven Russian cities, namely Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Samara, Yekaterinburg and Kazan, have undeground metros, while Volgograd features a metrotram. Total length of metros in Russia is 465.4 km. Moscow Metro and Saint Petersburg Metro are the oldest in Russia, opened in 1935 and 1955 respectively. These two are among the fastest and busiest metro systems in the world, and are famous for rich decorations and unique designs of their stations, which is a common tradition on Russian metros and railways.

Science and technology

Science and technology in Russia blossomed since the Age of Enlightenment, when Peter the Great founded the Russian Academy of Sciences and Saint Petersburg State University, and polymath Mikhail Lomonosov established the Moscow State University, paving the way for a strong native tradition in learning and innovation. In the 19th and 20th centuries the country produced a large number of notable scientists and inventors.

The Russian physics school began with Lomonosov who proposed the law of conservation of matter preceding the energy conservation law. Russian discoveries and inventions in physics include the electric arc, electrodynamical Lenz's law, space groups of crystals, photoelectric cell, Cherenkov radiation, electron paramagnetic resonance, heterotransistors and 3D holography. Lasers and masers were co-invented by Nikolai Basov and Alexander Prokhorov, while the idea of tokamak for controlled nuclear fusion was introduced by Igor Tamm, Andrei Sakharov and Lev Artsimovich, leading eventually the modern international ITER project, where Russia is a party.

Since the time of Nikolay Lobachevsky (a ''Copernicus of Geometry'' who pioneered the non-Euclidean geometry) and a prominent tutor Pafnuty Chebyshev, the Russian mathematical school became one of the most influential in the world. Chebyshev's students included Aleksandr Lyapunov, who founded the modern stability theory, and Andrey Markov who invented the Markov chains. In the 20th century Soviet mathematicians, such as Andrey Kolmogorov, Israel Gelfand and Sergey Sobolev, made major contributions to various areas of mathematics. Nine Soviet/Russian mathematicians were awarded with Fields Medal, a most prestigious award in mathematics. Recently Grigori Perelman was offered the first ever Clay Millennium Prize Problems Award for his final proof of the Poincaré conjecture in 2002.

Russian chemist Dmitry Mendeleev invented the Periodic table, the main framework of modern chemistry. Aleksandr Butlerov was one of the creators of the theory of chemical structure, playing a central role in organic chemistry. Russian biologists include Dmitry Ivanovsky who discovered viruses, Ivan Pavlov who was the first to experiment with the classical conditioning, and Ilya Mechnikov who was a pioneer researcher of the immune system and probiotics.

Many Russian scientists and inventors were émigrés, like Igor Sikorsky, who built the first airliners and modern-type helicopters; Vladimir Zworykin, often called the father of TV; chemist Ilya Prigogine, noted for his work on dissipative structures and complex systems; Nobel Prize-winning economists Simon Kuznets and Wassily Leontief; physicist Georgiy Gamov (an author of the Big Bang theory) and social scientist Pitirim Sorokin. Many foreigners worked in Russia for a long time, like Leonard Euler and Alfred Nobel.

Russian inventions include the arc welding by Nikolay Benardos, further developed by Nikolay Slavyanov, Konstantin Khrenov and other Russian engineers. Gleb Kotelnikov invented the knapsack parachute, while Evgeniy Chertovsky introduced the pressure suit. Alexander Lodygin and Pavel Yablochkov were pioneers of electric lighting, and Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky introduced the first three-phase electric power systems, widely used today. Sergei Lebedev invented the first commercially viable and mass-produced type of synthetic rubber. The first ternary computer, ''Setun'', was developed by Nikolay Brusentsov.

Russian achievements in the field of space technology and space exploration are traced back to Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the father of theoretical austronautics. His works had inspired leading Soviet rocket engineers, such as Sergey Korolyov, Valentin Glushko and many others who contributed to the success of the Soviet space program on early stages of the Space Race and beyond.

In 1957 the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite, ''Sputnik 1'', was launched; in 1961 the first human trip into space was successfully made by Yury Gagarin; and many other Soviet and Russian space exploration records ensued, including the first spacewalk performed by Alexey Leonov, the first space exploration rover ''Lunokhod-1'' and the first space station ''Salyut 1''. Nowadays Russia is the largest satellite launcher and the only provider of transport for space tourism services.

In the 20th century a number of prominent Soviet aerospace engineers, inspired by the fundamental works of Nikolai Zhukovsky, Sergei Chaplygin and others, designed many hundreds of models of military and civilian aircraft and founded a number of ''KBs'' (''Construction Bureaus'') that now constitute the bulk of Russian United Aircraft Corporation. Famous Russian aircrafts include the civilian Tu-series, Su and MiG fighter aircrafts, Ka and Mi-series helicopters; many Russian aircraft models are on the list of most produced aircraft in history.

Famous Russian battle tanks include T-34, the best tank design of World War II, and further tanks of T-series, including the most produced tank in history, T-54/55. The AK-47 and AK-74 by Mikhail Kalashnikov constitute the most widely used type of assault rifle throughout the world—so much so that more AK-type rifles have been manufactured than all other assault rifles combined.

With all these achievements, however, since the late Soviet era Russia was lagging behind the West in a number of technologies, mostly those related to energy conservation and consumer goods production. The crisis of 1990-s led to the drastic reduction of the state support for science and a brain drain migration from Russia.

In the 2000s, on the wave of a new economic boom, the situation in the Russian science and technology has improved, and the government launched a campaign aimed into modernisation and innovation. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev formulated top 5 priorities for the country's technological development: efficient energy use, IT (including both common products and the products combined with space technology), nuclear energy and pharmaceuticals.

Currently Russia has completed the GLONASS satellite navigation system. The country is developing its own fifth-generation jet fighter and constructing the first serial mobile nuclear plant in the world. In 2010, an economy class hybrid electric car project was introduced, called Yo-mobil, that will be mass-produced by ë-Auto, a Russian company that is a joint venture between truck maker Yarovit and the Onexim investment group.

Demographics

|- |Russians||79.8% |- |Tatars||3.8% |- |Ukrainians||2.0% |- |Bashkirs||1.2% |- |Chuvash||1.1% |- |Chechen||0.9% |- |Armenians||0.8% |- |Other/unspecified||10.4% |}

Ethnic Russians comprise 79.8% of the country's population. The Russian Federation is also home to several sizeable minorities. In all, 160 different other ethnic groups and indigenous peoples live within its borders. Though Russia's population is comparatively large, its density is low because of the country's enormous size. Population is densest in European Russia, near the Ural Mountains, and in southwest Siberia. 73% of the population lives in urban areas while 27% in rural ones. The preliminary results of the 2010 Census show a total population of 142,905,208.

Russia's population peaked at 148,689,000 in 1991, just before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It began to experience a rapid decline starting in the mid-90s. The decline has slowed to near stagnation in recent years due to reduced death rates, increased birth rates and increased immigration.

In 2009, Russia recorded annual population growth for the first time in fifteen years, with total growth of 10,500. 279,906 migrants arrived to the Russian Federation the same year, of which 93% came from CIS countries. The number of Russian emigrants steadily declined from 359,000 in 2000 to 32,000 in 2009. There are also an estimated 10 million illegal immigrants from the ex-Soviet states in Russia. Roughly 116 million ethnic Russians live in Russia and about 20 million more live in other former republics of the Soviet Union, mostly in Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

Russia's birth rate is higher than that of most European countries (12.6 births per 1000 people in 2010 compared to the European Union average of 9.90 per 1000), but its death rate is also substantially higher (in 2010, Russia's death rate was 14.3 per 1000 people compared to the EU average of 10.28 per 1000). The Russian Ministry of Health and Social Affairs predicted that by 2011 the death rate would equal the birth rate due to increase in fertility and decline in mortality. The government is implementing a number of programs designed to increase the birth rate and attract more migrants. Monthly government child assistance payments were doubled to US$55, and a one-time payment of US$9,200 was offered to women who had a second child since 2007. In 2009 Russia experienced its highest birth rate since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Largest cities

Language

Russia's 160 ethnic groups speak some 100 languages. According to the 2002 Census, 142.6 million people speak Russian, followed by Tatar with 5.3 million and Ukrainian with 1.8 million speakers. Russian is the only official state language, but the Constitution gives the individual republics the right to make their native language co-official next to Russian.

Despite its wide dispersal, the Russian language is homogeneous throughout Russia. Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken Slavic language. It belongs to the Indo-European language family and is one of the living members of the East Slavic languages; the others being Belarusian and Ukrainian (and possibly Rusyn). Written examples of Old East Slavic (''Old Russian'') are attested from the 10th century onwards.

The Russian Language Center says a quarter of the world's scientific literature is published in Russian. It is also applied as a means of coding and storage of universal knowledge—60–70% of all world information is published in the English and Russian languages. Russian is one of the six official languages of the UN.

Religion

Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism are Russia’s traditional religions, legally a part of Russia's "historical heritage". The Russian Orthodox Church was the country's state religion prior to the Revolution and remains the largest religious body in the country. Estimates of believers widely fluctuate among sources, and some reports put the number of non-believers in Russia at 16–48% of the population.

Easter is the most popular religious festival in Russia, celebrated by more than 90% of all Russian citizens, including large number of non-religious. More than three-fourth of the Russians celebrate Easter by making traditional Easter cakes, coloured eggs and paskha.

Traced back to the Christianization of Kievan Rus' in the 10th century, Russian Orthodoxy is the dominant religion in the country; approximately 100 million citizens consider themselves Russian Orthodox Christians. 95% of the registered Orthodox parishes belong to the Russian Orthodox Church while there are a number of smaller Orthodox Churches. However, the vast majority of Orthodox believers do not attend church on a regular basis. Smaller Christian denominations such as Catholics, Armenian Gregorians, and various Protestant churches also exist.

Estimates of the number of Muslims in Russia range from 7–9 million by the local sources to 15–20 million by Western and Islamic sources. Also there are 3 to 4 million temporary Muslim migrants from the post-Soviet states. Most Muslims live in the Volga-Ural region, as well as in the Caucasus, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Western Siberia.

Buddhism is traditional for three regions of the Russian Federation: Buryatia, Tuva, and Kalmykia. Some residents of the Siberian and Far Eastern regions, such as Yakutia and Chukotka, practice shamanist, pantheistic, and pagan rites, along with the major religions. Induction into religion takes place primarily along ethnic lines. Slavs are overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian, Turkic speakers are predominantly Muslim, and Mongolic peoples are Buddhists.

Health

The Russian Constitution guarantees free, universal health care for all citizens. In practice, however, free health care is partially restricted due to mandatory registration. While Russia has more physicians, hospitals, and health care workers than almost any other country in the world on a per capita basis, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union the health of the Russian population has declined considerably as a result of social, economic, and lifestyle changes; the trend has been reversed only in the recent years, with average life expectancy having increased 2.4 years for males and 1.4 years for females between 2006–09.

As of 2009, the average life expectancy in Russia was 62.77 years for males and 74.67 years for females. The biggest factor contributing to the relatively low male life expectancy for males is a high mortality rate among working-age males from preventable causes (e.g., alcohol poisoning, smoking, traffic accidents, violent crime). As a result of the large gender difference in life expectancy and because of the lasting effect of high casualties in World War II, the gender imbalance remains to this day and there are 0.859 males to every female.

Education

Russia has a free education system guaranteed to all citizens by the Constitution, however an entry to subsidized post-secondary education is highly competitive. As a result of great emphasis on science and technology in education, Russian medical, mathematical, scientific, and aerospace research is generally of a high order.

Since 1990 the 11-year school training has been introduced. Education in state-owned secondary schools is free; ''first'' tertiary (university level) education is free with reservations: a substantial share of students is enrolled for full pay (many state institutions started to open commercial positions in the last years).

In 2004 state spending for education amounted to 3.6% of GDP, or 13% of consolidated state budget. The Government allocates funding to pay the tuition fees within an established quota or number of students for each state institution. In the higher education institutions, students are paid a small stipend and provided with free housing.

The oldest and largest Russian universities are Moscow State University and Saint Petersburg State University. In 2000s, in order to create higher education and research institutions of comparable scale in the Russian regions, the government launched the program of establishing the ''federal universities'', mostly by merging the existing large regional universities and research institutes and providing them with a special funding. These new institutions include Southern Federal University, Siberian Federal University, Kazan Volga Federal University, North-Eastern Federal University and Far Eastern Federal University.

Culture

Folk culture and cuisine

There are over 160 different ethnic groups and indigenous peoples in Russia. Ethnic Russians with their Slavic Orthodox traditions, Tatars and Bashkirs with their Turkic Muslim culture, Buddhist nomadic Buryats and Kalmyks, Shamanistic peoples of the Extreme North and Siberia, highlanders of the Northern Caucasus, Finno-Ugric peoples of the Russian North West and Volga Region all contribute to the cultural diversity of the country.

Handicraft, like Dymkovo toy, khokhloma, gzhel and palekh miniature represent an important aspect of Russian folk culture. Ethnic Russian clothes include kaftan, kosovorotka and ushanka for men, sarafan and kokoshnik for women, with lapti and valenki as common shoes. The clothes of Cossacks from Southern Russia include burka and papaha, which they share with the peoples of the Northern Caucasus.

Russian cuisine widely uses fish, poultry, mushrooms, berries, and honey. Crops of rye, wheat, barley, and millet provide the ingredients for various breads, pancakes and cereals, as well as for kvass, beer and vodka drinks. Black bread is rather popular in Russia, compared to the rest of the world. Flavourful soups and stews include shchi, borsch, ukha, solyanka and okroshka. Smetana (a heavy sour cream) is often added to soups and salads. Pirozhki, blini and syrniki are native types of pancakes. Chicken Kiev, pelmeni and shashlyk are popular meat dishes, the last two being of Tatar and Caucasus origin respectively. Other meat dishes include stuffed cabbage rolls ''(golubtsy)'' usually filled with meat. Salads include Russian salad, vinaigrette and Dressed Herring.

Russia's large number of ethnic groups have distinctive traditions of folk music. Typical ethnic Russian musical instruments are gusli, balalaika, zhaleika and garmoshka. Folk music had great influence on Russian classical composers, and in modern times it is a source of inspiration for a number of popular folk bands, including Melnitsa. Russian folk songs, as well as patriotic Soviet songs, constitute the bulk of repertoire of the world-renown Red Army choir and other popular ensembles.

Russians have many traditions, including the washing in banya, a hot steam bath somewhat similar to sauna. Old Russian folklore takes its roots in the pagan Slavic religion. Many Russian fairy tales and epic bylinas were adaptated for animation films, or for feature movies by the prominent directors like Aleksandr Ptushko (''Ilya Muromets'', ''Sadko'') and Aleksandr Rou (''Morozko'', ''Vasilisa the Beautiful''). Russian poets, including Pyotr Yershov and Leonid Filatov, made a number of well-known poetical interpretations of the classical fairy tales, and in some cases, like that of Alexander Pushkin, also created fully original fairy tale poems of great popularity.

Architecture

Since Christianization of Kievan Rus' for several ages Russian architecture was influenced predominantly by the Byzantine architecture. Apart from fortifications (kremlins), the main stone buildings of ancient Rus' were Orthodox churches with their many domes, often gilded or brightly painted.

Aristotle Fioravanti and other Italian architects brought Renaissance trends into Russia since the late 15th century, while the 16th century saw the development of unique tent-like churches culminating in Saint Basil's Cathedral. By that time the onion dome design was also fully developed. In the 17th century, the "fiery style" of ornamentation flourished in Moscow and Yaroslavl, gradually paving the way for the Naryshkin baroque of the 1690s. After the reforms of Peter the Great the change of architectural styles in Russia generally followed that in the Western Europe.

The 18th-century taste for rococo architecture led to the ornate works of Bartolomeo Rastrelli and his followers. The reigns of Catherine the Great and her grandson Alexander I saw the flourishing of Neoclassical architecture, most notably in the capital city of Saint Petersburg. The second half of the 19th century was dominated by the Neo-Byzantine and Russian Revival styles. Prevalent styles of the 20th century were the Art Nouveau, Constructivism, and the Stalin Empire style.

In 1955, a new Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, condemned the "excesses" of the former academic architecture, and the late Soviet era was dominated by plain functionalism in architecture. This helped somewhat to resolve the housing problem, but created a large quantity of buildings of low architectural quality, much in contrast with the previous bright styles. The situation improved in the recent two decades. Many temples demolished in Soviet times were rebuilt, and this process continues along with the restoration of various historical buildings destroyed in World War II. A total of 23,000 Orthodox churches have been rebuilt between 1991–2010, which effectively quadrapled the number of operating churches in Russia.

Visual arts

Early Russian painting is represented in icons and vibrant frescos, the two genres inherited from Byzantium. As Moscow rose to power, Theophanes the Greek, Dionisius and Andrei Rublev became vital names associated with a distinctly Russian art.

The Russian Academy of Arts was created in 1757 and gave Russian artists an international role and status. Ivan Argunov, Dmitry Levitzky, Vladimir Borovikovsky and other 18th century academicians mostly focused on portrait painting. In the early 19th century, when neoclassicism and romantism flourished, mythological and Biblical themes inspired many prominent painings, notably by Karl Briullov and Alexander Ivanov.

In the mid-19th century the ''Peredvizhniki'' (''Wanderers'') group of artists broke with the Academy and initiated a school of art liberated from academic restrictions. These were mostly realist painters who captured Russian identity in landscapes of wide rivers, forests, and birch clearings, as well as vigorous genre scenes and robust portraits of their contemporaries. Some artists focused on depicting dramatic moments in Russian history, while others turned to social criticism, showing the conditions of the poor and caricaturing authority; critical realism flourished under the reign of Alexander II. Leading realists include Ivan Shishkin, Arkhip Kuindzhi, Ivan Kramskoi, Vasily Polenov, Isaac Levitan, Vasily Surikov, Viktor Vasnetsov, Ilya Repin and Boris Kustodiev.

The turn of the 20th century saw the rise of symbolist painting, represented by Mikhail Vrubel, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin and Nicholas Roerich.

The Russian avant-garde was a large, influential wave of modernist art that flourished in Russia from approximately 1890 to 1930. The term covers many separate, but inextricably related, art movements that occurred at the time; namely neo-primitivism, suprematism, constructivism, rayonism, and Russian Futurism. Notable artists from this era include El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky, and Marc Chagall. Since 1930s the revolutionary ideas of the avant-garde clashed with the newly emerged conservative direction of socialist realism.

Soviet art produced works that were furiously patriotic and anti-fascist during and after the Great Patriotic War. Multiple war memorials, marked by a great restrained solemnity, were built throughout the country. Soviet artists often combined innovation with socialist realism, notably the sculptors Vera Mukhina, Yevgeny Vuchetich and Ernst Neizvestny.

Music and dance

Music in 19th century Russia was defined by the tension between classical composer Mikhail Glinka along with his followers, who embraced Russian national identity and added religious and folk elements to their compositions, and the Russian Musical Society led by composers Anton and Nikolay Rubinsteins, which was musically conservative. The later tradition of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era, was continued into the 20th century by Sergei Rachmaninoff. World-renown composers of the 20th century included also Alexander Scriabin, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich and Alfred Schnittke.

Russian conservatories have turned out generations of famous soloists. Among the best known are violinists David Oistrakh and Gidon Kremer; cellist Mstislav Rostropovich; pianists Vladimir Horowitz, Sviatoslav Richter, and Emil Gilels; and vocalists Fyodor Shalyapin, Galina Vishnevskaya, Anna Netrebko and Dmitry Hvorostovsky.

During the early 20th century, Russian ballet dancers Anna Pavlova and Vaslav Nijinsky rose to fame, and impresario Sergei Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes' travels abroad profoundly influenced the development of dance worldwide. Soviet ballet preserved the perfected 19th century traditions, and the Soviet Union's choreography schools produced many internationally famous stars, including Maya Plisetskaya, Rudolf Nureyev, and Mikhail Baryshnikov. The Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow and the Mariinsky Ballet in St Petersburg remain famous throughout the world.

Modern Russian rock music takes its roots both in the Western rock and roll and heavy metal, and in traditions of the Russian bards of the Soviet era, like Vladimir Vysotsky and Bulat Okudzhava. Popular Russian rock groups include Mashina Vremeni, DDT, Aquarium, Alisa, Kino, Kipelov, Nautilus Pompilius, Aria, Grazhdanskaya Oborona, Splean and Korol i Shut. Russian pop music developed from what was known in the Soviet times as ''estrada'' into full-fledged industry, with some performers gaining wide international recognition, like t.A.T.u. and Vitas.

Literature and philosophy

In the 18th century, during the era of Russian Enlightenment, the development of Russian literature was boosted by the works of Mikhail Lomonosov and Denis Fonvizin, and by the early 19th century a modern native tradition had emerged, producing some of the greatest writers of all time. This period, known also as the Golden Age of Russian Poetry, began with Alexander Pushkin, who is considered the founder of modern Russian literary language and often described as the ''"Russian Shakespeare"''. It continued into the 19th century with the poetry of Mikhail Lermontov and Nikolay Nekrasov, dramas of Alexander Ostrovsky and Anton Chekhov, and the prose of Nikolai Gogol and Ivan Turgenev. Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky in particular were titanic figures to the point that many literary critics have described one or the other as the greatest novelist of all time.

By the 1880s the age of the great novelists was over, while short fiction and poetry became the dominant genres. The next several decades became known as the Silver Age of Russian Poetry, when the previously dominant literary realism was replaced by symbolism. Leading authors of this era include poets Valery Bryusov, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Alexander Blok, Nikolay Gumilev and Anna Akhmatova, and novelists Leonid Andreyev, Ivan Bunin, and Maxim Gorky.

Russian philosophy blossomed since the 19th century, when it was defined initially by the opposition of Westernizers, advocating the Western political and economical models, and Slavophiles, insisting on developing Russia as unique civilization. The latter group includes Nikolai Danilevsky and Konstantin Leontiev, the founders of eurasianism. In its further development Russian philosophy was always marked by deep connection to literature and interest in creativity, society, politics and nationalism; Russian cosmism and religious philosophy were other major areas. Notable philosophers of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries include Vladimir Solovyev, Sergei Bulgakov, and Vladimir Vernadsky.

Following the Russian Revolution of 1917 many prominent writers and philosophers left the country, including Ivan Bunin, Vladimir Nabokov and Nikolay Berdyayev, while a new generation of talented authors joined together in an effort to create a distinctive working-class culture appropriate for the new Soviet state. In the 1930s censorship over literature was tightened in line with the policy of socialist realism. Since late 1950s the restrictions on literature were eased, and by the 1970s and 1980s, writers were increasingly ignoring the official guidelines. The leading authors of the Soviet era include novelists Yevgeny Zamyatin, Ilf and Petrov, Mikhail Bulgakov and Mikhail Sholokhov, and poets Vladimir Mayakovsky, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, and Andrey Voznesensky.

Cinema, animation and media

Russian and later Soviet cinema was a hotbed of invention in the period immediately following the 1917, resulting in world-renown films such as ''The Battleship Potemkin'' by Sergei Eisenstein. Eisenstein was a student of filmmaker and theorist Lev Kuleshov, who developed the Soviet montage theory of film editing at the world's first film school, the All-Union Institute of Cinematography. Dziga Vertov, whose ''kino-glaz'' (“film-eye”) theory—that the camera, like the human eye, is best used to explore real life—had a huge impact on the development of documentary film making and cinema realism. The subsequent state policy of socialist realism somewhat limited creativity, however many Soviet films in this style were artistically successful, like ''Chapaev'', ''The Cranes Are Flying'', and ''Ballad of a Soldier''.

1960s and 1970s saw a greater variety of artistic styles in the Soviet cinema. Eldar Ryazanov's and Leonid Gaidai's comedies of that time were immensely popular, with many of the catch phrases still in use today. In 1961–68 Sergey Bondarchuk directed an Oscar-winning film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's epic ''War and Peace'', which was the most expensive film ever made. In 1969, Vladimir Motyl's ''White Sun of the Desert'' was released, a very popular film in a genre of ostern; the film is traditionally watched by cosmonauts before any trip into space.

Russian animation dates back to the late Russian Empire times. During Soviet era, Soyuzmultfilm studio was the largest animation producer. Soviet animators developed a great variety of pioneering techniques and aesthetic styles, with prominent directors including Ivan Ivanov-Vano, Fyodor Khitruk and Aleksandr Tatarsky. Many Soviet cartoon heroes, such as the Russian-style Winnie-the-Pooh, cute little Cheburashka, Wolf and Hare from ''Nu, Pogodi!'' are iconic images in Russia and many surrounding countries.

The late 1980s and 1990s were a period of crisis in Russian cinema and animation. Although Russian filmmakers became free to express themselves, state subsidies were drastically reduced, resulting in fewer films produced. The early years of the 21st century have brought increased viewership and subsequent prosperity to the industry on the back of the economic revival. Production levels are already higher than in Britain and Germany. Russia's total box-office revenue in 2007 was $565 million, up 37% from the previous year In 2002 the ''Russian Ark'' became the first feature film ever to be shot in a single take. The traditions of Soviet animation were developed recently by such directors as Aleksandr Petrov and studios like Melnitsa Animation.

Russia was among the first countries to introduce radio and television. While there were few channels in the Soviet time, in the past two decades many new state and private-owned radio stations and TV channels appeared. In 2005 a state-run English language Russia Today TV started broadcasting, and its Arabic version Rusiya Al-Yaum was launched in 2007.

Sports

Combining the total medals of Soviet Union and Russia, the country is second among all nations by number of gold medals both at the Summer Olympics and at the Winter Olympics. Soviet and later Russian athletes have always been in the top three for the number of gold medals collected at the Summer Olympics. Soviet gymnasts, track-and-field athletes, weight lifters, wrestlers, boxers, fencers, shooters, cross country skiers, biathletes, speed skaters and figure skaters were consistently among the best in the world, along with Soviet basketball, handball, volleyball and ice hockey players. The 1980 Summer Olympics were held in Moscow while the 2014 Winter Olympics will be hosted in Sochi.

Although ice hockey was only introduced during the Soviet era, the national team managed to win gold at almost all the Olympics and World Championships they contested. Russian players Valery Kharlamov, Sergey Makarov, Vyacheslav Fetisov and Vladislav Tretiak hold four of six positions in the IIHF ''Team of the Century''. Recently Russia won the 2008 and 2009 IIHF World Championships, overtaking Canada as the world's top ranked ice hockey team. The Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) was founded in 2008 as a successor to the Russian Superleague. It is seen as a rival to the National Hockey League (NHL) and is ranked the top hockey league in Europe as of 2009. Bandy, also known as Russian hockey, is another traditionally popular ice sport. The Soviet Union won all the Bandy World Championships between 1957–79.

Along with ice hockey and basketball, association football is one of the most popular sports in modern Russia. The Soviet national team became the first ever European Champions by winning Euro 1960. In recent years, Russian football, which downgraded in 1990s, has experienced a revival. Russian clubs CSKA Moscow and Zenit St Petersburg won the UEFA Cup in 2005 and 2008 respectively. The Russian national football team reached the semi-finals of Euro 2008, losing only to the eventual champions Spain. Russia will host the 2018 FIFA World Cup, with 14 host cities located in the European part of the country and on the Urals.

Larisa Latynina, who currently holds a record for most Olympic medals won per person and most gold Olympic medals won by a woman, established the USSR as the dominant force in gymnastics for many years to come. Today, Russia is leading in rhythmic gymnastics with Alina Kabayeva, Irina Tschaschina and Yevgeniya Kanayeva. Russian synchronized swimming is the best in the world, with almost all gold medals at Olympics and World Championships having been swept by Russians in recent decades. Figure skating is another popular sport in Russia, especially pair skating and ice dancing. At every Winter Olympics from 1964 until 2006 a Soviet or Russian pair has won gold. Since the end of the Soviet era, tennis has grown in popularity and Russia has produced a number of famous players, including Maria Sharapova, the world's highest paid female athlete. In martial arts, Russia produced the sport Sambo and many renown fighters, like Fedor Emelianenko. Chess is a widely popular pastime in Russia; from 1927, Russian grandmasters have held the world chess championship almost continuously.

Formula One is also becoming increasingly poplular in Russia. Renault's Vitaly Petrov is the only Russian Formula One driver to date. There have only ever been two Russian Grands Prix (in 1913 and 1914), but it is set to return for 2014, in a six year deal.

National holidays and symbols

There are seven public holidays in Russia, except those always celebrated on Sunday. Russian New Year traditions resemble those of the Western Christmas, with New Year Trees and gifts, and Ded Moroz (Father Frost) playing the same role as Santa Claus. Orthodox Christmas falls on 7 January, because Russian Orthodox Church still follows the Julian calendar and all Orthodox holidays are 13 days after Catholic ones. Another two major Christian holidays are Easter and Trinity Sunday. Kurban Bayram and Uraza Bayram are celebrated by Russian Muslims.

Further Russian public holidays include Defender of the Fatherland Day (23 February), which honors Russian men, especially those serving in the army; International Women's Day (8 March), which combines the traditions of Mother's Day and Valentine's Day; Spring and Labor Day (1 May); Victory Day (9 May); Russia Day (12 June); and Unity Day (4 November), commemorating the popular uprising which expelled the Polish occupation force from Moscow in 1612.

Victory Day is the second most popular holiday in Russia; it commemorates the victory over Nazism in the Great Patriotic War. A huge military parade, hosted by the President of Russia, is annually organised in Moscow on Red Square. Similar parades took place in all major Russian cities and cities with the status ''Hero city'' or ''City of Military Glory''.

Popular non-public holidays include Old New Year (New Year according to Julian Calendar on 14 January), Tatiana Day (students holiday on 25 January), Maslenitsa (an old pagan spring holiday a week before the Great Lent), Cosmonautics Day (in tribute to Yury Gagarin's first ever human trip into space on 12 April), Ivan Kupala Day (another pagan Slavic holiday on 7 July) and Peter and Fevronia Day (taking place on 8 July and being the Russian analogue of Valentine's Day, which focuses, however, on the family love and fidelity).

State symbols of Russia include the Byzantine double-headed eagle, combined with St. George of Moscow in the Russian coat of arms. The Russian flag dates from the late Tsardom of Russia period and has been widely used since the time of the Russian Empire. The Russian anthem shares its music with the Soviet Anthem, though not the lyrics. The imperial motto ''God is with us'' and the Soviet motto ''Proletarians of all countries, unite!'' are now obsolete and no new motto has replaced them. The hammer and sickle and the full Soviet coat of arms are still widely seen in Russian cities as a part of old architectural decorations. The Soviet Red Stars are also encountered, often on military equipment and war memorials. The Red Banner continues to be honored, especially the Banner of Victory of 1945.

The Matryoshka doll is a recognizable symbol of Russia, while the towers of Moscow Kremlin and Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow are main Russia's architectural icons. Cheburashka is a mascot of Russian national Olympic team. St. Mary, St. Nicholas, St. Andrew, St. George, St. Alexander Nevsky, St. Sergius of Radonezh and St. Seraphim of Sarov are Russia's patron saints. Chamomile is the national flower, while birch the national tree. The Russian bear is an animal symbol and a national personification of Russia, though this image has a Western origin and Russians themselves have accepted it only fairly recently. The native Russian national personification is Mother Russia, sometimes called Mother Motherland.

Tourism

Tourism in Russia has seen rapid growth since the late Soviet times, first inner tourism and then international tourism as well, fueled by rich cultural heritage and great natural variety of the country. Major tourist routes in Russia include a travel around the Golden Ring of ancient cities, cruises on the big rivers like Volga, and long journeys on the famous Trans-Siberian Railway.

Most visited destinations in Russia are Moscow and Saint Petersburg, the current and the former capitals of the country. Recognized as World Cities, they feature such world-renown museums as Tretyakov Gallery and Hermitage, famous theaters like Bolshoi and Mariinsky, ornate churches like Saint Basil's Cathedral, Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Saint Isaac's Cathedral and Church of the Savior on Blood, impressive fortifications like Moscow Kremlin and Peter and Paul Fortress, beautiful squares and streets like Red Square, Palace Square, Tverskaya Street and Nevsky Prospect. Rich palaces and parks are found in the former imperial residences in suburbs of Moscow (Kolomenskoye, Tsaritsyno) and St Petersburg (Peterhof, Strelna, Oranienbaum, Gatchina, Pavlovsk and Tsarskoye Selo). Moscow displays the Soviet architecture at its best, along with modern skyscrapers, while St Petersburg, nicknamed ''Venice of the North'', boasts of its classical architecture, many rivers, channels and bridges.

Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, shows a mix of Christian Russian and Muslim Tatar cultures. The city has registered a brand ''The Third Capital of Russia'', though a number of other major cities compete for this status, including Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and Nizhny Novgorod.

Typical Russian souvenirs include matryoshka doll and other handicraft, samovars for water heating, ushanka and papaha warm hats, and fur clothes. Russian vodka and caviar are among the food that attracts foreigners.

The warm subtropical Black Sea coast of Russia is the site for a number of popular sea resorts, like Sochi, the follow-up host of the 2014 Winter Olympics. The mountains of the Northern Caucasus contain popular ski resorts, including Dombay. The most famous natural destination in Russia is Lake Baikal, ''the Blue Eye of Siberia''. This unique lake, oldest and deepest in the world, has crystal-clean waters and is surrounded by taiga-covered mountains. Other popular natural destinations include Kamchatka with its volcanoes and geysers, Karelia with its lakes and granite rocks, the snowy Altai Mountains, and the wild steppes of Tyva.

See also

Index of Soviet Union-related articles

International rankings of Russia

Timeline of Russian history

Timeline of Russian inventions and technology records

References

Further reading

Kanet Roger E., ed. ''Russian Foreign Policy in the 21st Century'' (Palgrave Macmillan; 2011) 295 pages; essays by experts

External links

;Government Official governmental portal

Chief of State and Cabinet Members

Russian News Agency "Ria Novosti"

Russian radio "Voice of Russia"

;General information

Russia at ''UCB Libraries GovPubs''

;Other

Russia Beyond the Headlines International news project about Russia

Way to Russia. An Introduction to Russia and Russian People

Russia cities and regions guide

Official Russia Travel Guide

Russian Consulate

Russia Beyond the Headlines International news project about Russia

Moscow Russia Insider's Guide Moscow and Russia through Muscovite's eyes.

Geographic locale|list= }} {{navboxes|title=International organizations|list= }}

Category:Bicontinental countries Category:Black Sea countries Category:Central Asian countries Category:Countries bordering the Arctic Ocean Category:Countries bordering the Baltic Sea Category:Countries bordering the Pacific Ocean Category:East Asian countries Category:European countries Category:Federal countries Category:G8 nations Category:G20 nations Category:Member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States Category:Member states of the United Nations Category:North Asian countries Category:Russian-speaking countries and territories Category:Slavic countries Category:States and territories established in 862

ace:Rusia kbd:Урысей af:Rusland ak:Russia als:Russland am:ሩሲያ ang:Russland ab:Урыстәыла ar:روسيا an:Rusia arc:ܪܘܣܝܐ roa-rup:Arusia frp:Russie ast:Rusia gn:Rrusia av:Россиялъул Федерация ay:Rusiya az:Rusiya bm:Risila bn:রাশিয়া zh-min-nan:Lō͘-se-a map-bms:Russia ba:Рәсәй be:Расія be-x-old:Расея bcl:Rusya bi:Rusia bg:Русия bar:Russland bo:ཨུ་རུ་སུ། bs:Rusija br:Rusia bxr:Ородой Холбооной Улас ca:Rússia cv:Раççей Патшалăхĕ ceb:Rusya cs:Rusko ch:Russia tum:Russia co:Russia cy:Ffederasiwn Rwsia da:Rusland pdc:Russland de:Russland dv:ރޫސީވިލާތް nv:Biʼééʼ Łichííʼí Bikéyah dsb:Rusojska dz:ར་ཤི་ཡཱན་ཕེ་ཌི་རེ་ཤཱན et:Venemaa el:Ρωσία eml:Rossia myv:Россия Мастор es:Rusia eo:Rusio ext:Russia eu:Errusia ee:Russia fa:روسیه hif:Russia fo:Russland fr:Russie fy:Ruslân ff:Roosiya fur:Russie ga:An Rúis gv:Yn Roosh gag:Rusiya gd:An Ruis gl:Rusia - Россия gan:俄羅斯 gu:રશિયા got:𐍂𐌿𐍃𐌰𐌻𐌰𐌽𐌳 hak:Ngò-lò-sṳ̂ xal:Орсин Ниицән ko:러시아 ha:Rasha haw:Rūsia hy:Ռուսաստան hi:रूस hsb:Ruska hr:Rusija io:Rusia ig:Mpaghara Russia ilo:Russia bpy:রাশিয়া id:Rusia ia:Russia ie:Russia iu:ᐅᓛᓴ os:Уæрæсе zu:IRashiya is:Rússland it:Russia he:רוסיה jv:Rusia kl:Ruslandi kn:ರಷ್ಯಾ pam:Russia krc:Россия Федерация ka:რუსეთი ks:روٗس csb:Ruskô kk:Ресей kw:Russi rw:Uburusiya sw:Urusi kv:Рочму kg:Rusia ht:Risi ku:Rûsya ky:Орусия lad:Rusia lbe:Аьрасат ltg:Krīveja la:Russia lv:Krievija lb:Russland lt:Rusija lij:Ruscia li:Rusland ln:Rusí jbo:rukygu'e lg:Rwasha lmo:Rüssia hu:Oroszország mk:Русија mg:Rosia ml:റഷ്യ mt:Russja mi:Rūhia mr:रशिया xmf:რუსეთი arz:روسيا ms:Rusia cdo:Ngò̤-lò̤-sṳ̆ mwl:Rússia mdf:Рузмастор mn:Оросын Холбооны Улс my:ရုရှားနိုင်ငံ nah:Rusia na:Ratsiya nl:Rusland nds-nl:Ruslaand ne:रुस new:रुस ja:ロシア ce:Оьрсийн Федераций frr:Ruslönj pih:Rusha no:Russland nn:Russland nrm:Russie nov:Rusia oc:Russia mhr:Россий or:ଋଷିଆ uz:Rossiya Federatsiyasi pa:ਰੂਸ pnb:روس pap:Rusia ps:روسیه koi:Рочму km:រុស្ស៊ី pcd:Russie pms:Federassion Russa tpi:Rasia nds:Russland pl:Rosja pnt:Ρουσία pt:Rússia kaa:Rossiya crh:Rusiye ty:Rūtia ro:Rusia rmy:Rusiya rm:Russia qu:Rusiya rue:Росія ru:Россия sah:Арассыыйа se:Ruošša sm:Lusia sg:Rusïi sc:Russia sco:Roushie stq:Ruslound nso:Russia sq:Rusia scn:Russia si:රුසියාව simple:Russia ss:IRashiya sk:Rusko sl:Rusija cu:Рѡсїꙗ szl:Rusyjo so:Ruushka ckb:ڕووسیا srn:Rusland sr:Русија sh:Rusija su:Rusia fi:Venäjä sv:Ryssland tl:Rusya ta:உருசியா kab:Rrus roa-tara:Russie tt:Русия te:రష్యా tet:Rúsia th:ประเทศรัสเซีย tg:Русия to:Lūsia chr:ᏲᏂᎢ tr:Rusya tk:Russiýa tw:Russia udm:Россия uk:Росія ur:روس ug:روسىيە za:Ezlozswh vec:Rusia vep:Venäma vi:Nga vo:Rusän fiu-vro:Vinnemaa wa:Rûsseye zh-classical:俄羅斯 vls:Rusland war:Rusya wo:Riisi wuu:俄罗斯 ts:Russia yi:רוסלאנד yo:Rọ́síà zh-yue:俄羅斯 diq:Rusya zea:Rusland bat-smg:Rosėjė zh:俄罗斯

name	Leon Trotsky
birthname	Lev (Leiba) Davidovich Bronshtein
birth date	November 07, 1879
birth place	near Yelizavetgrad, Kherson Governorate, Russian Empire
death date	August 21, 1940 (assassinated)
death place	Coyoacán, DF, Mexico
party	RSDLP, SDPS, Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Left Opposition, IV International
spouse	Aleksandra Sokolovskaya, Natalia Sedova
religion	None (atheist)
citizenship	Soviet
order	People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR
term start	8 November 1917
term end	13 March 1918
premier	Vladimir Lenin
predecessor	Mikhail Tereshchenko
successor	Georgy Chicherin
order2	People's Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs of the Soviet Union
term start2	29 August 1919
term end2	15 January 1925
premier2	Vladimir LeninAlexey Rykov
predecessor2	Lev Kamenev
successor2	Mikhail Frunze
order3	President of the Petrograd Soviet
term start3	8 October 1917
term end3	8 November 1917
signature	Leon Trotsky Signature.svg}}

Leon Trotsky (; 7 November 1879 – 21 August 1940), born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army.

Trotsky was initially a supporter of the Menshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He joined the Bolsheviks immediately prior to the 1917 October Revolution, and eventually became a leader within the Party, second only to Vladimir Lenin. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later as the founder and commander of the Red Army, and People's Commissar of War. He was a major figure in the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War (1918–20). He was also among the first members of the Politburo.

After leading a failed struggle of the Left Opposition against the policies and rise of Joseph Stalin in the 1920s and the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, Trotsky was successively removed from power, expelled from the Communist Party, deported from the Soviet Union and assassinated on Stalin's orders. An early advocate of Red Army intervention against European fascism, Trotsky also opposed Stalin's non-aggression pact with Adolf Hitler in the late 1930s.

As the head of the Fourth International, Trotsky continued in exile to oppose the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, and was eventually assassinated in Mexico, by Ramón Mercader, a Soviet agent. Trotsky's ideas thus form the basis of Trotskyism, a major school of Marxist thought that is opposed to the theories of Stalinism. He was one of the few Soviet political figures who was never rehabilitated by the government of Mikhail Gorbachev.

Before the 1917 Revolution

Childhood and family (1879–1895)

Leon Trotsky was born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein () on 7 November 1879, in Yanovka, Kherson Province of the Russian Empire (today's Bobrynets Raion, Kirovohrad Oblast, Ukraine), a small village from the nearest post office. He was the fifth child, out of eight, of a well-to-do farmer, David Leontyevich Bronshtein (1847–1922) and Anna Bronshtein (1850–1910). The language spoken at home was a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian. Trotsky's younger sister, Olga, married Lev Kamenev, a leading Bolshevik.

When Trotsky was nine, his father sent him to Odessa to be educated and he was enrolled in an historically German school, which became Russified during his years in Odessa, consequent to the Imperial government's policy of Russification. As Isaac Deutscher points out in his biography of Trotsky, Odessa was then a bustling cosmopolitan port city, very unlike the typical Russian city of the time. This environment contributed to the development of the young man's international outlook.

Although Trotsky stated in his autobiography ''My Life'' that he was never perfectly fluent in any language but Russian and Ukrainian, Raymond Molinier wrote that Trotsky spoke fluent French.

Revolutionary activity and exile (1896–1902)

Trotsky became involved in revolutionary activities in 1896 after moving to Nikolayev (now Mykolaiv). At first a ''narodnik'' (revolutionary populist), he was introduced to Marxism later that year and was originally opposed to it. But during periods of exile and imprisonment he gradually became a Marxist. Instead of pursuing a mathematics degree, Trotsky helped organize the South Russian Workers' Union in Nikolayev in early 1897. Using the name 'Lvov', he wrote and printed leaflets and proclamations, distributed revolutionary pamphlets and popularized socialist ideas among industrial workers and revolutionary students.

In January 1898, over 200 members of the union, including Trotsky, were arrested, and he spent the next two years in prison awaiting trial. Two months into his imprisonment, the first Congress of the newly formed Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) was held, and from then on Trotsky considered himself a member of the party. While in prison, he married fellow Marxist Aleksandra Sokolovskaya (or Sokolovskaia) (1872–1938). While serving his sentence he studied philosophy. In 1900 he was sentenced to four years in exile in Ust-Kut and Verkholensk (see map) in the Irkutsk region of Siberia, where his first two daughters, Zinaida Volkova (1901 – 5 January 1933) and Nina Nevelson (1902 – 9 June 1928) were born. Both daughters predeceased their parents; Volkova committed suicide and Nevelson died from tuberculosis.

In Siberia, Trotsky became aware of the differences within the party, which had been decimated by arrests in 1898 and 1899. Some social democrats known as "economists" argued that the party should focus on helping industrial workers improve their lot in life. Others argued that overthrowing the monarchy was more important and that a well organized and disciplined revolutionary party was essential. The latter were led by the London-based newspaper ''Iskra'', or in English, Spark, which was founded in 1900. Trotsky quickly sided with the ''Iskra'' position.

First emigration and second marriage (1902–1903)

Trotsky escaped from Siberia in the summer of 1902. It is said he adopted the name of a jailer of the Odessa prison in which he had earlier been held, and this became his primary revolutionary pseudonym. Once abroad, he moved to London to join Georgy Plekhanov, Vladimir Lenin, Julius Martov and other editors of ''Iskra''. Under the pen name ''Pero'' ("feather" or "pen" in Russian), Trotsky soon became one of the paper's leading authors.

Unknown to Trotsky, the six editors of ''Iskra'' were evenly split between the "old guard" led by Plekhanov and the "new guard" led by Lenin and Martov. Not only were Plekhanov's supporters older (in their 40s and 50s), but they had also spent the previous 20 years in European exile together. Members of the new guard were in their early 30s and had only recently come from Russia. Lenin, who was trying to establish a permanent majority against Plekhanov within ''Iskra'', expected Trotsky, then 23, to side with the new guard and wrote in March 1903:

Because of Plekhanov's opposition, Trotsky did not become a full member of the board, but from then on participated in its meetings in an advisory capacity, which earned him Plekhanov's enmity.

In late 1902, Trotsky met Natalia Ivanovna Sedova, who soon became his companion and, from 1903 until his death, his wife. They had two children together, Lev Sedov (1906 – 16 February 1938) and Sergei Sedov (21 March 1908 – 29 October 1937), both of whom would predecease their parents.

Regarding his sons' surnames, Trotsky later explained that after the 1917 revolution:

However for himself the name change remained a technicality and Trotsky never used the name "Sedov" either privately or publicly. Natalia Sedova sometimes signed her name "Sedova-Trotskaya". Trotsky and his first wife, Aleksandra, maintained a friendly relationship until she disappeared in 1935 during the Great Purges and was murdered three years later.

Split with Lenin (1903–1904)

In the meantime, after a period of secret police repression and internal confusion that followed the first party Congress in 1898, ''Iskra'' succeeded in convening the party's 2nd congress in London in August 1903, Trotsky and other ''Iskra'' editors attended. The first congress went as planned, with ''Iskra'' supporters handily defeating the few "economist" delegates. Then the congress discussed the position of the Jewish Bund, which had co-founded the RSDLP in 1898 but wanted to remain autonomous within the party.

Shortly thereafter, pro-''Iskra'' delegates unexpectedly split into two factions. Lenin and his supporters (known as Bolsheviks) argued for a smaller but highly organized party. Martov and his supporters (known as Mensheviks) argued for a larger and less disciplined party. In a surprise development, Trotsky and most of the ''Iskra'' editors supported Martov and the Mensheviks while Plekhanov supported Lenin and the Bolsheviks. During 1903 and 1904, many members changed sides in the factions. Plekhanov soon parted ways with the Bolsheviks. Trotsky left the Mensheviks in September 1904 over their insistence on an alliance with Russian liberals and their opposition to a reconciliation with Lenin and the Bolsheviks. From then until 1917 he described himself as a "non-factional social democrat". Trotsky spent much of his time between 1904 and 1917 trying to reconcile different groups within the party, which resulted in many clashes with Lenin and other prominent party members. Trotsky later conceded he had been wrong in opposing Lenin on the issue of the party. During these years Trotsky began developing his theory of permanent revolution, which led to a close working relationship with Alexander Parvus in 1904–1907.

1905 revolution and trial (1905–1906)

After the events of Bloody Sunday, Trotsky secretly returned to Russia in February 1905. At first he wrote leaflets for an underground printing press in Kiev, but soon moved to the capital, Saint Petersburg, where he worked with both Bolsheviks, such as Central Committee member Leonid Krasin, and the local Menshevik committee, which he pushed in a more radical direction. The latter, however, were betrayed by a secret police agent in May, and Trotsky had to flee to rural Finland. There he worked on fleshing out his theory of permanent revolution until October, when a nationwide strike made it possible for him to return to St. Petersburg. After returning to the capital, Trotsky and Parvus took over the newspaper ''Russian Gazette'' and increased its circulation to 500,000. Trotsky also co-founded ''Nachalo'' ("The Beginning") with Parvus and the Mensheviks, which proved to be very successful.

Just before Trotsky's return, the Mensheviks had independently come up with the same idea that Trotsky had—an elected non-party revolutionary organization representing the capital's workers, the first Soviet ("Council") of Workers. By the time of Trotsky's arrival, the St. Petersburg Soviet was already functioning headed by Khrustalyov-Nosar (Georgy Nosar, alias Pyotr Khrustalyov), a compromise figure, and proved to be very popular with the workers in spite of the Bolsheviks' original opposition. Trotsky joined the Soviet under the name "Yanovsky" (after the village he was born in, Yanovka) and was elected vice-Chairman. He did much of the actual work at the Soviet and, after Khrustalev-Nosar's arrest on 26 November, was elected its chairman. On 2 December, the Soviet issued a proclamation which included the following statement about the Tsarist government and its foreign debts:

The following day, the Soviet was surrounded by troops loyal to the government and the deputies were arrested. Trotsky and other Soviet leaders were tried in 1906 on charges of supporting an armed rebellion. At the trial, Trotsky delivered some of the best speeches of his life and solidified his reputation as an effective public speaker, which he confirmed in 1917–1920. He was convicted and sentenced to deportation.

Second emigration (1907–1914)

En route to exile in Obdorsk, Siberia in January 1907, Trotsky escaped at Berezov and once again made his way to London, where he attended the 5th Congress of the RSDLP. In October, he moved to Vienna where he often took part in the activities of the Austrian Social Democratic Party and, occasionally, of the German Social Democratic Party, for seven years.

In Vienna, Trotsky became close to Adolph Joffe, his friend for the next 20 years, who introduced him to psychoanalysis. In October 1908 he started a bi-weekly Russian language social democratic paper aimed at Russian workers called ''Pravda'' ("Truth"), which he co-edited with Joffe, Matvey Skobelev and Victor Kopp and which was smuggled into Russia. The paper avoided factional politics and proved popular with Russian industrial workers. Both the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks split multiple times after the failure of the 1905–1907 revolution. When various Bolshevik and Menshevik factions tried to re-unite at the January 1910 RSDLP Central Committee meeting in Paris over Lenin's objections, Trotsky's ''Pravda'' was made a party-financed 'central organ'. Lev Kamenev, Trotsky's brother-in-law, was added to the editorial board from the Bolsheviks, but the unification attempts failed in August 1910 when Kamenev resigned from the board amid mutual recriminations. Trotsky continued publishing ''Pravda'' for another two years until it finally folded in April 1912.

The Bolsheviks started a new workers-oriented newspaper in St. Petersburg on 22 April 1912, and also called it ''Pravda''. Trotsky was so upset by what he saw as a usurpation of his newspaper's name that in April 1913 he wrote a letter to Nikolay Chkheidze, a Menshevik leader, bitterly denouncing Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Though he quickly got over the disagreement, the letter was intercepted by the police, and a copy was put into their archives. Shortly after Lenin's death in 1924, the letter was pulled out of the archives and made public by his opponents within the Communist Party, and was used to paint him as Lenin's enemy.

This was a period of heightened tension within the RSDLP and led to numerous frictions between Trotsky, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. The most serious disagreement that Trotsky and the Mensheviks had with Lenin at the time was over the issue of "expropriations", i.e., armed robberies of banks and other companies by Bolshevik groups to procure money for the Party, which had been banned by the 5th Congress, but continued by the Bolsheviks.

In January 1912, the majority of the Bolshevik faction led by Lenin and a few Mensheviks held a conference in Prague and expelled their opponents from the party. In response, Trotsky organized a "unification" conference of social democratic factions in Vienna in August 1912 (a.k.a. "The August Bloc") and tried to re-unite the party. The attempt was generally unsuccessful.

In Vienna, Trotsky continuously published articles in radical Russian and Ukrainian newspapers like ''Kievskaya Mysl'' under a variety of pseudonyms, often "Antid Oto". In September 1912, ''Kievskaya Mysl'' sent him to the Balkans as its war correspondent, where he covered the two Balkan Wars for the next year and became a close friend of Christian Rakovsky, later a leading Soviet politician and Trotsky's ally in the Soviet Communist Party. On 3 August 1914, at the outbreak of World War I which pitted Austria-Hungary against the Russian empire, Trotsky was forced to flee Vienna for neutral Switzerland to avoid arrest as a Russian émigré.

World War I (1914–1917)

The outbreak of World War I caused a sudden realignment within the RSDLP and other European social democratic parties over the issues of war, revolution, pacifism and internationalism. Within the RSDLP, Lenin, Trotsky and Martov advocated various internationalist anti-war positions, while Plekhanov and other social democrats (both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks) supported the Russian government to some extent. In Switzerland, Trotsky briefly worked within the Swiss Socialist Party, prompting it to adopt an internationalist resolution, and wrote a book against the war, ''The War and the International''. The thrust of the book was against the pro-war position taken by the European social democratic parties, primarily the German party. Trotsky moved to France on 19 November 1914, as a war correspondent for the ''Kievskaya Mysl''. In January 1915 he began editing (at first with Martov, who soon resigned as the paper moved to the left) ''Nashe Slovo'' ("Our Word"), an internationalist socialist newspaper, in Paris. He adopted the slogan of "peace without indemnities or annexations, peace without conquerors or conquered", which didn't go quite as far as Lenin, who advocated Russia's defeat in the war and demanded a complete break with the Second International.

Trotsky attended the Zimmerwald Conference of anti-war socialists in September 1915 and advocated a middle course between those who, like Martov, would stay within the Second International at any cost and those who, like Lenin, would break with the Second International and form a Third International. The conference adopted the middle line proposed by Trotsky. At first opposed to it, in the end Lenin voted for Trotsky's resolution to avoid a split among anti-war socialists.

On 31 March Trotsky was deported from France to Spain for his anti-war activities. Spanish authorities did not let him stay and he was deported to the United States on 25 December 1916. He arrived in New York City on 13 January 1917 where he stayed for nearly three months at 1522 Vyse Avenue in The Bronx. In New York City he wrote articles for the local Russian language socialist newspaper ''Novy Mir'' and the Yiddish language daily ''Der Forverts'' (''The Forward'') in translation and made speeches to Russian émigrés. He was officially earning some $15 a week.

Trotsky was living in New York City when the February Revolution of 1917 overthrew Tsar Nicholas II. He left New York on 27 March but his ship, the SS Kristianiafjord, was intercepted by British naval officials in Canada at Halifax, Nova Scotia and he spent a month detained at Amherst, Nova Scotia. After initial hesitation, the Russian foreign minister Pavel Milyukov was forced to demand that Trotsky be released, and the British government freed Trotsky on 29 April. He made his way back to Russia on 4 May. Upon his return, Trotsky was in substantive agreement with the Bolshevik position, but did not join them right away. Russian social democrats were split into at least six groups and the Bolsheviks were waiting for the next party Congress to determine which factions to merge with. Trotsky temporarily joined the Mezhraiontsy, a regional social democratic organization in St. Petersburg, and became one of its leaders. At the First Congress of Soviets in June, he was elected a member of the first All-Russian Central Executive Committee ("VTsIK") from the Mezhraiontsy faction.

After an unsuccessful pro-Bolshevik uprising in Petrograd, Trotsky was arrested on 7 August 1917, but was released 40 days later in the aftermath of the failed counter-revolutionary uprising by Lavr Kornilov. After the Bolsheviks gained a majority in the Petrograd Soviet, Trotsky was elected Chairman on 8 October. He sided with Lenin against Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev when the Bolshevik Central Committee discussed staging an armed uprising and he led the efforts to overthrow the Provisional Government headed by Aleksandr Kerensky.

The following summary of Trotsky's role in 1917 was written by Stalin in ''Pravda'', 10 November 1918. (Although this passage was quoted in Stalin's book "The October Revolution" issued in 1934, it was expunged in Stalin's Works released in 1949.)

After the success of the uprising on 7–8 November, Trotsky led the efforts to repel a counter-attack by Cossacks under General Pyotr Krasnov and other troops still loyal to the overthrown Provisional Government at Gatchina. Allied with Lenin, he successfully defeated attempts by other Bolshevik Central Committee members (Zinoviev, Kamenev, Alexey Rykov, etc.) to share power with other socialist parties. By the end of 1917, Trotsky was unquestionably the second man in the Bolshevik Party after Lenin, overshadowing the ambitious Zinoviev, who had been Lenin's top lieutenant over the previous decade, but whose star appeared to be fading. This turnaround led to enmity between the two Bolshevik leaders which lasted until 1926 and did much to destroy them both.

After the Russian Revolution

Commissar for Foreign Affairs and Brest-Litovsk (1917–1918)

After the Bolsheviks came to power, Trotsky became the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and published the secret treaties previously signed by the Triple Entente that detailed plans for post-war reallocation of colonies and redrawing state borders.

Trotsky led the Soviet delegation during the peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk from 22 December 1917 to 10 February 1918. At that time the Soviet government was split on the issue. Left Communists, led by Nikolai Bukharin, continued to believe that there could be no peace between a Soviet republic and a capitalist country and that only a revolutionary war leading to a pan-European Soviet republic would bring a durable peace. They cited the successes of the newly formed (15 January 1918) voluntary Red Army against Polish forces of Gen. Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki in Belarus, White forces in the Don region, and newly independent Ukrainian forces as proof that the Red Army could repel German forces, especially if propaganda$2 and asymmetrical warfare were used. They did not mind holding talks with the Germans as a means of exposing German imperial ambitions (territorial gains, reparations, etc.) in the hope of accelerating the hoped−for Soviet revolution in the West, but they were dead set against signing any peace treaty. In case of a German ultimatum, they advocated proclaiming a revolutionary war against Germany in order to inspire Russian and European workers to fight for socialism. This opinion was shared by Left Socialist Revolutionaries, who were then the Bolsheviks' junior partners in a coalition government.

Lenin, who had earlier hoped for a speedy Soviet revolution in Germany and other parts of Europe, quickly decided that the imperial government of Germany was still firmly in control and that, without a strong Russian military, an armed conflict with Germany would lead to a collapse of the Soviet government in Russia. He agreed with the Left Communists that ultimately a pan-European Soviet revolution would solve all problems, but until then the Bolsheviks had to stay in power. Lenin did not mind prolonging the negotiating process for maximum propaganda effect, but, from January 1918 on, advocated signing a separate peace treaty if faced with a German ultimatum. Trotsky's position was between these two Bolshevik factions. Like Lenin, he admitted that the old Russian military, inherited from the monarchy and the Provisional Government and in advanced stages of decomposition, was unable to fight:

But he agreed with the Left Communists that a separate peace treaty with an imperialist power would be a terrible morale and material blow to the Soviet government, negate all its military and political successes of 1917 and 1918, resurrect the notion that the Bolsheviks secretly allied with the German government, and cause an upsurge of internal resistance. He argued that any German ultimatum should be refused, and that this may well lead to an uprising in Germany, or at least inspire German soldiers to disobey their officers since any German offensive would be a naked grab for territories. He wrote in 1925:

Throughout January and February 1918, Lenin's position was supported by 7 members of the Bolshevik Central Committee and Bukharin's by 4. Trotsky had 4 votes (his own, Felix Dzerzhinsky's, Nikolai Krestinsky's and Adolph Joffe's) and, since he held the balance of power, he was able to pursue his policy in Brest-Litovsk. When he could no longer delay the negotiations, he withdrew from the talks on 10 February 1918, refusing to sign on Germany's harsh terms. After a brief hiatus, the Central Powers notified the Soviet government that they would no longer observe the truce after 17 February. At this point Lenin again argued that the Soviet government had done all it could to explain its position to Western workers and that it was time to accept the terms. Trotsky refused to support Lenin since he was waiting to see whether German workers would rebel and whether German soldiers would refuse to follow orders.

Germany resumed military operations on 18 February. Within a day, it became clear that the German army was capable of conducting offensive operations and that Red Army detachments, which were relatively small, poorly organized and poorly led, were no match for it. In the evening of 18 February 1918, Trotsky and his supporters in the committee abstained and Lenin's proposal was accepted 7–4. The Soviet government sent a telegram to the German side accepting the final Brest-Litovsk peace terms.

Germany did not respond for three days, and continued its offensive encountering little resistance. The response arrived on 21 February but the proposed terms were so harsh that even Lenin briefly thought that the Soviet government had no choice but to fight. But in the end, the committee again voted 7–4 on 23 February 1918; the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on 3 March and ratified on 15 March 1918. Since he was so closely associated with the policy previously followed by the Soviet delegation at Brest-Litovsk, Trotsky resigned from his position as Commissar for Foreign Affairs in order to remove a potential obstacle to the new policy.

Head of the Red Army (spring 1918)

The failure of the recently formed Red Army to resist the German offensive in February 1918 revealed its weaknesses: insufficient numbers, lack of knowledgeable officers, and near absence of coordination and subordination. Celebrated and feared Baltic Fleet sailors, one of the bastions of the new regime led by Pavel Dybenko, shamefully fled from the German army at Narva. The notion that the Soviet state could have an effective voluntary or militia type military was seriously undermined.

Trotsky was one of the first Bolshevik leaders to recognize the problem and he pushed for the formation of a military council of former Russian generals that would function as an advisory body. Lenin and the Bolshevik Central Committee agreed on 4 March to create the Supreme Military Council, headed by former chief of the imperial General Staff Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich. But the entire Bolshevik leadership of the Red Army, including People's Commissar (defense minister) Nikolai Podvoisky and commander-in-chief Nikolai Krylenko, protested vigorously and eventually resigned. They believed that the Red Army should consist only of dedicated revolutionaries, rely on propaganda and force, and have elected officers. They viewed former imperial officers and generals as potential traitors who should be kept out of the new military, much less put in charge of it. Their views continued to be popular with many Bolsheviks throughout most of the Russian Civil War and their supporters, including Podvoisky, who became one of Trotsky's deputies, were a constant thorn in Trotsky's side. The discontent with Trotsky's policies of strict discipline, conscription and reliance on carefully supervised non-Communist military experts eventually led to the Military Opposition (Russian: Военная оппозиция}), which was active within the Communist Party in late 1918–1919.

On 13 March 1918, Trotsky's resignation as Commissar for Foreign Affairs was officially accepted and he was appointed People's Commissar of Army and Navy Affairs – in place of Podvoisky – and chairman of the Supreme Military Council. The post of commander-in-chief was abolished, and Trotsky gained full control of the Red Army, responsible only to the Communist Party leadership, whose Left Socialist Revolutionary allies had left the government over Brest-Litovsk. With the help of his faithful deputy Ephraim Sklyansky, Trotsky spent the rest of the Civil War transforming the Red Army from a ragtag network of small and fiercely independent detachments into a large and disciplined military machine, through forced conscription, party controlled blocking squads, compulsory obedience and officers chosen by the leadership instead of the rank and file. He defended these positions throughout his life.

Civil War (1918–1920)

1918

Trotsky's managerial and organization-building skills with the Soviet military were soon tested. In May–June 1918, the Czechoslovak Legions en route from European Russia to Vladivostok rose against the Soviet government. This left the Bolsheviks with the loss of most of the country's territory, an increasingly well organized resistance by Russian anti-Communist forces (usually referred to as the White Army after their best known component) and widespread defection by the military experts that Trotsky relied on.

Trotsky and the government responded with a full-fledged mobilization, which increased the size of the Red Army from less than 300,000 in May 1918 to one million in October, and an introduction of political commissars into the army. The latter were responsible for ensuring the loyalty of military experts (who were mostly former officers in the imperial army) and co-signing their orders. Trotsky claimed that the Red Army's organization was built on the ideas of the October Revolution. As he later wrote in his autobiography:

In dealing with deserters, Trotsky often appealed to them politically; arousing them with the ideas of the Revolution.

Given the lack of man power and the 16 invading foreign armies, Trotsky also insisted that former Tsarist officers should be used as military specialists within the Red Army, with a combination of Bolshevik political commissars to ensure the revolutionary nature of the Red Army. Lenin commented on this:

In September 1918, the government, facing continuous military difficulties, declared what amounted to martial law and reorganized the Red Army. The Supreme Military Council was abolished and the position of commander-in-chief was restored, filled by the commander of the Latvian Riflemen, Ioakim Vatsetis (a.k.a. Jukums Vācietis), who had formerly led the Eastern Front against the Czechoslovak Legions. Vatsetis was put in charge of day-to-day operations of the army while Trotsky became chairman of the newly formed Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic and retained overall control of the military. Trotsky and Vatsetis had clashed earlier in 1918 while Vatsetis and Trotsky's adviser Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich were also on unfriendly terms. Nevertheless, Trotsky eventually established a working relationship with the often prickly Vatsetis.

The reorganization caused yet another conflict between Trotsky and Stalin in late September. Trotsky appointed former imperial general Pavel Sytin to command the Southern Front, but in early October 1918 Stalin refused to accept him and so he was recalled from the front. Lenin and Yakov Sverdlov tried to make Trotsky and Stalin reconcile, but their meeting was unsuccessful.

1919

Throughout late 1918 and early 1919, there were a number of attacks on Trotsky's leadership of the Red Army, including veiled accusations in newspaper articles inspired by Stalin and a direct attack by the Military Opposition at the VIIIth Party Congress in March 1919. On the surface, he weathered them successfully and was elected one of only five full members of the first Politburo after the Congress. But he later wrote:

In mid-1919 the dissatisfied had an opportunity to mount a serious challenge to Trotsky's leadership, the Red Army grew from 800,000 to 3,000,000, and fought simultaneously on sixteen fronts. The Red Army had defeated the White Army's spring offensive in the east and was about to cross the Ural Mountains and enter Siberia in pursuit of Admiral Alexander Kolchak's forces. But in the south, General Anton Denikin's White Russian forces advanced, and the situation deteriorated rapidly. On 6 June commander-in-chief Vatsetis ordered the Eastern Front to stop the offensive so that he could use its forces in the south. But the leadership of the Eastern Front, including its commander Sergey Kamenev (a former colonel of the Imperial army), and Eastern Front Revolutionary Military Council members Ivar Smilga, Mikhail Lashevich and Sergey Gusev vigorously protested and wanted to keep emphasis on the Eastern Front. They insisted that it was vital to capture Siberia before the onset of winter and that once Kolchak's forces were broken, many more divisions would be freed up for the Southern Front. Trotsky, who had earlier had conflicts with the leadership of the Eastern Front, including a temporary removal of Kamenev in May 1919, supported Vatsetis.

At the 3–4 July Central Committee meeting, after a heated exchange the majority supported Kamenev and Smilga against Vatsetis and Trotsky. Trotsky's plan was rejected and he was much criticized for various alleged shortcomings in his leadership style, much of it of a personal nature. Stalin used this opportunity to pressure Lenin to dismiss Trotsky from his post. But when, on 5 July Trotsky offered his resignation, the Politburo and the Orgburo of the Central Committee unanimously rejected it.

Yet, a number of significant changes to the leadership of the Red Army were made. Trotsky was temporarily sent to the Southern Front, while the work in Moscow was informally coordinated by Smilga. Most members of the bloated Revolutionary Military Council who were not involved in its day to day operations, were relieved of their duties on 8 July while new members, including Smilga, were added. The same day, while Trotsky was already in the south, Vatsetis was suddenly arrested by the Cheka on suspicion of involvement in an anti-Soviet plot, and replaced by Sergey Kamenev. After a few weeks in the south, Trotsky returned to Moscow and resumed control of the Red Army. A year later, Smilga and Tukhachevsky were defeated during the Battle of Warsaw, but Trotsky refused this opportunity to pay Smilga back, which earned him Smilga's friendship and later support during the intra-Party battles of the 1920s.

By October 1919 the government was in the worst crisis of the Civil War: Denikin's troops approached Tula and Moscow from the south, and General Nikolay Yudenich's troops approached Petrograd from the west. Lenin decided that since it was more important to defend Moscow, Petrograd would have to be abandoned. Trotsky argued that Petrograd needed to be defended, at least in part to prevent Estonia and Finland from intervening. In a rare reversal, Trotsky was supported by Stalin and Zinoviev and prevailed against Lenin in the Central Committee. He immediately went to Petrograd, whose leadership headed by Zinoviev he found demoralized, and organized its defense, sometimes personally stopping fleeing soldiers. By 22 October the Red Army was on the offensive and in early November Yudenich's troops were driven back to Estonia, where they were disarmed and interned. Trotsky was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for his actions in Petrograd.

1920

With the defeat of Denikin and Yudenich in late 1919, the Soviet government's emphasis shifted to economic work and Trotsky spent the winter of 1919–1920 in the Urals region trying to re-start its economy. Based on his experiences there, he proposed abandoning the policies of War Communism, which included confiscating grain from peasants, and partially restoring the grain market. But Lenin was still committed to War Communism and the proposal was rejected. Instead, Trotsky was put in charge of the country's railroads (while retaining overall control of the Red Army), which he tried to militarize in the spirit of War Communism. It wasn't until early 1921 that economic collapse and uprisings would force Lenin and the rest of the Bolshevik leadership to abandon War Communism in favor of the New Economic Policy.

Meanwhile, in early 1920 Soviet–Polish tensions eventually led to the Polish–Soviet War. In the run-up and during the war, Trotsky argued that the Red Army was exhausted and the Soviet government should sign a peace treaty with Poland as soon as possible. He also did not believe that the Red Army would find much support in Poland proper. Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders thought that the Red Army's successes in the Russian Civil War and against the Poles meant that, as Lenin said later:

But the Red Army offensive was turned back during the Battle of Warsaw in August 1920, in part because of Stalin's failure to obey Trotsky's orders in the run-up to the decisive engagements. Back in Moscow, Trotsky again argued for a peace treaty and this time prevailed.

Trade union debate (1920–1921)

In late 1920, after the Bolsheviks won the Civil War and before the Eighth and Ninth Congress of Soviets, the Communist Party had a heated and increasingly acrimonious debate over the role of trade unions in the Soviet state. The discussion split the party into many "platforms" (factions), including Lenin's, Trotsky's and Bukharin's; Bukharin eventually merged his with Trotsky's. Smaller, more radical factions like the Workers' Opposition (headed by Alexander Shlyapnikov) and the Group of Democratic Centralism were particularly active.

Trotsky's position formed while he led a special commission on the Soviet transportation system, Tsektran. He was appointed there to rebuild the rail system ruined by the Civil War. Being the Commissar of War and a revolutionary military leader, he saw a need to create a militarized "production atmosphere" by incorporating trade unions directly into the State apparatus. His unyielding stance was that in a worker's state the workers should have nothing to fear from the state, and the State should fully control the unions. In the Ninth Party Congress he argued for "such a regime under which each worker feels himself to be a soldier of labor who cannot freely dispose of himself; if he is ordered transferred, he must execute that order; if he does not do so, he will be a deserter who should be punished. Who will execute this? The trade union. It will create a new regime. That is the militarization of the working class."

Lenin sharply criticised Trotsky and accused him of "bureaucratically nagging the trade unions" and of staging "factional attacks". His view did not focus on State control as much as the concern that a new relationship was needed between the State and the rank-and-file workers. He said, "Introduction of genuine labor discipline is conceived only if the whole mass of participants in productions take a conscious part in the fulfillment of these tasks. This cannot be achieved by bureaucratic methods and orders from above." This was a debate that Lenin thought the party could not afford. His frustration with Trotsky was used by Stalin and Zinoviev with their support for Lenin's position, to improve their standing within the Bolshevik leadership at Trotsky's expense.

Disagreements threatened to get out of hand and many Bolsheviks, including Lenin, feared that the party would splinter. The Central Committee was split almost evenly between Lenin's and Trotsky's supporters, with all three Secretaries of the Central Committee (Krestinky, Yevgeny Preobrazhensky and Leonid Serebryakov) supporting Trotsky.

At a meeting of his faction at the Tenth Party Congress in March 1921, Lenin's faction won a decisive victory and a number of Trotsky's supporters (including all three secretaries of the Central Committee) lost their leadership positions. Krestinsky was replaced as a member of the Politburo by Zinoviev, who had supported Lenin. Krestinsky's place in the secretariat was taken by Vyacheslav Molotov. The congress also adopted a secret resolution on "Party unity", which banned factions within the Party except during pre-Congress discussions. The resolution was later published and used by Stalin against Trotsky and other opponents. At the end of the Tenth Congress, after peace negotiations had failed, Trotsky gave the order for the suppression of the Kronstadt Rebellion, the last major revolt against Bolshevik rule.

Years later, anarchist Emma Goldman and others criticized Trotsky's actions as Commissar for War for his role in the suppression of the rebellion, and argued that he ordered unjustified incarcerations and executions of political opponents such as anarchists, although Trotsky did not participate in the actual suppression. Some Trotskyists, most notably Abbie Bakan, have argued that the claim that the Kronstadt rebels were "counterrevolutionary" has been supported by evidence of White Army and French government support for the Kronstadt sailors' March rebellion. Other historians, most notably Paul Avrich, claimed the evidence did not point towards this conclusion, and that the Kronstadt Rebellion was spontaneous.

Lenin's illness (1922–1923)

In late 1921 Lenin's health deteriorated, he was absent from Moscow for even longer periods, and eventually had three strokes between 26 May 1922 and 10 March 1923, which caused paralysis, loss of speech and finally death on 21 January 1924. With Lenin increasingly sidelined throughout 1922, Stalin (elevated to the newly created position of the Central Committee General Secretary earlier in the year), Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev formed a ''troika'' (triumvirate) to ensure that Trotsky, publicly the number two man in the country and Lenin's heir presumptive, would not succeed Lenin.

The rest of the recently expanded Politburo (Rykov, Mikhail Tomsky, Bukharin) was at first uncommitted, but eventually joined the ''troika''. Stalin's power of patronage in his capacity as General Secretary clearly played a role, but Trotsky and his supporters later concluded that a more fundamental reason was the process of slow bureaucratization of the Soviet regime once the extreme conditions of the Civil War were over: much of the Bolshevik elite wanted 'normalcy' while Trotsky was personally and politically personified as representing a turbulent revolutionary period that they would much rather leave behind.

Although the exact sequence of events is unclear, evidence suggests that at first the ''troika'' nominated Trotsky to head second rate government departments (e.g., Gokhran, the State Depository for Valuables) and then, when Trotsky predictably refused, tried using it as an excuse to oust him. At this time there was speculation about Trotsky's health and whether or not he had epilepsy.

When, in mid-July 1922, Kamenev wrote a letter to the recovering Lenin to the effect that "(the Central Committee) is throwing or is ready to throw a good cannon overboard", Lenin was shocked and responded:

From then until his final stroke, Lenin spent much of his time trying to devise a way to prevent a split within the Communist Party leadership, which was reflected in Lenin's Testament. As part of this effort, on 11 September 1922 Lenin proposed that Trotsky become his deputy at the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom). The Politburo approved the proposal, but Trotsky "categorically refused".

In late 1922, Lenin's relationship with Stalin deteriorated over Stalin's heavy-handed and chauvinistic handling of the issue of merging Soviet republics into one federal state, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). At that point, according to Trotsky's autobiography, Lenin offered Trotsky an alliance against Soviet bureaucracy in general and Stalin in particular. The alliance proved effective on the issue of foreign trade, but it was complicated by Lenin's progressing illness. In January 1923 the relationship between Lenin and Stalin completely broke down when Stalin rudely insulted Lenin's wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya. At that point Lenin amended his Testament suggesting that Stalin should be replaced as the party's General Secretary, although the thrust of his argument was somewhat weakened by the fact that he also mildly criticized other Bolshevik leaders, including Trotsky. In March 1923, days before his third stroke, Lenin prepared a frontal assault on Stalin's "Great-Russian nationalistic campaign" against the Georgian Communist Party (the so-called Georgian Affair) and asked Trotsky to deliver the blow at the XIIth Party Congress. With Lenin no longer active, Trotsky did not raise the issue at the Congress.

At the XIIth Party Congress in April 1923, just after Lenin's final stroke, the key Central Committee reports on organizational and nationalities questions were delivered by Stalin and not by Trotsky, while Zinoviev delivered the political report of the Central Committee, traditionally Lenin's prerogative. Stalin's power of appointment had allowed him to gradually replace local party secretaries with loyal functionaries and thus control most regional delegations at the congress, which enabled him to pack the Central Committee with his supporters, mostly at the expense of Zinoviev and Kamenev's backers.

At the congress, Trotsky made a speech about intra-party democracy, among other things, but avoided a direct confrontation with the ''troika''. The delegates, most of whom were unaware of the divisions within the Politburo, gave Trotsky a standing ovation, which couldn't help but upset the ''troika''. The ''troika'' was further infuriated by Karl Radek's article ''Leon Trotsky – Organizer of Victory'' published in ''Pravda'' on 14 March 1923.

The resolutions adopted by the XIIth Congress called, in general terms, for greater democracy within the Party, but were vague and remained unimplemented. In an important test of strength in mid-1923, the ''troika'' was able to neutralize Trotsky's friend and supporter Christian Rakovsky by removing him from his post as head of the Ukrainian government (''Sovnarkom'') and sending him to London as Soviet ambassador. When regional Party secretaries in Ukraine protested against Rakovsky's reassignment, they too were reassigned to various posts all over the Soviet Union.

Left opposition (1923–1924)

Starting in mid-1923, the Soviet economy ran into significant difficulties, which led to numerous strikes countrywide. Two secret groups within the Communist Party, “Workers' Truth” and “Workers' Group”, were uncovered and suppressed by the Soviet secret police. On 8 October 1923 Trotsky sent a letter to the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission, attributing these difficulties to lack of intra-Party democracy. Trotsky wrote:

Other senior communists who had similar concerns sent ''The Declaration of 46'' to the Central Committee on 15 October in which they wrote:

Although the text of these letters remained secret at the time, they had a significant effect on the Party leadership and prompted a partial retreat by the ''troika'' and its supporters on the issue of intra-Party democracy, notably in Zinoviev's ''Pravda'' article published on 7 November. Throughout November, the ''troika'' tried to come up with a compromise to placate, or at least temporarily neutralize, Trotsky and his supporters. (Their task was made easier by the fact that Trotsky was sick in November and December.) The first draft of the resolution was rejected by Trotsky, which led to the formation of a special group consisting of Stalin, Trotsky and Kamenev, which was charged with drafting a mutually acceptable compromise. On 5 December, the Politburo and the Central Control Commission unanimously adopted the group's final draft as its resolution. On 8 December Trotsky published an open letter, in which he expounded on the recently adopted resolution's ideas. The ''troika'' used his letter as an excuse to launch a campaign against Trotsky, accusing him of factionalism, setting "the youth against the fundamental generation of old revolutionary Bolsheviks" and other sins. Trotsky defended his position in a series of seven letters which were collected as ''The New Course'' in January 1924. The illusion of a "monolithic Bolshevik leadership" was thus shattered and a lively intra-Party discussion ensued, both in local Party organizations and in the pages of ''Pravda''. The discussion lasted most of December and January until the XIIIth Party Conference of 16–18 January 1924. Those who opposed the Central Committee's position in the debate were thereafter referred to as members of the Left Opposition.

Since the ''troika'' controlled the Party apparatus through Stalin's Secretariat and ''Pravda'' through its editor Bukharin, it was able to direct the discussion and the process of delegate selection. Although Trotsky's position prevailed within the Red Army and Moscow universities and received about half the votes in the Moscow Party organization, it was defeated elsewhere, and the Conference was packed with pro-''troika'' delegates. In the end, only three delegates voted for Trotsky's position and the Conference denounced "Trotskyism" as a "petty bourgeois deviation". After the Conference, a number of Trotsky's supporters, especially in the Red Army's Political Directorate, were removed from leading positions or reassigned. Nonetheless, Trotsky kept all of his posts and the ''troika'' was careful to emphasize that the debate was limited to Trotsky's "mistakes" and that removing Trotsky from the leadership was out of the question. In reality, Trotsky had already been cut off from the decision making process.

Immediately after the Conference, Trotsky left for a Caucasian resort to recover from his prolonged illness. On his way, he learned about Lenin's death on 21 January 1924. He was about to return when a follow up telegram from Stalin arrived, giving an incorrect date of the scheduled funeral, which would have made it impossible for Trotsky to return in time. Many commentators speculated after the fact that Trotsky's absence from Moscow in the days following Lenin's death contributed to his eventual loss to Stalin, although Trotsky generally discounted the significance of his absence.

After Lenin's death (1924)

There was little overt political disagreement within the Soviet leadership throughout most of 1924. On the surface, Trotsky remained the most prominent and popular Bolshevik leader, although his "mistakes" were often alluded to by ''troika'' partisans. Behind the scenes, he was completely cut off from the decision making process. Politburo meetings were pure formalities since all key decisions were made ahead of time by the ''troika'' and its supporters. Trotsky's control over the military was undermined by reassigning his deputy, Ephraim Sklyansky, and appointing Mikhail Frunze, who was being groomed to take Trotsky's place.

At the thirteenth Party Congress in May, Trotsky delivered a conciliatory speech:

The attempt at reconciliation, however, did not stop ''troika'' supporters from taking potshots at him.

In the meantime, the Left Opposition, which had coagulated somewhat unexpectedly in late 1923 and lacked a definite platform aside from general dissatisfaction with the intra-Party "regime", began to crystallize. It lost some less dedicated members to the harassment by the ''troika'', but it also began formulating a program. Economically, the Left Opposition and its theoretician Yevgeny Preobrazhensky came out against further development of capitalist elements in the Soviet economy and in favor of faster industrialization. That put them at odds with Bukharin and Rykov, the "Right" group within the Party, who supported ''troika'' at the time. On the question of world revolution, Trotsky and Karl Radek saw a period of stability in Europe while Stalin and Zinoviev confidently predicted an "acceleration" of revolution in Western Europe in 1924. On the theoretical plane, Trotsky remained committed to the Bolshevik idea that the Soviet Union could not create a true socialist society in the absence of the world revolution, while Stalin gradually came up with a policy of building 'Socialism in One Country'. These ideological divisions provided much of the intellectual basis for the political divide between Trotsky and the Left Opposition on the one hand and Stalin and his allies on the other.

At the thirteenth Congress Kamenev and Zinoviev helped Stalin defuse Lenin's Testament, which belatedly came to the surface. But just after the congress, the ''troika'', always an alliance of convenience, showed signs of weakness. Stalin began making poorly veiled accusations about Zinoviev and Kamenev. Yet in October 1924, Trotsky published ''The Lessons of October'', an extensive summary of the events of the 1917 revolution. In it, he described Zinoviev's and Kamenev's opposition to the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917, something that the two would have preferred left unmentioned. This started a new round of intra-party struggle, which became known as the ''Literary Discussion'', with Zinoviev and Kamenev again allied with Stalin against Trotsky. Their criticism of Trotsky was concentrated in three areas:

Trotsky's disagreements and conflicts with Lenin and the Bolsheviks prior to 1917.

Trotsky's alleged distortion of the events of 1917 in order to emphasize his role and diminish the roles played by other Bolsheviks.

Trotsky's harsh treatment of his subordinates and other alleged mistakes during the Russian Civil War.

Trotsky was again sick and unable to respond while his opponents mobilized all of their resources to denounce him. They succeeded in damaging his military reputation so much that he was forced to resign as People's Commissar of Army and Fleet Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council on 6 January 1925. Zinoviev demanded Trotsky's expulsion from the Communist Party, but Stalin refused to go along and skillfully played the role of a moderate. Trotsky kept his Politburo seat, but was effectively put on probation.

A year in the wilderness (1925)

1925 was a difficult year for Trotsky. After the bruising ''Literary Discussion'' and losing his Red Army posts, he was effectively unemployed throughout the winter and spring. In May 1925, he was given three posts: chairman of the Concessions Committee, head of the electro-technical board, and chairman of the scientific-technical board of industry. Trotsky wrote in ''My Life'' that he "was taking a rest from politics" and "naturally plunged into the new line of work up to my ears", but some contemporary accounts paint a picture of a remote and distracted man. Later in the year, Trotsky resigned his two technical positions (claiming Stalin-instigated interference and sabotage) and concentrated on his work in the Concessions Committee.

In one of the few political developments that affected Trotsky in 1925, the circumstances surrounding the controversy around Lenin's Testament were described by American Marxist Max Eastman in his book ''Since Lenin Died'' (1925). The Soviet leadership denounced Eastman's account and used party discipline to force Trotsky to write an article denying Eastman's version of the events.

In the meantime, the ''troika'' finally broke up. Bukharin and Rykov sided with Stalin while Krupskaya and Soviet Commissar of Finance Grigory Sokolnikov aligned with Zinoviev and Kamenev. The struggle became open at the September 1925 meeting of the Central Committee and came to a head at the XIVth Party Congress in December 1925. With only the Leningrad Party organization behind them, Zinoviev and Kamenev, dubbed ''The New Opposition'', were thoroughly defeated while Trotsky refused to get involved in the fight and didn't speak at the Congress.

United Opposition (1926–1927)

During a lull in the intra-party fighting in the spring of 1926, Zinoviev, Kamenev and their supporters in the “New Opposition” gravitated closer to Trotsky's supporters and the two groups soon formed an alliance, which also incorporated some smaller opposition groups within the Communist Party. The alliance became known as the “United Opposition”.

The United Opposition was repeatedly threatened with sanctions by the Stalinist leadership of the Communist Party and Trotsky had to agree to tactical retreats, mostly to preserve his alliance with Zinoviev and Kamenev. The opposition remained united against Stalin throughout 1926 and 1927, especially on the issue of the Chinese Revolution. The methods used by the Stalinists against the Opposition became more and more extreme. At the XVth Party Conference in October 1926 Trotsky could barely speak because of interruptions and catcalls, and at the end of the Conference he lost his Politburo seat. In 1927 Stalin started using the GPU (Soviet secret police) to infiltrate and discredit the opposition. Rank and file oppositionists were increasingly harassed, sometimes expelled from the Party and even arrested.

The Northern Expedition became a point of contention over foreign policy by Stalin and Trotsky. Stalin followed a practical policy, ignoring communist ideology. He told the Chinese Communist Party to stop whining about the lower classes and follow the Kuomintang's orders. Stalin, like Lenin, believed that the KMT bourgeoisie would defeat the western imperialists in China and complete the revolution. Trotsky wanted the Communist party to complete an orthodox proletarian revolution and opposed the KMT. Stalin funded the KMT during the expedition. Stalin countered Trotskyist criticism by making a secret speech in which he said that Chiang's right wing Kuomintang were the only ones capable of defeating the imperialists, that Chiang Kai-shek had funding from the rich merchants, and that his forces were to be utilized until squeezed for all usefulness like a lemon before being discarded. However, Chiang quickly reversed the tables in the Shanghai massacre of 1927 by massacring the Communist party in Shanghai midway in the Northern Expedition.

Defeat and exile (1927–1928)

In October 1927, Trotsky and Zinoviev were expelled from the Central Committee. When the United Opposition tried to organize independent demonstrations commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Bolshevik seizure of power in November 1927, the demonstrators were dispersed by force and Trotsky and Zinoviev were expelled from the Communist Party on 12 November. Their leading supporters, from Kamenev down, were expelled in December 1927 by the XVth Party Congress, which paved the way for mass expulsions of rank and file oppositionists as well as internal exile of opposition leaders in early 1928.

When the XVth Party Congress made Opposition views incompatible with membership in the Communist Party, Zinoviev, Kamenev and their supporters capitulated and renounced their alliance with the Left Opposition. Trotsky and most of his followers, on the other hand, refused to surrender and stayed the course. Trotsky was exiled to Alma Ata in Kazakhstan on 31 January 1928. He was expelled from the Soviet Union to Turkey in February 1929, accompanied by his wife Natalia Sedova and his son Lev Sedov.

After Trotsky's expulsion from the country, exiled Trotskyists began to waver and, between 1929 and 1934, most of the leading members of the Opposition surrendered to Stalin, "admitted their mistakes" and were reinstated in the Communist Party. Christian Rakovsky, who served as an inspiration for Trotsky between 1929 and 1934 while he was in Siberian exile, was the last prominent Trotskyist to capitulate. Almost all of them perished in the Great Purges just a few years later.

Exile (1929–1940)

Trotsky was deported from the Soviet Union in February 1929. His first station in exile was at Büyükada off the coast of Istanbul, Turkey, where he stayed for the next four years. There were many former White Army officers in Istanbul, which put Trotsky's life in danger, but a number of Trotsky's European supporters volunteered to serve as bodyguards and assured his safety.

In 1933 Trotsky was offered asylum in France by Prime Minister Édouard Daladier. He stayed first at Royan, then at Barbizon. He was not allowed to visit Paris. In 1935 he was given to understand he was no longer welcome in France. After weighing alternatives, he moved to Norway. Having obtained permission from then-Justice Minister Trygve Lie to enter the country, Trotsky became a guest of Konrad Knudsen near Oslo. After two years—allegedly under influence from the Soviet Union—he was put under house arrest. His transfer to Mexico on a freighter was arranged after consultations with Norwegian officials. Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas welcomed him warmly, even arranging for a special train to bring him to Mexico City from the port of Tampico.

Trotsky lived in the Coyoacán area of Mexico City at the home (The Blue House) of the painter Diego Rivera and Rivera's wife and fellow painter, Frida Kahlo (with whom he had an affair). His final move was a few blocks away to a residence on Avenida Viena in May 1939, following a break with Rivera. The findings were published in the book ''Not Guilty''.

Fourth International

At first Trotsky was opposed to the idea of establishing parallel Communist parties or a parallel international Communist organization that would compete with the Third International for fear of splitting the Communist movement. However, he changed his mind in mid-1933 after the Nazi takeover in Germany and the Comintern's response to it, when he proclaimed that:

In 1938, Trotsky and his supporters founded the Fourth International, which was intended to be a revolutionary and internationalist alternative to the Stalinist Comintern.

Dies Committee

Towards the end of 1939 Trotsky agreed to go to the United States to appear as a witness before the Dies Committee of the House of Representatives, a forerunner of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Representative Martin Dies, chairman of the committee, demanded the suppression of the American Communist Party. Trotsky intended to use the forum to expose the NKVD's activities against him and his followers.

He made it clear that he also intended to argue against the suppression of the American Communist Party, and to use the committee as a platform for a call to transform World War II into a world revolution. Many of his supporters argued against his appearance. When the committee learned the nature of the testimony Trotsky intended to present, it refused to hear him, and he was denied a visa to enter the United States. On hearing about it, the Stalinists immediately accused Trotsky of being in the pay of the oil magnates and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Final months

After quarreling with Diego Rivera, Trotsky moved to his final residence on Avenida Viena. He was ill, suffering from high blood pressure, and feared that he would suffer a cerebral hemorrhage. He even prepared himself for the possibility of ending his life through suicide.

On 27 February 1940, Trotsky wrote a document known as "Trotsky's Testament", in which he expressed his final thoughts and feelings for posterity. After forcefully denying Stalin's accusations that he had betrayed the working class, he thanked his friends, and above all his wife and dear companion, Natalia Sedova, for their loyal support: {{bquote|In addition to the happiness of being a fighter for the cause of socialism, fate gave me the happiness of being her husband. During the almost forty years of our life together she remained an inexhaustible source of love, magnanimity, and tenderness. She underwent great sufferings, especially in the last period of our lives. But I find some comfort in the fact that she also knew days of happiness. For forty-three years of my conscious life I have remained a revolutionist; for forty-two of them I have fought under the banner of Marxism. If I had to begin all over again I would of course try to avoid this or that mistake, but the main course of my life would remain unchanged. I shall die a proletarian revolutionist, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist, and, consequently, an irreconcilable atheist. My faith in the communist future of mankind is not less ardent, indeed it is firmer today, than it was in the days of my youth. Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full. L. Trotsky 27 February 1940 Coyoacan.}}

Assassination

On 24 May 1940, Trotsky survived a raid on his home by Stalinist assassins led by GPU agent Iosif Grigulevich, Mexican painter and Stalinist David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Vittorio Vidale. In this attack a young assistant and bodyguard of Trotsky, Robert Sheldon Harte, was abducted and later murdered.

On 20 August 1940, Trotsky was attacked in his home in Mexico with an ice axe by undercover NKVD agent Ramón Mercader. The blow was poorly delivered and failed to kill Trotsky instantly, as Mercader had intended. Witnesses stated that Trotsky spat on Mercader and began struggling fiercely with him. Hearing the commotion, Trotsky's bodyguards burst into the room and nearly killed Mercader, but Trotsky stopped them, laboriously stating that the assassin should be made to answer questions. Trotsky was taken to a hospital, operated on, and survived for more than a day, dying at the age of 60 on 21 August 1940 as a result of severe brain damage. Mercader later testified at his trial: According to James P. Cannon, the secretary of the Socialist Workers Party (USA), Trotsky's last words were "I will not survive this attack. Stalin has finally accomplished the task he attempted unsuccessfully before."

Epilogue

Trotsky's house in Coyoacán was preserved in much the same condition as it was on the day of the assassination and is now a museum run by a board which includes his grandson Esteban Volkov. The current director of the museum is Carlos Ramirez Sandoval. Trotsky's grave is located on its grounds. A new foundation (International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum) has been organized to raise funds to further improve the Museum.

Trotsky was never formally rehabilitated by the Soviet government, despite the Glasnost-era rehabilitation of most other Old Bolsheviks killed during the Great Purges. In 1987, under President Mikhail Gorbachev, Trotsky was referred to as "a hero and martyr". His son, Sergei Sedov, killed in 1937, was rehabilitated in 1988, as was Nikolai Bukharin. Above all, beginning in 1989, Trotsky's books, forbidden until 1987, were finally published in the Soviet Union.

Trotsky was rehabilitated in 16 June 2001 on the basis of the decision of the General Prosecutor's Office (Certificates of Rehabilitation № 13/2182-90, № 13-2200-99 in Archives Research Center "Memorial").

Trotsky's grandson, Vsievolod Platonovich "Esteban" Volkov (born 1926), who lives in Mexico, is an active promoter of his grandfather. Trotsky's great-granddaughter, Mexican-born Nora Volkow (daughter of Esteban Volkov), is currently head of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Contributions to theory

Trotsky considered himself a "Bolshevik-Leninist", arguing for the establishment of a vanguard party. He considered himself an advocate of orthodox Marxism. His politics differed in many respects from those of Stalin or Mao Zedong, most importantly in his rejection of the theory of Socialism in One Country and his declaring the need for an international "permanent revolution". Numerous Fourth Internationalist groups around the world continue to describe themselves as Trotskyist and see themselves as standing in this tradition, although they have different interpretations of the conclusions to be drawn from this. Supporters of the Fourth International echo Trotsky's opposition to Stalinist totalitarianism, advocating political revolution, arguing that socialism cannot sustain itself without democracy.

Permanent Revolution

Permanent Revolution is the theory that the bourgeois democratic tasks in countries with delayed bourgeois democratic development can only be accomplished through the establishment of a workers' state, and that the creation of a workers' state would inevitably involve inroads against capitalist property. Thus, the accomplishment of bourgeois democratic tasks passes over into proletarian tasks. Although most closely associated with Leon Trotsky, the call for Permanent Revolution is first found in the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in March 1850, in the aftermath of the 1848 Revolution, in their Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League:

Trotsky's conception of Permanent Revolution is based on his understanding, drawing on the work of the founder of Russian Marxism Georgy Plekhanov, that in 'backward' countries the tasks of the Bourgeois Democratic Revolution could not be achieved by the bourgeoisie itself. This conception was first developed by Trotsky in collaboration with Alexander Parvus in late 1904–1905. The relevant articles were later collected in Trotsky's books ''1905'' and in ''Permanent Revolution'', which also contains his essay "Results and Prospects".

According to Trotskyists, the October Revolution (which Trotsky directed) was the first example of a successful Permanent Revolution. The proletarian, socialist October Revolution took place precisely because the bourgeoisie, which took power in February, had not been able to solve any of the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. It had not given the land to the peasants (which the Bolsheviks did on 25 October), nor given freedom to the oppressed minority nations, nor emancipated Russia from foreign domination by ending the war which, at that point, was fought mainly to please the English and French creditors. Trotskyists today argue that the state of the Third World shows that capitalism offers no way forward for underdeveloped countries, thus again proving the central tenet of the theory. In contrast, Stalinist policy in the former colonial countries has been characterized by the so-called Two-Stage Theory, which argues that the working class must fight for "progressive capitalism" along with the "progressive national bourgeoisie" before any attempts at socialism can be made.

The United Front

Trotsky was a central figure in the Comintern during its first four congresses. During this time he helped to generalise the strategy and tactics of the Bolsheviks to newly formed Communist parties across Europe and further afield. From 1921 onwards the united front, a method of uniting revolutionaries and reformists in common struggle while winning some of the workers to revolution, was the central tactic put forward by the Comintern after the defeat of the German revolution.

After he was exiled and politically marginalised by Stalinism, Trotsky continued to argue for a united front against fascism in Germany and Spain. His articles on the united front represent an important part of his political legacy.

Trotsky in art

In Mexico in the late 1930s Trotsky met Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and André Breton who in 1938 wrote ''Pour un art révolutionnaire indépendant (For an Independent Revolution in Art)'' and as the leader of Surrealism Breton befriended Trotsky. After Trotsky's death in 1940, Breton denounced him for not successfully bringing forth the Revolution promised in Breton's manifesto. Trotsky was admired by Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, husband of Frida Kahlo. Rivera twice painted Trotsky's face as part of a montage of Communist figures, in ''Communist Unity Panel'' (1933) and again in ''Man at the Crossroads'' (1933). After the destruction of the latter, it was re-created as ''Man, Controller of the Universe'' (1934).

In 1969 German playwright Peter Weiss wrote the play ''Trotski Im Exil'' (''Trotsky In Exile'').

Trotsky's death was dramatized in the 1972 film ''The Assassination of Trotsky'', directed by Joseph Losey and starring Richard Burton as Trotsky. It was also the subject of a 1993 short play, ''Variations on the Death of Trotsky'', written by David Ives. In the 2002 film ''Frida'', Trotsky was portrayed by Geoffrey Rush.

Trotsky is mentioned briefly in the 1977 song "No More Heroes" by English punk band The Stranglers. His assassination is described as getting "an ice-pick that made his ears burn"

The character Snowball in George Orwell's novella, ''Animal Farm'', is based on Trotsky, as is Emmanuel Goldstein in ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''.

Trotsky is a well regarded political figure within Bolano's ''The Savage Detectives''.

Trotsky is a major character in Robert Bolt's play ''State of Revolution'', which deals with the Russian Revolution and its aftermath.

A Spanish language documentary, ''El Asesinato de Trotsky'' (The Murder of Trotsky) was co-produced in 2006 by The History Channel and Anima Films, and directed by Argentinian director Matías Gueilburt. Third-wave ska band Catch-22 released a concept album in 2006 centered around the life of Trotsky, entitled Permanent Revolution.

In the 2009 novel ''The Lacuna'' by Barbara Kingsolver, the protagonist, Harrison William Shepherd, works as a secretary to the exiled Leon Trotsky in Mexico.

In the 2010 film ''The Trotsky'', Jay Baruchel plays Leon Bronstein, a high school student who believes himself to be a reincarnation of Trotsky and attempts to lead a revolution.

In the 2011 documentary film ''Marx Reloaded'', Trotsky meets Karl Marx in an animated cartoon parody of the 1999 science fiction-action film ''The Matrix''. Although the scene is fictional, Trotsky is credited and depicted on the film's movie poster alongside contemporary philosophers including Slavoj Žižek.

One of the three storylines in the 1982 novel ''The End of the World News: An Entertainment'' by Anthony Burgess follows Leon Trotsky on a journey to New York City shortly before the Russian Revolution of 1917. This story is written as the libretto of an Off-Broadway musical.

He was portrayed by Brian Cox in the 1971 film ''Nicholas and Alexandra''.

He was portrayed too by Friedrich G. Beckhaus in the five parts of the West German television play ''Bürgerkrieg in Rußland'' from 1967, directed by Wolfgang Schleif.

A character in the Monty Python episode "The Cycling Tour" is transformed into Trotsky and Eartha Kitt simultaneously.

Trotsky's arrival in France, and his departure, punctuate the main plot of the 1974 French film Stavisky.

Selected works

''The Real Situation in Russia'', Max Eastman, tr. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1928

''1905''

Autobiography, 1879–1917.

Between Red and White

Fascism What It Is and How To Fight It

History of the Russian Revolution

In Defence of Marxism

In Defence of October

Literature and Revolution

My Life

Permanent Revolution & Results and Prospects

Platform of the Joint Opposition

Problems of the Chinese Revolution

Terrorism and Communism

The Case of Leon Trotsky

The First Five Years of the Communist International, Volume 1

The First Five Years of the Communist International, Volume 2

The Lessons of October

The New Course

The Revolution Betrayed

The Stalin School of Falsification

The Third International After Lenin

The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution

Their Morals and Ours

Trotsky's Military Writings, Volume 3

Trotsky's Military Writings, Volume 4

Trotsky's Military Writings, Volume 5

War and the International

See also

Ash heap of history

Bolsheviks

Fourth International

Group of Democratic Centralism

History of Russia, a series of articles.

Labor army

List of Trotskyist internationals

Marxism

''My Life'', Trotsky's autobiography.

Stalinism

Trotskyism

Variations on the Death of Trotsky

Vladimir Lenin

References

Sources

Blackledge, Paul (2006) ''Leon Trotsky’s Contribution to the Marxist Theory of History'' in ''Studies in East European Thought'' Vol. 58, No. 1: 1–31.

Brouè Pierre, ''Trotsky'', ed. Fayard, Paris, 1988

Cliff, Tony (1989–93) ''Trotsky'' (4 Vols.) London: Bookmarks

Isaac Deutscher wrote the classic—and largely sympathetic—biography in three volumes:

* (1954) ''Trotsky: The Prophet Armed''

* (1959) ''Trotsky: The Prophet Unarmed''

* (1963) ''Trotsky: The Prophet Outcast''

Isaac Deutscher (1966) ''Ironies of History''.

Daniels, Robert V (1991) ''Trotsky, Stalin & Socialism''. Westview Press. ISBN 0–8133–1223–X

Dunn, Bill & Radice, Hugo eds. ''Permanent Revolution – Results and Prospects 100 Years On'' London: Pluto Press

Dimitri Volkogonov (1996) ''Trotsky, the Eternal Revolutionary''. Free Press.

Gilbert, Helen (2003) ''Leon Trotsky: His Life and Ideas''. Red Letter Press ISBN 0–932323–17–0

Hallas, Duncan (1979) ''Trotsky's Marxism'' London: Pluto Press

Hansen, Joseph, ed. (1969) ''Leon Trotsky: the Man and His Work. Reminiscences and Appraisals''. New York: Merit Publishers.

Levine, Isaac Don (1960) ''The Mind of an Assassin''. New York: New American Library/Signet Book.

Maitan, Livio (1985) ''Destino di Trotsky'', Milano, ed. Rizzoli.

Mandel, Ernest (1980) '' La pensée politique de Leon Trotsky''

Molyneux, John (1981) ''Leon Trotsky's Theory of Revolution'', Brighton: Harvester Press

Richard Pipes, ed. (1996) ''The Unknown Lenin''. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-06919-7

Renton, David (2004) ''Trotsky''.

Thatcher, Ian D. (2003) ''Trotsky''. ISBN 0-415-23251-1

Jean van Heijenoort (1978) ''With Trotsky in Exile: From Prinkipo to Coyoacán''. Harvard University Press.

''The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History,'' Volume 39, Academic International Press

Trotsky speaks about the Moscow Trials

Robert Service (2009) ''Trotsky: A Biography''. Macmillan.

External links

Trotsky in Havana by Dimitri Prieto from ''Havana Times''

65 years since Trotsky's Death an essay by Rob Sewell

FBI records relating to Trotsky's murder

'Ice-pick that killed Trotsky' found in Mexico which is stained with his blood

Dossier on Trotsky, International Viewpoint

January 2006 images of Trotsky House, Mexico City

Lenin and Trotsky— What they Really Stood For by Alan Woods and Ted Grant

On anniversary of murder, museum for Trotsky proves to be tourist draw by Larry Luxner of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, published 23 August 2005

''The Contradiction of Trotsky'' by Claude Lefort

The Leon Trotsky Internet Archive at Marxists.org (under GNU Free Documentation License)

The Lubitz TrotskyanaNet, dealing with Leon Trotsky, Trotskyism and Trotskyists

In The Service of Historical Falsification: A Review of Robert Service's Trotsky

Historians in the Service of the “Big Lie”: An Examination of Professor Robert Service’s Biography of Trotsky

Leon Trotsky—The Transitional Program—1938

Leon Trotsky, Soviet Historiography, and the Fate of Classical Marxism

''Uncommon Knowledge'' Interview with Christopher Hitchens and Robert Service on Leon Trotsky

{{S-ttl|title=Cover of Time Magazine |years=18 May 1925}}

Category:1879 births Category:1940 deaths * Category:Anti-fascists Category:Assassinated Jews Category:Assassinated Russian politicians Category:Atheism activists Category:Attempted assassination survivors Category:Autobiographers Category:Bolsheviks Category:Comintern people Category:Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Category:Communist writers Category:Deaths by stabbing Category:Expelled members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Category:Foreign Ministers of Russia Category:Jewish atheists Category:Jewish Mexican history Category:Jewish people executed by the Soviet Union Category:Jewish socialists Category:Historians of communism Category:Individuals purged from the government of the Soviet Union Category:Marxist historians Category:Marxist theorists Category:Marxist writers Category:Marxists Category:Old Bolsheviks Category:Orthodox Marxists Category:People from Kirovohrad Oblast Category:People murdered in Mexico Category:People of the 1905 Russian Revolution Category:People of the 1917 Russian Revolution Category:People of the Russian Civil War Category:People with epilepsy Category:People's Commissars and Ministers of the Soviet Union Category:Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Category:Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner Category:Refugees in Mexico Category:Russian atheists Category:Russian communists Category:Russian expatriates in Austria Category:Russian expatriates in Mexico Category:Russian people murdered abroad Category:Russian Marxists Category:Russian military leaders Category:Russian military writers Category:Russian socialists Category:Russian revolutionaries Category:Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members Category:Soviet expellees Category:Soviet Jews Category:Soviet Ministers of Defence Category:Ukrainian atheists Category:Ukrainian expatriates in Austria Category:Ukrainian expatriates in Mexico Category:Ukrainian Jews Category:Unpersons in the Eastern Bloc

ar:ليون تروتسكي an:Leon Trotsky ast:León Trotsky az:Lev Trotski bn:লিওন ত্রোত্‌স্কি zh-min-nan:Lev Trockij be:Леў Троцкі be-x-old:Леў Троцкі bar:Leo Trotzki bo:ལི་ཡོན་ཁྲོའོ་ཚི་ཁི། bs:Lav Trocki br:Lyev Trotsky bg:Лев Троцки ca:Lev Trotski cv:Троцкий Лев Давидович cs:Lev Davidovič Trockij cy:Leon Trotsky da:Lev Trotskij de:Leo Trotzki et:Lev Trotski el:Λέων Τρότσκι es:León Trotski eo:Lev Trockij ext:Leon Trotski eu:Leon Trotski fa:لئون تروتسکی fr:Léon Trotski fy:Leon Trotski ga:Leon Trotscaí gd:Leon Trotsky gl:Lev Trotski ko:레프 트로츠키 hi:त्रोत्स्की hr:Lav Trocki io:Lev Trocki id:Lev Trotski is:Lev Trotskíj it:Lev Trotsky he:לאון טרוצקי jv:Lev Trotski ka:ლევ ტროცკი kk:Троцкий ku:Lev Trotskî la:Leo Trotski lv:Ļevs Trockis lb:Leo Trotzki lt:Levas Trockis jbo:lev. trotskis hu:Lev Davidovics Trockij mk:Лав Троцки mr:लेऑन ट्रॉट्स्की arz:ليون تروتسكى ms:Leon Trotsky nl:Leon Trotski ja:レフ・トロツキー no:Lev Trotskij nn:Lev Trotskij oc:Trotski pms:Lev Davidovič Trockij pl:Lew Trocki pt:Leon Trótski ro:Lev Davidovici Troțki qu:Leon Trotsky ru:Троцкий, Лев Давидович sah:Лев Троцкай sa:त्रोत्स्की sco:Leon Trotsky sq:Leon Trotsky scn:Leon Davidovich Trotsky simple:Leon Trotsky sk:Lev Davidovič Trockij sl:Lev Trocki sr:Лав Троцки sh:Lav Trocki fi:Lev Trotski sv:Lev Trotskij tl:Leon Trotsky ta:லியோன் திரொட்ஸ்கி tg:Лев Тротский tr:Lev Troçki uk:Троцький Лев Давидович ur:ٹراٹسکی vi:Lev Davidovich Trotsky fiu-vro:Trotski Lev war:Leon Trotsky yi:לייב טראצקי yo:Leon Trotsky bat-smg:Levs Truockis zh:列夫·托洛茨基