“Is victory a foregone conclusion?”: the ratio of the military and diplomatic efforts of the Bolsheviks in eastern Russia in 1920

The factual material of the Civil War of 1917-1922 provides grounds for important conclusions. At the same time, propaganda and historiographical inertia pose certain difficulties. The article compares the statements of the Bolshevik leadership with the observance of the real chronology and the indication of the causes of events, shows the complementary combination of combat efforts and diplomatic maneuvers of the Reds. It is emphasized that the rapid advance of the Red Army deep into Siberia at the turn of 1919-1920, along with the occupation of the Kuban by the spring of 1920, became the largest military achievement of the Bolsheviks. At the same time, the successes in the east of Russia created the danger of a clash between the Red Army and Japanese troops. The Bolsheviks were forced to show great political flexibility here, proclaiming a formally independent and democratic Far Eastern Republic. The task was set to quickly create combat-ready troops - the People’s Revolutionary Army, whose basis was the partisans and some of the former Kolchak people. The change of moods of the Siberian peasantry is shown, the sequence and scale of its anti-Bolshevik actions are considered. Conclusion dwells upon the fact that a set of events in 1920 challenged the universality of the class approach.