What are the most important reasons for the communist victory in the civil war after the revolution?
The Bolsheviks did have initial advantages such as the fact they held the majority of the industrial areas. Further their enemies were divided. Initially it was the Socialist Revolutionaries who led the opposition but their insurrection was led by their most right wing faction. In the Volga region this led them to alienate the peasants by insisting that the landlords could retain some of their land on a temporary basis. (see Figes: A Peoples Tragedy p580) In a Russia deeply polarized between left and right they tried to sit in the center and so pleased no one. In Siberia they simply handed over power to a technocratic government that built up the Siberian Army as a right wing force. The result was, after some Byzantine intrigues, the Kolchak coup in Nov 1918. From then on it is the Whites, Kolchak and Denikin, who were the focus for the anti Bolshevik movement. They were a fairly mixed bunch often motivated by the mirror image of Bolshevik class hatred. They had no popular support to s
