Military victory in the Civil War came at the cost of economic collapse. Trotsky's Red Army and the Cheka's terror defeated the Whites, but War Communism's grain seizures and total nationalisation left the economy in ruins and the peasants in revolt. Drag the slider to see how Bolshevik control intensified across the war years.
Watch the Red Army expand and the Cheka's terror spread
Trotsky built the Red Army from nothing into a 5-million-strong force by 1920. He re-recruited 50,000 Tsarist officers under threat of death, instituted military discipline with execution for desertion, and deployed Bolshevik commissars to every unit to ensure loyalty. The Red Army's central position allowed it to defeat White forces on interior lines, moving troops rapidly between fronts while the Whites remained geographically isolated from each other. Trotsky's armoured trains became mobile command centres, carrying him to crisis points across the vast front.
The Civil War (1918-1921) saw the Reds defeat the Whites through Trotsky's Red Army, the Cheka's terror, and War Communism – but victory left the economy in ruins and the peasantry alienated.