Conditions During the Civil War (AQA A-Level History): Revision Notes
Conditions During the Civil War
Industrial collapse and the failure of early economic management
The transition to Bolshevik control exposed immediate problems in industrial management. Workers, suddenly responsible for running factories, lacked the necessary managerial expertise. Production became chaotic and inefficient, with output declining precisely when the Civil War demanded maximum industrial capacity. Some workers awarded themselves excessive wage increases that enterprises could not sustain, while others helped themselves to factory stock and equipment. Desperate for goods to trade, workers spent time manufacturing items like penknives or cutting shoe soles from leather conveyor belts to exchange on the black market.
The failure of workers' management was not simply due to lack of education or training. The Civil War context—with disrupted supply lines, raw material shortages, and collapsing currency—made effective industrial management nearly impossible even for experienced managers.
The Civil War intensified these difficulties dramatically. Disrupted transport and communications prevented raw materials from reaching factories. Workers either could not obtain what they needed or had to wait extended periods. Non-essential businesses closed. Industrial output in Bolshevik-controlled territories plummeted.
Inflation spiraled out of control as goods vanished from shops. Money rapidly lost all value, creating an acute economic crisis. Peasants who had surplus produce refused to sell it in cities where currency bought nothing, reverting instead to subsistence farming and producing only for their own needs. The Russian economy effectively abandoned monetary exchange, moving toward what some described as socialism while others recognised as economic breakdown.
The black market and barter economy
With the formal economy collapsing, Russians turned to illegal trading to survive. The black market—the illicit exchange of goods outside state control—became essential. Under the barter system, people traded goods directly without using worthless money. Small-time black market operators, known as sackmen (peasants carrying sacks of produce), exploited the system by buying goods in one location and selling them elsewhere for profit.
Between one-half and two-thirds of urban food consumption came through black market channels. Without this illegal trading network, most city dwellers would have starved. The formal economy had simply ceased to function as a means of distributing food.
City residents traveled into the nearby countryside to barter manufactured items for agricultural produce. At other times, peasant sackmen brought goods into towns to exchange.
The authorities established cordon detachments—special army units formed in 1918—to stop this illegal trading. Soldiers and officials hounded both sellers and purchasers. However, these efforts failed to eliminate the black market, which the government itself sometimes used. People faced a stark choice: engage in illegal trading or starve.
Urban crisis: starvation, disease, and exodus
Cities suffered devastating shortages of food and fuel. The blockade of trade maintained by hostile foreign powers, combined with the loss of Ukraine (Russia's primary grain-producing region), drastically reduced supplies reaching urban areas. By early 1918, Petrograd's bread ration provided only 50 grammes per person daily—barely enough to sustain life.
Urban inhabitants endured severe fuel shortages and lacked basic necessities. Some stripped wood from their own houses for heating during winter. Food and fuel scarcity fostered disease. It is estimated that nearly 5 million people died during the Civil War from starvation and diseases such as typhus, typhoid, cholera, and dysentery. A typhus epidemic swept through cities in 1920, causing over 3 million deaths. This mortality from hunger and illness far exceeded combat casualties, calculated at around 350,000. Soap became scarce, medicines almost impossible to obtain, and few doctors remained to treat the sick after medical personnel were conscripted to support troops on the front lines.
Disease and Starvation: The Real Killers
The Civil War's true devastation came not from battles but from disease and starvation. Nearly 5 million people died from these causes—more than 14 times the approximately 350,000 combat deaths. The 1920 typhus epidemic alone killed over 3 million people, highlighting how the collapse of basic services, hygiene, and food distribution proved far deadlier than armed conflict.
Faced with these unbearable conditions, workers abandoned cities in enormous numbers. According to historian Beryl Williams, 60 per cent of Petrograd's workforce had departed by April 1918. Many went to villages where food was more available or joined the Red Army where rations were higher. Between January 1917 and January 1919, Russia's urban proletariat declined from 3.6 million to 1.4 million—a catastrophic demographic collapse.
Former members of the nobility and bourgeoisie experienced particularly harsh treatment. Without ration cards, they resorted to begging or selling their few remaining possessions. Some received manual tasks such as street sweeping or snow clearing; others were sent to assist labor battalions on the war fronts. Bolshevik building committees divided large houses and palaces, allocating former occupants just one small room while creating multiple flats proportioned to family size.
Rural experiences during the war
The countryside presented a contrasting picture, at least initially. Some peasants prospered in the early war years by selling horses for military use and maintaining a reasonable diet by killing livestock. However, as fighting intensified, conditions deteriorated. Peasants could scavenge for food and gather wood to heat their huts, advantages unavailable to urban dwellers, but they too faced increasing difficulties.
The blockade of trade and loss of Ukrainian grain supplies affected rural areas as well, creating widespread scarcity. By the war's later stages, peasants found survival increasingly hard.
Violence and atrocities
Both urban and rural populations endured atrocities committed by competing armies and undisciplined groups of fighters. Whole villages in Ukraine were destroyed during the Civil War period, primarily in Cossack attacks. Kyiv changed hands 16 times, each transfer of power bringing fresh hardship to its inhabitants. Rape and murder became disturbingly common.
Jews suffered disproportionately from pogroms (organised massacres targeting Jewish communities). These violent attacks, carried out by various forces, inflicted terrible losses on Jewish populations across the conflict zones. The repeated capture of cities like Kyiv brought waves of violence, with each new occupying force often targeting Jewish residents.
Eyewitness testimony: conditions at Petrograd Station
Primary Source Evidence: Paul Dukes at Petrograd Station
Paul Dukes, a British agent sent to Russia in 1918, published his observations in 1922 as Red Dusk and the Morrow. His account of Petrograd Station captures the desperation pervading cities:
Armed guards stood at each platform awaiting passengers who surged from trains in all directions, creating scenes of unbearable chaos. Soldiers brutally seized individuals, generally women, tearing sacks from their backs and arms. Shrill cries and howls filled the air. Between railway coaches and on station outskirts, gesticulating figures who had escaped frantically dodged guards. Dukes found himself swept along with running streams of sackmen toward Suvorov Prospect. Only a mile from the station did they settle into a hurried walk, gradually dispersing down side streets to sell their precious goods to eager clients. Dukes wondered whether people in England understood the cost at which Petrograd's population secured the first necessities of life under communist rule.
Analysis: This vivid description illustrates the violent enforcement efforts against the black market and the determined risks ordinary people took to obtain food. It shows how desperate urban conditions had become when women risked physical assault by soldiers simply to bring food home to their families.
Statistical summary
| Category | Figure |
|---|---|
| Deaths from starvation and disease | Nearly 5 million |
| Deaths from typhus epidemic (1920) | Over 3 million |
| Combat deaths | Around 350,000 |
| Petrograd workforce departed by April 1918 | 60% |
| Urban proletariat decline (Jan 1917–Jan 1919) | 3.6 million to 1.4 million |
| Times Kyiv changed hands | 16 |
Key Points to Remember:
- The Civil War created economic breakdown and acute suffering across Russia, with starvation and disease killing nearly 5 million people—far exceeding combat casualties of around 350,000.
- Money became worthless due to inflation, forcing Russians to rely on illegal black market trading and barter; up to two-thirds of urban food came through these channels despite government attempts at suppression.
- Cities emptied as workers fled unbearable conditions; Russia's urban proletariat collapsed from 3.6 million to 1.4 million between January 1917 and January 1919, with 60% of Petrograd's workforce gone by April 1918.
- A typhus epidemic in 1920 alone killed over 3 million people, illustrating how disease and shortages of food, fuel, soap, and medicine devastated urban populations.
- Violence afflicted both town and countryside, with villages destroyed, Kyiv changing hands 16 times, and Jews suffering particularly from organised pogroms carried out by various forces.