Compare and contrast the causes of the Russian Civil War and
the Spanish Civil War
By 1936 corruption in Spain was rife and the gap between rich and poor was continuously
increasing. In Russia people were also discontented with the situation within the country
when Lenin came to power, creating conflict and tensions. Both the Russian Civil War and
the Spanish Civil War were ferocious wars and whilst Communism won over Russia, Fascism
overpowered the Republicans in Spain. Nevertheless, both of these civil wars have their
similarities and differences regarding the causes, which are related to the political, military,
socio-economic and religious factors within these countries.
Politically, both of these countries underwent divisions as party members disagreed about the
approaches within the country.
Within Russia political tensions were increasing once the Tsar was forced to abdicate as the
Socialist Revolutionaries opposed the Bolshevik party. However, the Socialist
Revolutionaries suffered splits over issues and moreover many of them deceived their very
own party by joining the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks also underwent a division once they had
created the Red Terror as Bolshevik members such as Trotsky, Lenin and Bukharin were
unrepentant and thought terror to be justified whilst members such as Serge and Gorky shared
the opinion that weapons were inappropriate and criminal.
Spain was also undergoing divisions within the political parties. Firstly, Primo de Rivera
successfully managed to divide the Anarchists and Socialists and moreover the second
Republic formed the right Republic and the left Republic. Yet divisions within the Spanish
Republican party was more grave than that within the Bolshevik party as both the left
Republican and right Republican underwent another division.
Nevertheless these parties fought for completely different things as their notions were not the
same. Whilst the Bolsheviks knew that they were fighting for Communism, Spain’s
politicians were simply attempting to desperately decrease tensions.
Both Russia’s and Spain’s political factor greatly contributed to the rising tensions within
these countries, subsequently increasing the social problems.
In Russia, Lenin had firstly introduced the Constituent Assembly, promising the people free
education, workers and peasants were promised political power and national minorities were
finally granted independence. And whilst this may have sounded like the best solution, in
practice it did not work as Lenin simply wanted to appeal the masses. Thus he increased
social tensions rather than alleviating them as he left the people of Russia scornful and
infuriated once he dissolved the Constituent Assembly again, hence repeating the same
mistakes the Provisional Government had made. Whilst Spain solely aggravated the already
sensitive situation with regions, which had always desired independence rather than an entire
country, it nevertheless made the same grave mistake as Lenin. Both Primo de Rivera and the
Republican had established a Catalan Assembly, naturally in the hope to gain their support,
just as Lenin was hoping to gain support from the national minorities. Yet this did not happen
and hence both Primo de Rivera and the Republicans dissolved the Catalan Assembly again,
leaving the people living in that area very discontented.
Yet the difference between Russia and Spain was that Russia’s people would turn to
Revolutions when being enraged whilst Spaniards did not fight back, hence why Russia
experienced the February and October Revolution in 1917. During the October Revolution the
Bolsheviks had overthrown the Provisional Government and subsequently seized power and
whilst it may be regarded as a positive thing that Russian people fought back, one could argue
that these social tensions which led to the October Revolution greatly caused the Russian
Civil War as the Bolsheviks’ seizure of power sparked off the creation of the White Army.
Nevertheless, social tensions within these countries had partially also been the outcomes of
their disastrous economies.
Lenin had introduced the notorious War Communism policy, which included rapid
nationalization of all industry and requisitioning of all surplus grain in order to feed cities and
armies. Yet peasants had turned to subsistence farming and thus the government took the
grains the peasants lived on, causing famine as people lived on the edge of starvation.
Moreover, sanitary conditions were appalling and water had to be collected from pumps on
the streets.
In Spain the economic situation was similar as it had vast, inefficient private estates in the
South and in the North small farmers worked farms, which were in many cases not
economically viable and hence half of the agricultural workers lives on the edge of starvation.
On top of that workers of industries lived in poor conditions and the unemployment rate was
high.
However, the economic causes can be traced back to the political factor within Russia whilst
in Spain the economic causes were greatly due to Spain’s military.
Militarily, Spain contributed to the economic causes and was prone to interfere with politics,
which in turn sparked off social problems just as Russia’s military factor immensely
contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War.
Spain’s military had been humiliated after it had been massacred by Morocco in 1921 and
Prime Minister Azana aggravated the tensions and anger by introducing drastic reforms,
including retirement of army officers at an early age to cut back on staff, causing a military
revolt led by Sanjuro. Even though the uprising was crushed, it showed the deep
dissatisfaction within the army regarding the political situation in Spain. Moreover military
reforms naturally causes economic problems as army officers retired on full pay, leaving the
country somewhat poor and thus making reforms difficult.
Russia’s military had also felt discontented and simply wanted peace and to pull out of the
war, thus the Brest-Litovsk treaty was the only possible solution at the time. The BrestLitovsk peace treaty was very controversial as Russia was compelled to hand over Finland,
the Baltic States and Poland under this punitive treaty, thus losing a million square kilometers
of territory containing 80% of her coal mines and 30% of her population. Naturally,
Bolshevik members had been reluctant concerning this peace treaty and outside the party
social tensions were increasing as well. The White Armies now posed a serious threat to the
Bolshevik regime as they surrounded the Bolsheviks and under any circumstance wanted to
restart war with Germany, which in turn left the army in an uproar. Whilst the military factor
played an important role in both countries, the military underwent different problems. The
Russian Civil War seemed inevitable as Lenin was in a predicament. If he had not signed the
Brest-Litovsk Treaty then the army would have resented the Bolsheviks yet signing this peace
treaty also created grave social tensions. Spain, on the other hand, could have simply left the
military overstaffed and overpowerful, which in turn would have partially prevented the social
and economic problems the country was undergoing.
In conclusion, both of these civil wars are similar in many ways; however, they differ
regarding the main cause of the war. Whilst the Spanish Civil War can mainly be traced back
to the political factor, the Russian Civil War was greatly due to the military factor; however, I
personally believe that the Russian Civil War was inevitable either way as Russia had been
experiencing many problems whilst Spain’s political parties were simply incapable of
reaching an agreement on the approaches made within the country.