Russian Civil War
The Bolshevik grip on power was by no means secure and a lengthy struggle broke out between the new regime and its opponents, who included the Socialist Revolutionaries, right-wing "Whites" and large numbers of peasants. At the same time the Allied powers sent several expeditionary armies to support the anti-Communist forces in an attempt to force Russia to rejoin the world war. The Bolsheviks fought against these forces and against national independence movements in the former Russian Empire. By 1921, they had defeated their internal enemies and brought most of the newly independent states under their control, with the exception of Finland, the Baltic States, the Moldavian Democratic Republic (which joined Romania), and Poland (with whom they had fought the Polish-Soviet War). Finland also annexed the region Pechenga of the Russian Kola peninsula; Soviet Russia and allied Soviet republics conceded the parts of its territory to Estonia (Petseri County and Estonian Ingria), Latvia (Pytalovo) and Turkey (Kars). Poland incorporated the contested territories of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine, the former parts of the Russian Empire (except Galicia) east to Curzon Line.
Read more about this topic: History Of Russia
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“The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.”
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