Russian Guards - Russian Revolution

Russian Revolution

The Red Guards (Russian: Krasnaya Gvardiya) were armed groups of workers formed during the Russian Revolution of 1917. They were the main strike force of the Bolsheviks, and were created in March 1917 at industrial enterprises by Factory and Plant Committees and by Bolshevik party cells. When the Soviet Red Army was formed in 1918, the Red Guards became the Army Reserve and the basis for the formation of regular military detachments.

The White Guard (Russian: Belaya Gvardiya) or White Army (Belaya Armiya, whose members were called belogvardeytsy), comprised both the political and military forces of the Russian White Movement, which opposed the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution and fought against the Red Army during the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1921.

Read more about this topic:  Russian Guards

Famous quotes containing the words russian and/or revolution:

    In Western Europe people perish from the congestion and stifling closeness, but with us it is from the spaciousness.... The expanses are so great that the little man hasn’t the resources to orient himself.... This is what I think about Russian suicides.
    Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)

    The heritage of the American Revolution is forgotten, and the American government, for better and for worse, has entered into the heritage of Europe as though it were its patrimony—unaware, alas, of the fact that Europe’s declining power was preceded and accompanied by political bankruptcy, the bankruptcy of the nation-state and its concept of sovereignty.
    Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)