November 16, 1920: The Russian Civil War Ends

November 16, 1920: The Government of South Russia evacuates the Crimea, Russia's Black Sea peninsula, the last stronghold of the White Movement, bringing an end to the Russian Civil War, in victory for the Red Army.

Russia was struck by 2 revolutions in 1917: The February Revolution, which toppled the Russian Empire and Czar Nicholas II; and the October Revolution, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, which toppled the provisional government of President Alexander Kerensky, installing a Communist government led by Vladimir Lenin.

But the Bolsheviks' seizure of power was not universally accepted, and the country descended into a conflict which became a full-scale civil war by May 1918. The two largest combatants were the Red Army, seeking the maintenance of Lenin's far-left state; and the forces known as the White Movement and its White Army, led mainly by the right-leaning officers of the Russian Empire, united around the figure of Alexander Kolchak.

What many people, particularly in America, do not understand is that Socialists and Communists are not only not the same, but are opposed to each other. In the Russian Civil War, the leftist opposition to the Bolsheviks included the Party of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries-Internationalists, and the Makhnovshchina, Ukrainian anarchists. And then there were the Green Armies, local militias opposed to both the Reds and the Whites.

Thirteen foreign states, concerned with the establishment of a Communist state, launched what became known as the Allied Intervention against the Red Army. These states included the United States, the British Empire (and, through them, troops from Canada, Australia, India and South Africa), France, Japan, China, Greece and Poland.

But the Red Army was too entrenched. In 1919, the White Army launched several offensives, which failed. In December, General Kolchak was betrayed and detained by the chief of the Allied military mission in Siberia, Maurice Janin, who handed him over to the Bolsheviks. They executed him on February 7, 1920.

Although the Bolsheviks were victorious, the territorial extent of the Russian state had been reduced, for many non-Russian ethnic groups had used the disarray to push for national independence.

In March 1921, during a related war against Poland, the Peace of Riga was signed. Soon, the Red Army moved into the Baltic and Caucusus states. On December 30, 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics -- the Soviet Union -- was officially founded.

Lenin died in office in 1924. Kerensky lived in exile until 1970.

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November 16, 1920 was a Monday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. Professional basketball barely existed. And the NHL season didn't start until December 22. So there were no scores on this historic day.