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 Caucasus states. On December 30, 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics -- the Soviet Union -- was officially founded.

Lenin died in office in 1924. Janin returned to his native France, and lived until 1946. Kerensky lived in exile until 1970.

*

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.

February 11, 1945: The Yalta Conference

February 11, 1945: The Yalta Conference concludes, after 7 days of meetings between American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, at Yalta, in the Crimea, on the Black Sea -- part of the territory of Ukraine that Vladimir Putin would later annex to Russia. They discussed how to finish off World War II, both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. They also discussed how to conduct the postwar world.

Ever since, conservatives have claimed that FDR "betrayed" Eastern Europe by leaving it to Stalin at Yalta. Well, what was FDR supposed to do? Send American troops into Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, et al.? In other words, provoke Stalin, and start World War III before World War II was won?

The war was not over. Germany was still fighting, even if the end, there, was in sight. Japan was still fighting, with no end in sight. The Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa were yet to come. FDR needed the Soviet Union in that fight. He also knew that the United Nations would be stronger after the war if the Soviets were in it. Roosevelt agreed to some concessions at Yalta, for the same reason he cut his social programs short, telling a reporter, "Dr. New Deal had to give way to Dr. Win the War."

My father, of Polish descent, was a Kennedy Democrat, but he never forgave Roosevelt, the President when he was born, for how he handled the Polish situation at Yalta. But David Reynolds, a professor of history at Cambridge University, has written:

The so-called "Yalta myths" have been a great part of Republican mythology ever since the 1940s. They were a way of attacking Roosevelt and the Democratic party and it’s been brought up at various times since. The assumption behind it is that Roosevelt "sold out" Poland and Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union. It’s hard really to square that with the realities of 1945. The Red Army is in control of most of Poland by the time they meet at Yalta. So unless you embarked, say, on a war to evict the Red Army from Poland, there really is nothing you can do about that.

In other words, Poland and Eastern Europe were not Roosevelt's to "sell." Stalin already had them.

If FDR "sold out to Stalin at Yalta," then so did Churchill. Because of Stalin's promises, Churchill believed that he would keep his word regarding Poland and remarked, "Poor Neville Chamberlain believed he could trust Hitler. He was wrong. But I don't think I am wrong about Stalin."

*

February 11, 1945 was a Sunday. Baseball and football were out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. But all of the NHL's "Original Six" were in action:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Montreal Canadiens, 4-3 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Boston Bruins, 3-2 at the Boston Garden.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-1 at the Chicago Stadium.