they see a German helmet appear on the horizon, abandoning their artillery, convoys and all war material to the triumphantly advancing enemy. The Red Guard units are brushed aside like flies. We have no power to stay the enemy; only an immediate signing of the peace treaty will save us from destruction." History Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) can be divided into three periods: October 1917 – November 1918, from the October Revolution to the World War I armistice. The Bolshevik government's nationalization of traditional Cossack lands in November 1917 provoked the insurrection of General Alexey Maximovich Kaledin's Volunteer Army in the River Don region. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of March 1918 aggravated Russian internal politics. The overall situation encouraged direct Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, in which twelve foreign countries supported anti-Bolshevik militias. A series of engagements resulted, involving, amongst others, the Czechoslovak Legion, the Polish 5th Rifle Division, and the pro-Bolshevik Red Latvian Riflemen. January 1919 – November 1919, the advance and retreat of the White armies. Initially the White armies advanced successfully: from the south, under General Anton Denikin; from the east, under Admiral Aleksandr Vasilevich Kolchak; and from the northwest, under General Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich. The Whites beat back the Red Army on each front. Leon Trotsky reformed and counterattacked - the Red Army repelled Admiral Kolchak's army in June, and the armies of General Denikin and General Yudenich in October. By mid-November the White armies were all almost completely exhausted. In January 1920 Budenny's First Cavalry Army entered Rostov-on-Don. 1919 to 1923, residual conflicts. Some peripheral theatres continued to see conflict for two more years, and remnants of the White forces remained in the Russian Far East into 1923. At the start of the civil war, the Red Army consisted of 299 infantry regiments. The civil war intensified after Lenin dissolved the Russian Constituent Assembly (5–6 January 1918) and the Soviet government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918), removing Russia from the First World War. Freed from international obligations, the Red Army confronted an internecine war against a variety of opposing anti-Bolshevik forces, including the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine led by Nestor Makhno, the anti-White and anti-Red Green armies, efforts to restore the defeated Provisional Government, monarchists, but mainly the White Movement of several different anti-socialist military confederations. "Red Army Day", 23 February 1918, has a two-fold