The Unknown War: Russia's Deserters and the Rise of the Greens

In 1918, as the Russian Civil War consumed the country, hundreds of thousands of soldiers deserted the Bolshevik Red Army and the White forces alike, refusing to choose sides. They were called deserters, but many called themselves 'Greens'—peasants who wanted nothing more than to return to their villages and their plows. This episode tells the story of the Green movement, the deserters who fueled it, and the secret files of Soviet military tribunals that reveal a stunning statistic: in the Red Army alone, over 3.7 million desertions were recorded between 1918 and 1921. We explore the causes—from brutal draft policies to the deep rural distrust of all urban powers—and the consequences, as the Bolsheviks fought a hidden second front against these peasant armies. Featuring the voices of peasants who wrote to Lenin himself, the story of the Green armies offers a fresh perspective on why the Civil War was not just Red vs. White, but Red vs. White vs. Green. This is the lost history of those who tried to say 'no' to both sides.

#GreenArmies #RussianCivilWar #Deserters #PeasantUprisings #RedArmy #WhiteArmy #VillageUtopia #AleksandrAntonov #NestorMakhno #VladimirLenin #MikhailTukhachevsky #Prodrazvyorstka #MilitaryDesertion #SovietRussia #RussianHistory #CivilWarHistory #EasternEurope #FexingoHistory

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