The profound effects of the revolution on the rest of the world only started after the Bolsheviks took power. The capitalist ruling classes throughout the West looked upon this workers state with horror, and from the beginning saw the necessity to crush it. They saw it like a virus that could be spread to workers in their own countries and threaten their rule. In fact, as you will see in succeeding posts, this nightmare for the capitalists shaped most of the subsequent events of the 20th century.
Initially, Lenin seemed to be right when he declared that the civil war phase of the revolution was over and that the Bolsheviks could now concentrate on the peaceful construction of the new regime. But this idea was soon to be shattered by events.
Whereas the anti-communist counter-revolution – also known as the White movement, as opposed to the Reds – was militarily and politically defeated, its leaders who were living on the country's borders received enormous military assistance from the great imperialist powers of the time. This started already in the early days of 1918. White units were equipped with high-tech weaponry, such as tanks and planes: all things that were lacking to the young Soviet republic.
