How many civilians and soldiers were killed by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War (1917–1923)?

1. Massive, disputed totals: war, famine, disease and displacement

Modern reference works and survey texts emphasize that the Russian Civil War’s death toll is an aggregate of combat deaths, famine, epidemics and political violence, not a single tally attributable solely to one actor; encyclopedias and academic summaries cite totals commonly in the 7–12 million range and sometimes "as many as 10 million" ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Some sources give lower or higher estimates (for example "upwards of five million" in one compilation), showing the underlying demographic uncertainty and different counting choices ^[6].

2. Civilians bore the brunt — most deaths were noncombatants

Reporting repeatedly notes that the overwhelming majority of those millions were civilians who died from the combined effects of fighting, food requisitions, collapsed public health and epidemics; Britannica and other summary sources state civilians composed the majority of the war’s fatalities ^{[3] [7]}. Available sources do not provide a single authoritative breakdown by civilian versus soldier deaths across the whole conflict.

3. The Red Terror: wide disagreement over executions

Scholars disagree sharply over how many people were executed under Bolshevik political repression. Some contemporary and later accounts treat very large figures skeptically; one survey of the historiography reports estimates for executions during 1917–1922 ranging from roughly 50,000 up to 140,000, with specific historians and polemicists offering still different numbers ^[4]. Popular treatments sometimes assert much larger figures (for example claims up to 1.3 million for the Red Terror appear in long-form journalism), but the same reporting stresses secrecy, censorship and summary executions that make precise totals elusive ^{[5] [4]}.

4. What part of the total is "killed by the Bolsheviks"?

Sources separate broad war deaths from politically motivated killings by the Bolsheviks. While the civil war overall produced millions of deaths (7–12 million is a common scholarly range), the portion directly resulting from Bolshevik-organized executions and state terror is far smaller in most academic estimates — typically put in the tens to low hundreds of thousands rather than millions ^{[1] [4]}. Available sources do not supply a single agreed numeric share of the total war deaths that can be attributed solely to Bolshevik policies.

5. Competing vantage points and methodological disputes

Historians dispute sources, methodologies and definitions: some count only documented executions by the Cheka; others include summary killings, locally sanctioned violence, and deaths from policies (grain requisitions, forced relocations) that produced famine; still others aggregate all excess mortality during Bolshevik rule into broader political-death tallies. Encyclopedic entries and specialized articles explicitly note there is "no consensus" on Red Terror death totals and provide different best-estimate numbers ^{[1] [4] [5]}.

6. How to interpret the numbers — caution and context

Readers should treat single-number claims with caution. Broad death ranges for the war reflect real limits of the sources: chaotic record-keeping, overlapping causes (combat vs. famine vs. disease), and politically contested narratives from Whites, Reds and later historians ^{[1] [2]}. At the same time, focused scholarship on the Red Terror and political executions converges on substantially smaller figures than the multi‑million totals for the overall war, even while disagreeing about the order of magnitude ^{[4] [5]}.

7. Bottom line for your question

If you ask "how many civilians and soldiers were killed by the Bolsheviks": available reporting does not give a single authoritative number. The civil war’s total deaths are commonly estimated at roughly 7–12 million (with many sources citing about 10 million), most of them civilians ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Among those, deaths directly due to Bolshevik executions and state terror are estimated by scholars in the tens to low hundreds of thousands (estimates such as about 50,000 up to 140,000 appear in the literature), but there is no settled consensus ^{[4] [5]}.

Limitations and sources: this assessment uses encyclopedic and historiographical summaries that explicitly report ranges and disputes; I cite Britannica, Wikipedia-based surveys and specialist accounts that emphasize both the huge overall mortality and the contested, lower-order estimates for Bolshevik-organized executions ^{[1] [2] [7] [4] [5]}.