<P> In July two Left SR and Cheka employees, Blyumkin and Andreyev, assassinated the German ambassador, Count Mirbach . In Moscow a Left SR uprising was put down by the Bolsheviks, using Cheka military detachments . Lenin personally apologized to the Germans for the assassination . Mass arrests of Socialist - Revolutionaries followed . </P> <P> Estonia cleared its territory of the Red Army by January 1919 . Baltic German volunteers captured Riga from the Red Latvian Riflemen on 22 May, but the Estonian 3rd Division defeated the Baltic Germans a month later, aiding the establishment of the Republic of Latvia . </P> <P> This rendered possible another threat to the Red Army--one from Gen. Yudenich, who had spent the summer organizing the Northwestern Army in Estonia with local and British support . In October 1919 he tried to capture Petrograd in a sudden assault with a force of around 20,000 men . The attack was well - executed, using night attacks and lightning cavalry maneuvers to turn the flanks of the defending Red Army . Yudenich also had six British tanks, which caused panic whenever they appeared . The Allies gave large quantities of aid to Yudenich, who, however, complained that he was receiving insufficient support . </P> <P> By 19 October Yudenich's troops had reached the outskirts of the city . Some members of the Bolshevik central committee in Moscow were willing to give up Petrograd, but Trotsky refused to accept the loss of the city and personally organized its defenses . Trotsky himself declared, "It is impossible for a little army of 15,000 ex-officers to master a working - class capital of 700,000 inhabitants ." He settled on a strategy of urban defense, proclaiming that the city would "defend itself on its own ground" and that the White Army would be lost in a labyrinth of fortified streets and there "meet its grave". </P>

What were the consequences of the russian civil war