The Russian Civil War

by Evan Mawdsley

Overview

"The best book ever written on the Russian civil war. A first-rate work of scholarly synthesis."—Robert McNeal

In St. Petersburg on October 25, 1917, the A commanding chronicle of the three Bolshevik Party stormed the capital city and turbulent years that brought the ironfisted seized the power over the Russian Provisional Soviet regime to political power. Government, which had been operating ineffectively since the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II eight months before. That October Revolution began the Russian Civil War, which in three years would cost the largest country in the world more than seven million lives.It was an apocalyptic struggle, replete with famine and pestilence, but out of the struggle a new social order would rise: The Soviet Union. Mawdsley offers a lucid, superbly detailed account of the men and events that shaped twentieth century communist Russia. He draws upon a wide range of sources to recount the military course of the war, as well as the hardship the conflict brought to a country and its people—for the victory and the reconstruction of the state under the Soviet regime came at a painfully high economic and human price.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781605980140
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	02/24/2009
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	648,753
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Evan Mawdsley has written numerous books on Russian history, including The Soviet Elite from Lenin to Gorbachev; Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War 1941-1945 and The Stalin Years. He is Professor of Modern History at Glasgow University.

Evan Mawdsley has written numerous books on Russian history, including The Soviet Elite from Lenin to Gorbachev; Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War 1941-1945 and The Stalin Years. He is Professor of Modern History at Glasgow University.

Table of Contents

Glossary and Abbreviations v

Part 1 1918: Year of Decision

1 The Triumphal March of Soviet Power: The Bolshevik Takeover in Central Russia, October 1917-January 1918 3

2 The Railway War: Spreading the Revolution, November 1917-March 1918 16

3 The Obscene Peace: Soviet Russia and the Central Powers, October 1917-November 1918 31

4 The Allies in Russia, October 1917-November 1918 45

5 The Volga Campaign, May-November 1918 56

6 Sovdepia: The Soviet Zone, October 1917-November 1918 70

7 The Cossack Vendee, May-November 1918 85

8 Siberia and the Urals, February-November 1918 99

Part 2 1919: Year of the Whites

9 The Revolution on the March: Sovdepia and the Outside World, November 1918-June 1919 115

10 Kolchak's Offensive, November 1918-June 1919 132

11 Omsk and Arkhangelsk: Kolchak, June-November 1919; North Russia, November 1918-March 1920 148

12 The Armed Forces of South Russia, November 1918-September 1919 161

13 The Armed Camp: Sovdepia, November 1918-November 1919 178

14 The Turning Point, September-November 1919 194

Part 3 1920: Year of Victory

15 The End of Denikin, November 1919-March 1920; The Caucasus, 1918-1921 219

16 Storm over Asia: Siberia, November 1919-October 1922; Central Asia, 1918-1920 230

17 Consolidating the State: The Soviet Zone, November 1919-November 1920 242

18 The Polish Campaign, April-October 1920 250

19 The Crimean Ulcer, April-November 1920 262

Conclusion 272

Maps 291

Notes 301

Bibliography 312

Supplementary Bibliography 344

Index 355

Editorial Reviews

The Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War are hardly new territory for scholars, yet Mawdsley's excellent work here is not redundant but fresh throughout. With orderliness and clarity, the scholarly and prolific Mawdsley (modern history, Glasgow Univ.; Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941-1945) presents the minority view that the civil war began in October 1917, concurrent with rather than after the revolution. The "specter of Russian fighting Russian," seen as a possibility when Tsar Nicholas was overthrown in February 1917, became reality in Petrograd when armed soldiers and workers organized by the Bolsheviks brought down Aleksandr Kerensky's provisional government. The fighting spread and continued for three years, costing more than seven million lives. Although Mawdsley's frequent interjections explaining how and why this happened may have something of the lecture room about them, they are ultimately useful rather than distracting. However, despite its readability, this book is more for the informed than the lay reader.
—Harold V. Cordry

Library Journal

Hands up: Who knew that American forces once invaded Russia?The Russian Civil War, writes Mawdsley (Modern History/Glasgow Univ.; Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941-1945, 2006, etc.), began just as soon as the Russian Revolution did. Lenin's Bolsheviks moved swiftly to consolidate power, repressing the socialists who dominated the nation as a whole but who were weak in the industrial cities. At the same time, Cossacks, monarchists, cadets and other foes of the new regime took up arms, while "the civilian opponents of the Bolsheviks, people of the moderate Left and Right, lacked effective combat forces of their own and played no parts." The contending extremist armies, Red and White, would be locked in war for the next three years, with units from the British, American and French armies appearing on various fronts to battle the Bolshevik forces. The state established a program of what the regime called "War Communism," taking emergency measures that in some cases turned out to be permanent. Radical policies of appropriation and state monopoly, backed by a powerful army, "helped the Bolsheviks to take power," writes Mawdsley, even if "as the months passed . . . the political benefits came to look more dubious" as productivity plummeted and food shortages gripped the nation-driving many farmers, in the bargain, into the anticommunist camp. The Whites soon began to lose the fight, however, routed at places such as Tsaritsyn, a city on the Volga that would be renamed Stalingrad. Mawdsley attributes the loss to many factors, from being outnumbered and outgunned to the staggering incompetence of many White generals and the lack of central coordination among the anti-Bolshevik forces.Sporadic fighting continued until 1922 in Siberia, carried out by figures such as the Baron Ungern-Sternberg, "an unbalanced Baltic nobleman . . . already notorious for his atrocities in Transbaikal." After that time, though, Soviet domination was complete and would endure for another seven decades. A well-rendered account of a history too little known in the West.

Kirkus Reviews