The Russian Civil War

The best book ever written on the Russian civil war. A first-rate work of scholarly synthesis. Robert McNeal Petrograd, October 25, 1917: The Bolshevik Party stormed the capital city and seized the power of Russia's provisional government, which had been operating ineffectually since the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II eight months before. In that October revolution began the Russian Civil War, and the next three long, bloody years would cost the largest country in Europe more than seven million lives. It was an apocalyptic struggle, replete with war and strife, famine and pestilence, but out of it would rise a new social order. The Soviet Union would be born. Noted historian Evan Mawdsley here offers a lucid, superbly detailed account of the men and events that shaped twentieth-century Communist Russia. From what Lenin called the Triumphal March of Soviet Power to the final, dramatic victories of the Red Army over their enemies, Mawdsley traces the destiny of a utopian dream that promised workers power, peace, and land reform. Drawing upon a wide range of sources, The Russian Civil War chronicles the hardship to a country and its people, for victory and the reconstruction of Russian power under the Soviet regime come at a painfully high economic and human price.