Customer Reviews

Russian Civil War

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Among the innumerable books and essays on the Russian Civil War, this is by far the best book to start with. It's reasonably short, very readable, has helpful maps, and an excellent bibliography. It's one of the few books to present a coherent, unified account of an extremely complex and messy historical episode. Best of all, Mawdsley, who is (or at least was until recently) a professional historian at the University of Glasgow, writes his book without basing it on any particular political viewpoint, whereas the great majority of books on the Russian Civil War have an axe to grind. In order to keep the book readable and reasonably short, Mawdsley omits a great deal of important information; for the reader who wants to delve further, Volume Two of William Henry Chamberlin's `The Russian Revolution, 1917 - 1921' originally published in 1934, is still the book to read next after Mawdsley.

Unfortunately, Mawdsley's book is out of print and seems to be hard to come by. However, a determined book search can locate a copy, or of course your local library can get a copy on interlibrary loan. I wish it was back in print.

This book is a light and quick read for an overview of the Russian Civil War for someone new to the subject. It is somewhat difficult to follow as the author jumps around in time as if he never came to grips with how to organize his material. The maps are less than emlightening, are too general, and do not aid the reader's comprehension. I was often searching the maps in vain to locate a city or town the author was referencing in the text. I finally had to make do with a map of the Soviet Union I had in my possession.

Interestingly, the author essentially omits the American participation in the intervention at Arkhangelsk, but that is probably to be expected from a British author.

Somehow the reader is left with the feeling that he hasn't read enough to understand the dynamics of the Russian Civil War, other to realize that the Bolsheviks were better organized than the Whites, much more monolithically directed and coordinated, and that the control of Moscow and the heartland of Russia proved decisive for the Reds. That could have been done in half the space, but a comprehensive treatment would require a tome of over a thousand pages. Personally I would like to see the author produce that tome with numerous maps.

Excellent coverage of a little covered topic. Very good military and political analysis, particularly on the strategic level. Illustrates the sheer chaos that was the Russian Civil War, with its many factions, twists, and turns. To the best I could tell also relatively fair to all of the participants, the author's conclusions made sense and matched my own understanding and background.

Potential readers should note, however, that it is clearly written for someone who wants to understand why Bolsheviks won and how they did it, and not a simple human interest story. For someone simply wanting an interesting read it would be dry. If you need to know about the Russian Civil War, however, this is your book.

The Russian Civil War of 1917-1920 was a very complicated affair, covering vast stretches of Russian territory, and numerous armies, armored trains (as in"Doctor Zhivago"), and almost untold numbers of names of people involved. This book is fairly well written, but it does get plodding on more than one occasion, which isn't surprising, given what I've mentioned above. My chief fault with this book is that it tends to assume that the reader has quite a bit of familiarity with the era, the people involved and certain instances(such as the "Ice March"). If you're simply a general reader seeking to find out what happened, you're going to get more than a bit confused. The author tries to cram too much detail into too little space, and that hurts the book overall. For a more reader friendly work on the same topic, read the book by W. Bruce Lincoln, "Red Victory".

I read this good book, here in Brazil.
This book book is really a good choice to learn, about the Russian Civil War.
One thing became clear when, you read this book: The Reds never were even near to lost this civil war. The were far stronger, united and had the monopoly in weapons and ammuntion production. The Reds' control of the far majority of Russian population, since the begining, also gave to the Reds far more troops than to the Whites. The author also recognizes, on page 3 and 4, the fact that Russian Revolution was the start of Russian Civil war.
Defects of this book:
1-The maps are are few, too general, weak and do not aid the reader's comprehension. I was many times searching the maps in vain to locate a city or town the author was referencing in the text.
2-The author becames lost, when he talks about freemasons, jews and eugenists. About the syphillitic Lenin, this book is weak. On page 79, the author talks something about jews and communism, but he is very weak there. Again on page 130, the author writes:"Has anyone reckoned up," asked Lloyd George, "what an Army of Occupation would cost in Russia?". What thing made David Lloyd George so dumb? Because he was an eugenist? Because he was a freemason or just because he was a dumb?
3-About the external politics of Soviet Union, this book is weak. What thing made all great powers of that times - USA, England, France, Germany, Japan, etc. to let to the Reds the right to control of 16% of world's lands and let all of them into terrible wars in decades later?

In Russia's November 1917 elections, 80 per cent voted for parties calling for radical land reform at the expense of the landowning nobility. In Petrograd, the Bolsheviks won 45 per cent of the votes, in Moscow 50 per cent. Russia's six million soldiers wanted to end the war: 82 per cent voted for the Socialist Revolutionaries or the Bolsheviks, 41 per cent each. In Petrograd and Moscow, 80 per cent of the soldiers voted for the Bolsheviks.

Mawdsley writes, "Without doubt the Bolsheviks' early promises were a basic reason why they were able to seize and consolidate power in 1917-18: their program of Soviet power, peace, land reform, and workers' control was widely popular."

In August 1917 the Kornilov coup was easily defeated. After the October revolution, the Bolshevik forces quickly and easily defeated the counter-revolution. As Lenin said in April 1918, "It can be said with certainty that, in the main, the Civil War has ended."

But the Bolsheviks had to contend not just with internal counter-revolution but with massive foreign counter-revolutionary intervention. Between February and May 1918 Russia suffered a German invasion. In March, British troops occupied Murmansk and were reinforced in June. In April, British and Japanese troops occupied Vladivostok. In May, the Czechoslovak Corps launched its uprising against the Bolsheviks. In August, British troops occupied Baku. In September, Britain assisted the successful military coup against the North Russian government.

Yet Mawdsley writes, apparently without seeing that he is contradicting himself, "It is sometimes argued that the Civil War proper only began in the summer of 1918, with Allied intervention."

In March 1919, General Alfred Knox, Britain's military adviser to Admiral Kolchak, the White dictator of Siberia, told him, "The plain truth is that we will have to fight this year for our lives and every hour is of value." Yet Knox reported to London that Kolchak's March [Ufa] offensive "was commenced without our previous knowledge." Reflecting Knox's claim, Mawdsley writes on page 143, "there is no evidence that the Allies provoked the March 1919 offensive." Yet on page 154 he writes, "Allied policy in Siberia ... pushed Kolchak into militarily foolish attacks at Ufa ..."

Knox wrote in June 1919, "Since about the middle of December [1918] every round of rifle ammunition fired on the front has been of British manufacture, conveyed to Vladivostok in British ships and delivered at Omsk by British guards." Between October 1918 and October 1919, Britain sent Kolchak 97,000 tons of supplies, including 600,000 rifles, 346 million rounds of small-arms ammunition, 6,831 machine guns, 192 field guns, and clothing and personal equipment for 200,500 men.

The British Military Mission to South Russia reported that the White recovery under General Denikin after March 1919 `was due almost entirely to British assistance'. During 1919, the British government sent Denikin 198,000 rifles, 500 million rounds of small-arms ammunition, 6,200 machine guns, 1,121 artillery pieces, more than 1,900,000 shells, 60 tanks, 168 aircraft, 460,000 greatcoats and 645,000 pairs of boots.

Between 1918 and 1920, the intervention caused 7-10 million deaths. Civil War? I think not.

I am not a professional historian, and not even a student of history, but I would say that Mawdsley's "The Russian Civil War" is one of the worst history books I have ever read.
Mawdsely writes as if on an agenda, trying not only to show that the Soviet Union started and continued as an evil empire, but was also completely responsible for all atrocities of the civil war and afterwards (until '89, I guess). He tries hard, in particular, to debunk the theory that the Foreign Powers' intervention led to later "Stalinization" of the soviet empire.
Continuously calling the one of the opponents in the conflict by the derogatory name 'Sovdepia' that her opponents used, and having some really strange ideas (my favourite, in summary: The whites did indeed anti-jewish pogroms, but they were not ordered from the top, so again this must go to the reds responsibility, and *maybe* the white leaders must be reprimanded), seems not very professional to me. I must stress that I cannot judge the truth of any statement in the book, since it is the first book on this subject I read, but the glowing partiality of the presentation gave me a bad feeling, and let me dissatisfied (I want to find out more about this period, but at the same level of presentation of course, so please suggest!).
Maybe I will live long enough to see a period when the new cons will have bored of their "victory" in the Cold War and try to be more impartial in their presentation of facts - until then, buy something else about the period (and dont forget to tell me, too!)