Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
The Russian Civil War is an event which generally gets lumped together with the the Great War. In fact, seven million people died because of it. That rather puts the American Civil War in the shade, though there are endless television dramas made on that conflict. Mawdsley takes us deftly through the myriad political allegiances and betrayals which led to such loss of life. Overwhelmingly we see the cancer of zealotry and dogmatism sweeping aside all humanity - a precursor of the horror to come under Stalin.
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
"The best book ever written on the Russian civil war. A first-rate work of scholarly synthesis."--Robert McNeal
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.