Russia: Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921
A masterful narrative of the Russian Civil War. I especially like how the author weaves in quotes while keeping the story moving forward. As the book goes on the relentless similarity between Russian names and places makes the book a bit hard to follow. But it remains gripping throughout.
My main takeaways
(1) Unlike shorter accounts of the Russian Civil War this book spends time discussing how illegitmate the Czar's regime was. The pomp and circumstance around the Czar outdid Varsaille, the Czar had a band that followed him to every room to announce his presence. Peasants (despite the nominal end of serfdom) and workers led wretched throw-away existences. And the regime practiced cruelty on a large scale, including to the soldiers on the front.
One gripping account was a peasant woman who visited her husband on the front, not knowing that such visits were against the law. The commanding officer made her husband flog her half to death as punishment.
The regime and nobility also suffered from its German lineage (the czar married a German, much of the nobility was German). But above all from its failures in the Russo-Japenese wars and World War I.
(2) The Revolution and the following civil war were very much movements of nihlism and anarchy more than strong beliefs. Early fighting and encounters were in many ways comical, with no willingness to fight.
For instance, when the bolshevik's led a coup against the constituent assembly the only force rose to defend it were were junker cadets from the training school. Several bolshevik units upon facing minimal resistance from the junkers surrendered without firing a shot. Naval units allied to the bolsheviks then threatened to bombard the junkers but forgot to bring the ordinance. Finally, the junkers surrendered after realizing that promised reinforcements weren't forthcoming.
Most military units weren't willing to fight or kill for any side. The few radicalized ones therefore held outsized power. The key players seemed to be
(a) The Latvian rifles. Who served as a sort of Praetorian Guard for the bolsheviks saving them again and again. No explanation for why there was this relationship
(b) The Chech legion. Ethnic groups having outsized cohesion is a mini-theme of the war. The Czech legion's main goal was to get back to Czhekia to help it gain independence. Despite being outnumbered 40k to 400k it went through a fighting retreat to Serbia, again demonstrating the red unwillingness to fight. It was an unhappy member of the white coalition, sympathetic to the Socialist Revolutionaries
(Galacian units also were cohesive and effective)
(c) Railroad switchboard operators. Also tended to ally with the SR. They could reroute or delay troops having a major impact n who fought when
(d) Kronstadt sailors. They vaccilated between anarchism and bolshevism. And were key instigators of the initial overthrow of the czar (intimidating the police) and disbanding the constituent assembly (providing a mob to disband the proceedings)
(3) The main actors, especially in the beginning, were marked by incompetence in political maneuvering
The negotiations with Germany were particularly comic. The Germans wanted to give the Bolsheviks lenient terms so they could refocus on the Western front before American troops arrived. In return the Bolsheviks started radio broadcasts calling to overthrow the Kaiser and demanded a peace without signing a treaty for propaganda purposes.
Enraged, the Kaiser demanded the invasion continue. And the Germans marched 100s of miles unopposed until the Bolsheviks sued for peace, getting much worse terms than before for no good reason.
Similarly, a large reason for the failure of the provisional government was the prime minister imagined a coup plot by the leading general of the government based on a rumor game of telephone. Despite his ministers correct belief that it was all a misunderstanding the government arrested the general, fatally weakening the regime.
For much of the initial stages of the civil war these central authorities held only nominal sway. And the book accounts for Bolshevik delegations being bullied by random units upon leaving the kremlin (revolutionary soldiers mocking the bolshevik for using a table clothe on a train)
(4) The civil war was also a war for national liberation of ethnic minorities. With Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Poland all gaining independence; in that order. The Russo-Polish war was the largest, with each side raising between 500k and 1.5 million men.
Like now, the Russians thought little of the Ukraine.
(5) The white cause suffered from an inability to give up on unpopular positions. They stuck with their demand for a greater Russia, thereby preventing any cooperation with the Poles, Finns, and Ukrainians. . Socialist Revolutionaries feared that whites would restore a monarchy. Peasants feared a return to the war with Germany (in which they'd be drafted) and the rolling back of land reform. Opposition by peasants in particularly was fatal to the white cause, as the one time their offensive against the reds seemed promising the peasants rallied to help the bolsheviks.
The whites also behaved grotesquely. Corruption was rampant, officers would only stay on the front long enough to bring booty back to the hinterlands. Many leading figures led debauched existences of whoring, expropriating, and feasting in towns.
Towards the end under new leadership discipline was achieved, but by that time the cause was doomed
(6) The bolsheviks were in many ways just as bad as the whites. But did a better job of misdirecting and hiding it. They pretended to support land reform, but in reality advocated for an expropriation regime even worse than serfdom. They destroyed the constituent assembly and the soviets. And generally expropriated even worse than the whites.
After the defeat of the whites these truths dawned on the population. And the Bolsheviks faced massive peasent revolts and defections by key units like the Kronstadt sailors. But at that point the Bolsheviks were too organized to be defeated.
(7) Churchill was a big player, trying and failing to make a grand coalition to oppose the Bolsheviks. A big constraint was fear of Bolshevism back home and that military units (especially French ones) would defect to the Bolsheviks.
Similarly, public opinion among the left back home was sympathetic to the reds, and abhorred the idea of a return of a Tsar-like regime. Further limiting Churchills' room for maneuver.
(8) The level of atrocities slowly grew during the course of the war, raising to unspeakable cruelty. In the beginning people who surrendered were often let go. In the middle prisoners were often murdered when taken, and often killed when one side was forced to retreat. By the end not only prisoners but civilians were murdered with abject cruelty. For instance, covering people in water and letting them freeze in ice while still alive.
The Soviets would kill with abandon when taking white towns. Killing those with glasses, books etc.
Both sides were rabidly anti-semitic. But the whites and the Poles were the worse, blaming communism on Jews. Jews were often murdered when new areas were taken, but especially when armies were forced to retreat. The book said between 20-40k Jews were killed during the Russo-Polish War. And Wikipedia suggests 100k in the Russian Civil War proper.