Russia: Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921

Between 1917 and 1921, a devastating struggle unfolded in Russia following the collapse of the Tsarist empire. Many regard this savage civil war as the most influential event of the modern era.

Key aspects of the conflict:

• An incompatible White alliance of moderate socialists and reactionary monarchists faced Trotsky's Red Army and Lenin's single-minded Communist dictatorship.
• Terror begat terror, leading to even greater cruelty and showcasing man's inhumanity to man, woman, and child.
• The struggle escalated into a world war by proxy, with Churchill deploying weaponry and troops from the British empire. Armed forces from the United States, France, Italy, Japan, Poland, and Czechoslovakia also played rival parts.

Using the most up-to-date scholarship and archival research, Antony Beevor, author of the acclaimed international bestseller Stalingrad, assembles the complete picture in a gripping narrative. This account conveys the conflict through the eyes of:

• The worker on the streets of Petrograd,
• The cavalry officer on the battlefield,
• The woman doctor in an improvised hospital.