The Russian Civil War Book

I was inspired to learn more about the Russian Civil War after watching "The Red and the White"'a Hungarian film circa 1965 which is a fictionalized account of Hungarians who volunteered in the international contingent of the Red Army. Apparently a large number of Hungarians volunteered to fight for the Reds, hoping that a Red victory would speed a communist revolution in their own country. The film was shot in black-and-white and all in Russian and Hungarian, with subtitles (though not everything was translated). The point of the film was the pointlessness of the war ... the massive loss of life, much of it innocent life ... and for what?

So like I say I wanted to learn more and I picked up this book at the library. Unfortunately I wasn't able to finish it. Well, okay, I was ABLE to finish it but I didn't WANT to finish it.

The book isn't so bad, really. The writing is informative and gives a reasonably smooth presentation. The way the author organized the information has bothered some people but there's a method to his madness. I think organizing the Russian Civil War in a way that pleases everybody is an impossible task. The war wasn't such a straightforward affair; a purely chronological presentation would not relate the true "story" of the people living (and dying) in that place and time. So the author does his best to blend a chronological perspective with regional and political perspectives. There is a lot of chronological overlap in his presentation but he effectively relates complete stories of each region and phase in the war. The major personalities in the war have their stories told, and not separately but weaves onto the telling of the war's various political and military campaigns. This book is not'and does not claim to be'a biography of any sort, so don't expect to find extensive personal backstories on the major or minor players. The auhor tells you what you need to know about the individuals to understand the parts they played. This is, after all, a history of the war, so personal stories are ancillary.

The book is full of interesting details and stories. And that's exactly why I decided not to read the whole thing: it is FULL of interesting stuff. This book is DENSE, and halfway through I felt like I had my fill of the Russian Civil War. I'd had enough of the political machinations and backstabbing, of competing philosophies and alliances. I'd read plenty about battles and commanders and creating effective fighting forces out of rag-tag remnant leftovers from the Tsar's beaten army. I'd digested plenty of stories about suffering and atarving populations. Basically I learned enough to satisfy my new-found (but not especially passionate) interest in a key period of 20th-century history. I feel like I have a good handle on the war from the October 1917 Bolshevik revolution through the end of 1918, a year of victories and defeats for both sides. I don't know much about how the war progressed through 1919 and 1920, but I figure I can always get the book from the library again when I get another hankerin' to read about the pointless suffering and death that was the Russian Civil War.