Reviews for Stamping out the Virus: Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War 1918-1920

The average rating for Stamping out the Virus: Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War 1918-1920 based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-03-04 00:00:00 Tracy Franklin Overall an excellent effort! Bravo! I read criticisms by those who rated the book low and found that they contradict each other: one thinks it's shallow, another - too detailed, one lacks personal accounts, another complains about their unnecessary abundance. My humble Muscovite's impression is that it is a well-balanced take on the extremely important, but bitterly disputed matter. The author doesn't just through you into the midst of the battle for the last 100 miles to the city, but first he sets stage, which helps to get a bigger picture. It's impossible to understand the battle without knowing that much (or that little, If you wish) of background facts and processes, you are reading about the larger-than-life clash of two very unique states. You need to go back to the events happened as early as 1905 Russian Revolution and tell about recent archive discoveries of Post-Communist 1990-es. Personal narratives from people from all layers of society serve an essential tool too. They add depths, and human touch, because emotions and feelings there are timeless and easy to relate to. Without them the narrative could turn into dry enumeration of divisions, pieces of artillery, types of tanks and kilometers trudged through. I think if you look for that kind of story you better turn to one of Osprey's books. I am impressed by how a Western author treats the material. His tone is respectful and attentive. Here and there he gives a legendary glossed version of a fact (a one we were taught in Soviet schools) and then recites recent attempts to debunk it, making the book interesting even to Russian readers. He doesn't try to sensationalize though. His summation of the story of tortured Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, who was made an icon in the USSR is indicative: "In all the confusion and rumour-mongering, however, one thing remained beyond doubt. A young girl did die gallantly, though perhaps pointlessly, at the hands of the Germans". What I found even more valuable is his appropriate cross-comparison snippets of British experience of similar ordeals: The London Blitz, rationing, wartime losses etc. When put in perspective, it all helps to grasp the magnitude of what was happening in those months. It also shows that many weird and sometimes brutal measures were echoed by or firstly introduced by similar or comparable actions in Great Britain (like requisition of domestic pigeons). This helps to demonstrate that it's not Russians, who were quirky, but the time itself called for abnormal and sometimes illogical (by peacetime standards) actions. P.s. Believe it or not, but Mr. Zeldin mentioned in the book as a promising young actor of "The Swinemaiden and The Shepherd" still acts at 96.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-01-11 00:00:00 Curtis Means Since the cold war, the US government and news media have continuously demonized Russia and ignored the role that Russia played in defeating Germany in WWII. So too the popular culture: growing up as I did on a diet on war films, I was under the impression that my heroes Audie Murphy and Lee Marvin had themselves defeated Hitler. In a recent diplomatic scuffle, the US Ambassador to Czechoslovakia was made no longer welcome in the Czech Republic because he criticised the Czech President's plan to attend Russian MayDay celebrations in honour of the war dead. The Czech President said, "Were it not for Russia, I'd now be speaking German." In light of all of the above, and the propaganda in the mainstream media regarding Ukraine, I decided to do some reading to fill in my education. In 1941 Germany was on a roll. With the appeasement of France and England, Germany annexed Austria and part of Czechoslovakia in 1938. Then in 1939 Germany invaded and quickly conquered Poland. BY April 1940 Germany had conquered Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and France. Then, while maintaining aerial bombardment of England, Germany turned its attention to Russia. In June 1941 invaded Russia along a 2700 mile front with 145 Divisions and nearly 4 million men. This book was written by Sir Rodric Braithwaite, a British diplomat and author who was Great Britain's Ambassador to Russia from 1988 to 1992. It tells the story of the war and the invasion from the Russian point of view. The climax is the decisive battle for Moscow. We learn about the lead-up to the war, Stalin's purges, the organisation of the Military, the roles of Stalin and the Generals during the war. We learn about the lives of many individual politicians, soldiers, artists and families. We get to see from a citizen's perspective what it meant to live in Moscow under war time conditions and Moscow coming under siege. Russian defences finally held less that 20 miles from Moscow. Russia re-grouped and pushed back the Germans all the way to Berlin decimating the bulk of German armies, armour and artillery. By the time the Allies landed in Normandy, Germany was broken. Some statistics that I found stunning, given the lack of "history" on the war in Russia: Germany deployed a maximum of 195 Divisions on the eastern front. On the western front, against the Allies, Germany deployed a maximum of 79 Divisions. When they met in Berlin, Russian losses totalled over 27,000,000 including 7,000,000 military.