RUSSIA

The acclaimed British historian tackles the Russian civil war.

Despite current events, Russia is not the colossus that frightened other great powers during much of the 20th century. Although its revolution is no longer a scholarly obsession, Beevor, the winner of the Samuel Johnson and Wolfson prizes, among others, masterfully recounts the violent events that seemed to change everything. When Russia declared war on Germany in 1914, it fielded the identical titanic but shambling army defeated by Japan in 1905, overseen by the same autocratic but dimwitted Czar Nicholas II and a dysfunctional civil government. Sustained by grit and Allied aid, it held together for nearly three years despite catastrophic losses. However, by March 1917, increasing desertion, indiscipline, and violence against officers combined with widespread civilian suffering persuaded the still clueless czar to abdicate. Beevor’s account of what followed is both authoritative and disheartening. No one could correct Russia’s crumbling infrastructure. Hungry city dwellers blamed the new leaders, and crime and violence flourished. Their worst decision was to continue the war, which increased insubordination at the front and perhaps even more so behind the lines. Lenin arrived in April to command the small Bolshevik Party, which grew and ultimately seized power that October. Historians have long stopped portraying him as the good guy in contrast to Stalin and agree that he succeeded as all tyrants succeed: murderous ruthlessness, crushing rivals, and incessantly repeating promises that appealed to his supporters (“all power to the Soviets,” “peace to the peasants”) and then not keeping them. This is a vivid description of a revolution that featured as much mass murder as military action. Readers know the outcome, but the Red triumph was not universal. A few Baltic states won independence, and in the final and perhaps largest campaign, Polish forces routed the Red Army. Always a meticulous researcher, Beevor has done his homework in an era when everyone recorded their thoughts (even the czar kept a diary), delivering a detailed yet unedifying story through the eyes of many participants.

A definitive account.