The "Russian" Civil Wars, 1916—1926: Ten Years That Shook the World
Jonathan Smele
Abstract
This volume offers a comprehensive and original analysis and reconceptualization of the compendium of struggles that wracked the collapsing tsarist empire and the emergent USSR over a decade and that was to have a profound impact upon the history of the twentieth century. Indeed, the reverberations of those wars echo to the present day — not despite, but because of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which has re-opened many old wounds (from the Baltic to Transcaucasia). Contemporary memorializing (and “de-memorializing”) of these wars, therefore, form part of the work's focus, but at its heart ... More
This volume offers a comprehensive and original analysis and reconceptualization of the compendium of struggles that wracked the collapsing tsarist empire and the emergent USSR over a decade and that was to have a profound impact upon the history of the twentieth century. Indeed, the reverberations of those wars echo to the present day — not despite, but because of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which has re-opened many old wounds (from the Baltic to Transcaucasia). Contemporary memorializing (and “de-memorializing”) of these wars, therefore, form part of the work's focus, but at its heart are the struggles between various Russian political and military forces (including the Whites) who sought to inherit and preserve (or even expand) the territory of the tsars, overlain with examinations of the attempts of many non-Russian national and religious groupings to divide the former empire. The reasons why some of the latter were successful in their contests with L.D. Trotsky's Red Army (Poland and Finland, for example), while others (Ukraine, Georgia and the Muslim Basmachi) were not, are as much the author's concern as are explanations as to why the chief victors of the “Russian” Civil Wars were the Bolsheviks. Tellingly, the work begins and ends with battles in Central Asia — a theatre of the “Russian” Civil Wars that was closer to Mumbai than it was to Moscow.
Keywords:
Russian Civil Wars,
Bolsheviks,
Red Army,
L.D. Trotsky,
Whites,
Poland,
Finland,
Ukraine,
Transcaucasia,
Basmachi
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780190233044 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: June 2016 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190233044.001.0001 |
