Russia, by Antony Beevor

Trigger warnings for descriptions of torture and frequent mentions of rape.

In the coda of Antony Beevor’s harrowing book, Russia: Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1921, he cites a figure of roughly 12 million people who lost their lives during the Russian Revolution and the subsequent civil war. People were killed in battle. Some were executed. Others died from torture. Still more starved to death. A few committed suicide before being captured by the other side. After reading this account, I have to wonder that there was anyone still left alive in the former empire for Lenin and the Bolsheviks to forge into a new Soviet Union.

Beevor begins his history with World War I, as Tsar Nicholas II blundered time and again in his management of the war and the empire. It is utterly astonishing that a monarch could be as clueless as Nicholas was. Even though his advisors lied to him, one would think that the events of 1905 would serve as a wake up call to the deep anger simmering among the lowest social strata of Russia. Beevor makes it clear how surprised Nicholas was when workers, sailors, and soldiers began attacking Imperial forces—and also how utterly inept Nicholas was in dealing with the crisis. After refusing to compromise, Nicholas was forced to abdicate. Ultimately, he and his immediate family were murdered in July, 1918.

From the first strikes in February, 1917, through to 1921, Beevor presents a Russia flattened by unending violence. Western Russia—and especially the land that would eventually become Ukraine—were fought and re-fought over by the new Red Army, the monarchist White Army, the anarchist Makhnovishchina, and so many others. The violence wasn’t limited to the battlefields. Foragers for all the armies scoured the land for every scrap of food, causing widespread famine. In territory held by the Soviets, the new secret police called the Cheka hunted down anyone who might possibly be working against the Soviets (or anyone related to counterrevolutionaries), imprisoned them, and then usually executed them. Meanwhile, White Army agents took revenge on anyone who might be working for the Bolsheviks (or anyone related to a Bolshevik) in their own turn. Beevor mentions that, in some villages that had changed hands multiple times, only women and children were left; all the men had been killed.

Before I read Beevor’s Russia, I wondered how a small revolt in St. Petersburg could have snowballed into catastrophic violence before the eventual founding of the Soviet Union. Surely Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks couldn’t have had that much support across the empire; they claimed to speak for the industrial workers, a very small percentage of the population. Given how often Red Army foragers “requisitioned” grain from the farming class (former serfs), how did the Bolsheviks manage to seize power? That part I still don’t understand, but Beevor is better at explaining why the Bolsheviks were able to defeat the White Army, the Volunteer Army, and the Cossack armies that stood against them.

Beevor convincingly argues that the White movement was so disorganized and so poorly led (and so frequently distracted by their urge to commit pogroms) that, even with foreign support and military aid, the Whites were unlikely to win. Also, with exceptions like Pyotr Wrangel and Vladimir May-Mayevsky, the White leadership was so corrupt, so inept, and so lacking in numbers and supplies, as to contribute significantly to their defeat. The other movements that sprung up, like the anarchists under Nestor Makhno or the many separatist efforts were too small or too fractured to offer an alternative to Lenin and the Bolsheviks. I daresay fear of the Cheka or the ruthless, deadly methods of people like Leon Trotsky also did a lot to defeat anyone who stood in the way of the Bolsheviks.

I struggled a bit attempting to follow Beevor’s play-by-play of the battles and offensives. Referring to maps helped a lot and I would recommend that anyone who wants to read Russia keeps Wikipedia close to hand to keep track of the armies and the vast cast of historical figures referenced by Beevor. Although I appreciated Beevor’s efforts at clarity (I don’t fault Beevor for my getting lost since there is just so much to keep track of), the most effective passages in Russia were the quotes from letters and diaries by ordinary Russians that brought to stark life the terror, helplessness, and weird moments of levity of living through the revolution and war. This is an incredible work of historical scholarship.