The book is a masterpiece' The Spectator 'A gripping narrative history of one of the most
complex episodes in modern Russian history' Sunday Times 'Antony Beevor's Russia is a
masterpiece of history' Daily Telegraph Between 1917 and 1921 a devastating struggle took place
in Russia following the collapse of the Tsarist empire. Many regard this savage civil war as
the most influential event of the modern era. An incompatible White alliance of moderate
socialists and reactionary monarchists stood little chance against Trotsky's Red Army and
Lenin's single-minded Communist dictatorship. Terror begat terror which in turn led to even
greater cruelty with man's inhumanity to man woman and child. The struggle became a world war
by proxy as Churchill deployed weaponry and troops from the British empire while armed forces
from the United States France Italy Japan Poland and Czechoslovakia played rival parts.
Using the most up to date scholarship and archival research Antony Beevor author of the
acclaimed international bestseller Stalingrad assembles the complete picture in a gripping
narrative that conveys the conflict through the eyes of everyone from the worker on the streets
of Petrograd to the cavalry officer on the battlefield and the woman doctor in an improvised
hospital.
