RUSSIA REVOLUTION AND CIVIL WAR - INTERVIEW WITH SIR ANTONY BEEVOR

The leading historian spoke with Anthony Tucker-Jones about the Russian Revolution and Civil War, and how the brutal upheaval still shapes the world today

- ANTHONY TUCKER-JONES

Antony Beevor is one of the UK’s leading military historians. His reputation for meticulous research and gripping narrative was firmly sealed with his hugely successful book Stalingrad. Although he largely specialises in the Second World War, he has now turned his expert eye on the Russian Revolution and Civil War in his new book Russia: Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921. As he explains, having tackled the complexities of the civil war in Spain he felt ready to take on the wide-spread conflict that brought down the Russian Empire and gave rise to the Soviet Union.

Antony explains how a combination of the horrors of WWI and Tsarist tyranny created the conditions for a perfect storm, one that Winston Churchill naively sought to head off. He takes the reader right across Russia, from the troubled streets of Petrograd where it all started to the streets of Vladivostok where it ended. All the key characters such as Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Alexander Kerensky, Alexander Kolchak and Churchill are woven into the unfolding tale of woe that tore apart the fabric of Russian society. However, he never forgets the ordinary people caught up in the unrelenting fighting and the terrible atrocities committed by both the Reds and the Whites.

The way you describe the battles and campaigns, with plodding infantry and charging cavalry, the Russian Revolution and Civil War almost harkens back to Napoleonic times. Is that a fair assessment?