RUSSIAN ROULETTE Q&A WITH ANNA REID

As WWI reached its bloody crescendo, a foolhardy intervention was launched into Russia's civil war -a move that descended into sinister complicity and defeat

- LOUIS HARDIMAN

As the Great War was coming to a close, a new perceived threat faced Europe: Bolshevism. Standing in the way of the ‘Reds’ were the ‘White’ Russians: a jumbled amalgamation of monarchists, republicans, conservatives, liberals and leftists. Already bruised and bloodied from the trenches, British, American and French troops were thrown into this chaotic civil war that could not have been further from the grinding stalemates of the Western Front.

In 2023, Anna Reid released her riveting work on the intervention in the Russian Civil War, A Nasty Little War, now in paperback. She spoke with History of War about the intervention troops’ experiences of the conflict, their exposure to the White Army’s anti-Semitism and how intervention contributed to interwar European instability. She also shares her reflections on the current Russo-Ukraine War and the lessons from the Russian Civil War.

How did the British respond to the first reports of the Bolshevik coup and the outbreak of the Russian Civil War in 1917?

The February Revolution was greeted joyfully by all the Allies because everyone thought Russia was going to steamroll over the Austrian and German armies due to its natural resources and enormous population. When Tsar Nicholas II abdicated and handed over to the civilian centre-left government, the other Allies welcomed it as he was a disliked character in the West. People saw him as this blood-stained autocrat and Russia as a politically backward country. There were great hopes for the new government, but it never really managed to take power because, at the same time, there were the Soviets and grassroots committees springing up at every workplace, including the army. The collapse of the army accelerated with mass desertions, and trains full of soldiers left the front to go back home.