Overview
A Commanding Chronicle of The Three Turbulent Years That Brought the Ironfisted Soviet Regime To Political PowerSynopsis
In St. Petersburg on October 25, 1917, the A commanding chronicle of the three Bolshevik Party stormed the capital city and turbulent years that brought the ironfisted seized the power over the Russian Provisional Soviet regime to political power. Government, which had been operating ineffectively since the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II eight months before. That October Revolution began the Russian Civil War, which in three years would cost the largest country in the world more than seven million lives.
It was an apocalyptic struggle, replete with famine and pestilence, but out of the struggle a new social order would rise: The Soviet Union. Mawdsley offers a lucid, superbly detailed account of the men and events that shaped twentieth century communist Russia. He draws upon a wide range of sources to recount the military course of the war, as well as the hardship the conflict brought to a country and its people—for the victory and the reconstruction of the state under the Soviet regime came at a painfully high economic and human price.
Harold V. Cordry - Library Journal
The Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War are hardly new territory for scholars, yet Mawdsley's excellent work here is not redundant but fresh throughout. With orderliness and clarity, the scholarly and prolific Mawdsley (modern history, Glasgow Univ.; Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941-1945) presents the minority view that the civil war began in October 1917, concurrent with rather than after the revolution. The "specter of Russian fighting Russian," seen as a possibility when Tsar Nicholas was overthrown in February 1917, became reality in Petrograd when armed soldiers and workers organized by the Bolsheviks brought down Aleksandr Kerensky's provisional government. The fighting spread and continued for three years, costing more than seven million lives. Although Mawdsley's frequent interjections explaining how and why this happened may have something of the lecture room about them, they are ultimately useful rather than distracting. However, despite its readability, this book is more for the informed than the lay reader.
Editorials
Library Journal
The Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War are hardly new territory for scholars, yet Mawdsley's excellent work here is not redundant but fresh throughout. With orderliness and clarity, the scholarly and prolific Mawdsley (modern history, Glasgow Univ.; Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941-1945) presents the minority view that the civil war began in October 1917, concurrent with rather than after the revolution. The "specter of Russian fighting Russian," seen as a possibility when Tsar Nicholas was overthrown in February 1917, became reality in Petrograd when armed soldiers and workers organized by the Bolsheviks brought down Aleksandr Kerensky's provisional government. The fighting spread and continued for three years, costing more than seven million lives. Although Mawdsley's frequent interjections explaining how and why this happened may have something of the lecture room about them, they are ultimately useful rather than distracting. However, despite its readability, this book is more for the informed than the lay reader.
—Harold V. Cordry