Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War

Very entertaining and informative account of Russian Civil War. The author manages the necessary jumping from N to S and E to W across Asia as clearly as could be done in an account of this style. The epilogue detailing Stalin's rise was a particular treat. ( )

This is the third volume in W. Bruce Lincoln's (non-fictional) trilogy of lead-up to the Russian Revolution, the Revolution itself (and a little thing called World War I) and the Russian Civil War, when the Soviets ill-advisedly tried to promulgate their revolution by force of arms (see Itzhak [Isaac] Babel's Red Cavalry) to the West before they'd truly consolidated their victory. This book was an eye-opener for me: I'd no idea that the immediate aftermath of the October Revolution was so bloody and so very much in doubt, or that it was peopled by a host of such fascinating characters (most of which Lincoln regrettably -- if understandably -- mentions only in passing). Reading this book gave me both a greater understanding of the moiling ferment that spawned the Soviet Union; if Lincoln's earlier volumes cover the October Revolution's conception (In War's Dark Shadow: The Russians Before the Great War) and birth (Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians in War and Revolution), Red Victory can be said to cover its post-partum depression, if not its afterbirth. Lincoln is not the best historical stylist I've read, but he's far from being dusty or pedantic. ( )