| Details | | This talk is presented by Nik Cornish, a recognised expert and author on the Russian army.
The Russian Civil War is a remarkable conflict, not as simple as the English or American civil wars and infinitely more brutal and costly in human terms.
1917 was the year when Russia underwent not 1 but 2 revolutions, the first in March which replaced the Tsar with the Provisional Government and the second in November which saw Lenin's Bolsheviks and their left wing allies replace the rump of Kerensky's Provisional Government.
Lenin's takeover opened a floodgate of 'isms' from across the empire as his Soviet regime attempted to implement its utopian ideals starting with taking Russia out of the Great War with almost immediate effect.
The 'isms' included Ukrainian, Cossack, Caucasian, and other nationalist (nationalism) groups, anarchism, various forms of socialism and liberalism (think Tony Blair to Karl Marx), conservatism (all hues of blue), but didn't include Tsarism - no one really wanted the Tsar back thanks but if they did they kept very, very quiet. The first in the anti-Soviet arena were 4000 or so former officers who joined the so-called Volunteer Army in Rostov on Don in southern Russia in late 1917.
Soon there would be a score or more anti-Soviet forces, fighting for their own agendas, from Murmansk to Crimea, Poland to Vladivostok not to mention interventionism courtesy of the UK, France, the USA, Japan, Turkey, Germany and Austria-Hungary.
We know the outcome, Lenin's Soviet regime overcame everything thrown at it and, by 1920, had defeated the major threats and spent the next few years mopping up peasant uprisings, naval mutinies and central Asian rebels.
This talk will be an overview of the entire thing until the end of 1920 plus maps - otherwise it's just a mass of places with Lloyd George's congratulating General Kharkov neatly exemplifying westerners ignorance of Russian geography let alone anything else. Enjoy! |
