PositiveThe Sydney Morning Herald (AUS)... rightly wide-ranging, from the Pacific, where Japanese and Americans were numbered among the anti-Soviet forces, to Europe, in all its diversity. Though they are not mentioned in this otherwise, there were indeed some Australians fighting in the civil war that followed the Bolshevik takeover in November 1917 ... There is, predictably, very little scope for humour in Antony Beevor’s impressive and eminently readable new study. Instead, we have a vivid analysis of a conflict that was to shape the century that followed it ... What is striking in this book is the immense range of division in the Bolsheviks’ opponents, from mild liberals to seemingly deranged reactionaries. The intervention of foreign powers further complicates the scene, enabling the Soviets to speak of a hostile capitalist encirclement. Such anxieties, real or imagined, remain in the armoury of Putin and his cohorts today.
