Russian Civil War, 1918-1921 (Military History)

Introduction

The Russian civil war raged from 1918 to 1921, though some date its origins to the October Revolution in 1917 and others date its end in 1922 with the final crushing of peasant revolts and reconquest of the Caucasus; still others see its end as late as 1932 when Stalin finally consolidated his power. In general the civil war was characterized by the struggle between the Bolsheviks and the right-wing Whites, former nobles, the propertied, and military officers. The left, represented by the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR) and anarchists (Greens) and the Mensheviks, also actively and often violently opposed the Bolshevik seizure and consolidation of power. The Bolsheviks were lucky to face a divided opposition because the anti-Bolshevik left would not unite with the anti-Bolshevik right. The intervention by the Western Allies in Russia and their minor role in the civil war has also generated controversy, probably much more than warranted. The Russian civil war has often been a contentious subject for historians, participants, and the reading public because of the ideological ramifications of its outcome that reverberated throughout the course of the Soviet Union’s brief seventy-four-year history. Cold War tensions seeped into the scholarship and popular writing that colored many an interpretation and clouded objective analysis. In the first decades after the end of the civil war, Western history mainly followed the line of the “White” anti-Bolshevik émigrés who lamented the failure of their movement and Allied intervention. The civil war continues to be a field of active research and has become more objective and more solidly based on archival sources since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nearly a quarter of all entries in this bibliography have been written since the year 2000.

General Overviews

There are so many different aspects of the civil war, such as the military, political, ideological, economic, diplomatic, and social to name a few, that even the general overviews listed below cannot hope to cover each thoroughly. They all try to touch on each aspect lightly and also pick a few topics to cover in more detail. Footman 1961, Lincoln 1989, and Mawdsley 1987 focus on the fighting. Holquist 2002 and White and Thatcher 2006 delve more into the larger picture of war and revolution and the ideas associated with the revolution and change. Stone 2002 limits himself to a broad overview of mostly military, political, and economic themes. The overarching Soviet version of the Revolution and civil war (Gorky 1935–1960) tries to cover everything in hopes of getting the Soviet people to identify with the success of the Bolsheviks as success for themselves.

Footman, David. Civil War in Russia. London: Faber and Faber, 1961.
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This is a series of detailed sketches of several episodes, namely the early campaign on the Don River, the Samara government of the Socialist Revolutionary party, foreign intervention at Archangel, the defeat of Admiral Kolchak’s forces in Siberia, the initial efforts of the Bolsheviks to create the Red Army, and the suppression of Makhno’s peasant anarchist movement in the Ukraine.
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Gorky, Maxim, ed. Istoriia Grazhdanskoi Voiny v SSSR. 5 vols. Moscow: OGIZ, 1935–1960.
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This is the standard chronologically arranged Stalinist account of the civil war in which Trotsky’s role is marginalized and distorted and Stalin’s is magnified. It is richly illustrated and contains many accounts by participants.
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Holquist, Peter. Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia’s Continuum of Crisis, 1914–1921. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.
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The author places the turning point of Russian history at the outbreak of war in 1914 and traces the effects of that war and the civil war on the process and end result of the revolutions and subsequent Bolshevik methods of governance. The civil war is located historically as the culmination of World War I and revolution.
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Lincoln, W. Bruce. Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.
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This is a general overview in a very readable, narrative style, more descriptive than interpretative or analytical. It is organized chronologically and geographically to cover the three major fronts of the civil war: the southern front, the northern front, and the eastern front.
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Mawdsley, Evan. The Russian Civil War. Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1987.
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This author assumes a basic knowledge of the contexts and personalities of the revolution and civil war on the part of the reader. While it covers the political and social aspects affecting the Bolsheviks and Whites, it mostly offers detail on the military campaigns in chronological order.
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Stone, David R. “The Russian Civil War, 1917–1921.” In The Military History of the Soviet Union. Edited by Robin D. S. Higham and Frederick W. Kagan, 13–33. New York: Palgrave, 2002.
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This chapter provides a concise, well-organized overview of the major military, economic, and political issues of the civil war. In so doing it serves as an excellent starting place for subsequent broader and deeper investigation. To assist this, it includes a section of suggested further readings.
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White, James D., and Ian D. Thatcher. Reinterpreting Revolutionary Russia: Essays in Honour of James D. White. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
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This collection of essays covers events, issues, and debates concerning the driving forces of the revolution and its immediate aftermath with an emphasis on historiography from the prerevolutionary period through the founding of the Soviet state.
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Reference Works

The reference works in English listed below fall into two categories: (1) reference works of the major topics and personalities of the Revolution, and (2) civil war and reference works on archival document collections. There are only two main collections of primary documents on the Russian civil war in the United States—one at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the other at the Bakhmeteff Archive at Columbia University in New York. Carol Leadenham authored the guide to the Hoover Institution (Leadenham 1986), but the guide to the Bakhmeteff Archive, Russia in the Twentieth Century, has no designated author. The British Library has the Tyrkova-Williams Collection of materials related to the White movement, which can be viewed on the Internet; however, there is no printed reference guide. Guides and descriptions of the collections at both the Hoover Institution and the Bakhmeteff Archive can also be accessed on the Internet. Acton, et al. 1997 is a stand-alone work of major topics of the Revolution and the civil war. In Russian, Khromov 1983 is a true encyclopedia in scope and detail, covering all aspects of the civil war. The most narrowly focused reference work listed here, Krivosheev 1997, deals strictly with casualties suffered by the Soviet armed forces in all their wars.

Acton, Edward, Vladimir Cherniaev, and William G. Rosenberg. Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution 1914–1921. London: Arnold, 1997.
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The strength of this encyclopedia is the interpretive and analytical nature of the articles (there are sixty-seven). Written for the most part by acknowledged experts in the field, the articles are organized under the topics of: the Revolution, actors and the question of agency, parties, movements and ideologies, institutions, social groups and identities, economic issues, and nationality and regional questions.
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Khromov, S. S., ed. Grazhdanskaia voinnaia i voennaia interventsia v SSSR: Entsiklopediia. Moscow: Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia, 1983.
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This encyclopedia offers a thorough coverage of virtually all noteworthy issues of interest regarding the civil war. Richly illustrated, it includes all major and many minor figures of the Reds and major figures of the Whites. Interpretation and analysis conform to the party line prevailing in 1983. It concludes with a comprehensive guide to further readings of Soviet sources.
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Krivosheev, Grigorii F. Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century. Translated by Christine Barnard. London: Greenhill, 1997.
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Part 1 details the losses in killed, wounded, and missing in action, as well as from sickness and disease suffered by the Red Army in the civil war, in the war with Poland, and in action against the intervening powers. It relies exclusively on archival documentation from six different party, government, army, and navy archives.
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Leadenham, Carol A. Guide to the Collections in the Hoover Institution Archives Relating to Imperial Russia, the Russian Revolutions and Civil War, and the First Emigration. Hoover Press Bibliographical Series 68. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1986.
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This guide covers the more than 4,000 archival collections divided among 676 fondy. Because the collection continues to grow, readers should also consult the guide available online.
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Russia in the Twentieth Century: The Catalog of the Bakhmeteff Archive of Russian and East European History and Culture. The Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987.
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This is a straightforward, alphabetically arranged catalog of the archive’s holdings. There is now also a searchable online catalog to supplement this printed catalog. Available online.
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Wade, Rex A. The Bolshevik Revolution and Russian Civil War. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2001.
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This work consists of six topical essays, a timeline of events, and thirteen detailed biographical profiles of key figures and primary materials in the form of thirty-two significant documents. It also has an annotated bibliography.
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Textbooks

While not all are textbooks in the strictest sense, the following titles are intended for classroom use in specialized courses. One will find few such books dedicated solely to the civil war rather than the conflict that produced it, which is typically coupled with studies of the Revolution. The trend in scholarship in the latter quarter of the 20th century is to see the civil war as part and parcel of the revolution. In this view, the revolution is not seen as complete until the civil war was resolved in favor of the Bolsheviks. In contrast, one can find many studies of the revolution that end with the Bolshevik seizure of power. Chamberlin 1987 is exceptional in that it was not intended for classroom use and was one of the first works to include the civil war as an integral part of the Revolution. Carr 1966, Fitzpatrick 2008, Kowalski 1997, Read 1996, Service 1999, Swain 1996, and Swain 2008, are clearly aimed at the college classroom. Though it covers the same material, Figes 1997 is rather too substantial in length (over 900 pages) for such use, as is Chamberlin’s two-volume work.

Carr, Edwin H. The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917–1923. 3 vols. Baltimore: Penguin, 1966.
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This work was widely criticized for relying on Soviet sources and presenting a purely pro-Soviet perspective on the Revolution, the civil war, and the forming of the Soviet state. It is, however, factually accurate.
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Chamberlin, William H. The Russian Revolution, 1917–1921. 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987.
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This is one of the first comprehensive studies of the Revolution and its aftermath and is remarkable for its even-handedness. Originally published in 1935 (London: Macmillan), it was reissued in 1987 without modification.
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Figes, Orlando. A People’s Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution, 1891–1924. New York: Viking, 1997.
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This is a thoroughly comprehensive study of the Revolution and civil war that not only covers the high politics of the tsarist, then Bolshevik governments, but also intertwines the social history of the Revolution and civil war, placing the Russian citizenry in the center in the history of those momentous events and portraying them as the ultimate victims of the Bolshevik success.
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Fitzpatrick, Sheila M. The Russian Revolution. 3d ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
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The latest edition of what has become the standard work. Fitzpatrick covers the struggles of the Bolsheviks to seize and hold power from before 1917 to Stalin’s ultimate triumph as dictator in the 1930s. This is very much a top-down study of the Bolsheviks as the driving force of events and focuses on events in Petrograd and Moscow.
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Kowalski, Ronald I. The Russian Revolution 1917–1921. London: Routledge, 1997.
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This book is a thematic collection of documents intended for classroom use that covers the time period of World War I through the civil war. Each document is complemented by an interpretive analysis that places it in the context of war and revolution.
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Read, Christopher. From Tsar to Soviets: The Russian People and Their Revolution, 1917–1921. London: UCL Press, 1996.
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Read approaches the study of the Revolutions and civil war from the bottom up with the people as the focal point of history. Rather than concentrating on events in Petrograd and Moscow, the author incorporates the experience and expectations of the multitudes across the Russian empire in his analysis of events.
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Service, Robert. The Russian Revolution 1900–1927. 3d ed. Studies in European History. New York: St. Martin’s, 1999.
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This thin volume of only eighty-six pages of text, maps, and photos surveys the highlights of the demise of Russian autocracy, the revolutions, the civil war, and restoration of stability in the new Soviet Union.
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Swain, Geoffrey. The Origins of the Russian Civil War. New York: Longman, 1996.
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This book focuses on the roots of the civil war stemming from the events in the months after the February Revolution and the initial contest for power among the left and against the right. The salient theme is the struggle between the Bolsheviks and the agrarian socialist movement for the right to define what form socialism would take following the Revolution.
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Swain, Geoffrey. Russia’s Civil War. Stroud, UK: History Press, 2008.
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The author uses this study to focus on the contested origins of the Bolshevik state with an eye to helping the reader understand the eventual collapse of the USSR. In particular he highlights the three-sided nature of the struggle to include the Greens (variously Socialist Revolutionary Party members and anarchists) and not just the Reds and Whites.
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Document Collections

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, scholars’ access to archives has resulted in the publication of several very useful collections of documents from some of the major Russian archives that contain materials on the Revolution and civil war. The most important of these archives are the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), the Russian State Archive of Economics (RGAE), the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA), and the Russian State Archive for Social and Political History (RGASPI). Prior to 1992, there were only two Soviet collections published, Direktivy Glavnogo Komandovania Krasnoi Armii (1917–1920) (Directives of the main command of the Red Army, 1917–1920) in 1969 and the four volumes of Direktivy komandovaniia frontov Krasnoi armii, 1917–1922 gg.: Sbornik dokumentov (Directives of front commanders of the Red Army, 1917–1922: Collected documents) in 1971–1978 (see Kariaeva and Azovtsev 1971–1978). Until the fall of communism, all that was available in English were Trotsky’s papers (Meijer 1964–1971); the first volume (Wade 1991) of Rex Wade’s projected twelve-volume series; a collection of previously published and translated material (McCauley 1975); and Brovkin 1991, a collection taken from the Hoover Institution holdings. Since the collapse, a wider variety of documents have come available, including those from regional archives that help explain the revolution outside of Petrograd and Moscow. Such newer sources are found in Butt, et al. 1996; Murphy 2000; and Murphy 2005. Unterberger 2002, a collection of materials, does not include materials made available from the post-1991 Soviet collapse.

Brovkin, Vladimir N. Dear Comrades: Menshevik Reports on the Bolshevik Revolution and the Civil War. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1991.
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This is a collection of forty-two documents from the Nicolaevsky Collection of the Hoover Institution Archives. They have been translated and annotated. They are clippings from the Menshevik press and previously unpublished writings of Menshevik leaders.
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Butt, V. P., A. B. Murphy, N. A. Myshov, and G. R. Swain, eds. The Russian Civil War: Documents from the Soviet Archives. New York: St. Martin’s, 1996.
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The documents collected for this book come from five Russian archives: the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), the Russian State Archive of Economics (RGAE), the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA), the Russian State Archive for Social and Political History (RGASPI), and the State Archive of the Rostov Region. The materials are translated and preceded by introductions.
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Kariaeva, T. F., and Nikolai N. Azovtsev. Direktivy komandovaniia frontov Krasnoi armii, 1917–1922 gg.: Sbornik dokumentov. 4 vols. Moscow: Voenizdat, 1971–1978.
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This collection consists of thousands of directives and communications between front commanders and political figures such as Lenin and Trotsky and leading Soviet institutions. Volume 1 covers the period November 1917 to March 1919; Volume 2, March 1919 to April 1920; and Volume 3, April 1920 to 1922. Volume 4 contains reports detailing Red Army manpower, weaponry, and supplies from 1918–1922.
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McCauley, Martin, ed. The Russian Revolution and the Soviet State, 1917–1921: Documents. New York: Barnes & Noble: 1975.
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A collection of documents from previously translated and published sources, which include The Trotsky Papers, Lenin’s Works, and various Soviet sources. The selections are divided thematically into sections on the February Revolution, the politics and economics of the period between March and October 1917, the October Revolution, civil war and intervention, Soviet politics, economic and social revolution, culture, eyewitness reports, and post-revolutionary reflections.
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Meijer, Jan, ed. The Trotsky Papers, 1917–1922. 2 vols. The Hague, Amsterdam: Mouton, 1964–1971.
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This is a two-volume (Vol. I: 1917–1919 and Vol. II: 1920–1922) collection of around 800 typewritten copies of documents put together by Leon Trotsky and delivered to the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam in 1936. Much of it consists of letters between Trotsky and Lenin concerning the Red Army and the conduct of the civil war. Each document is presented in both Russian and English.
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Murphy, Brian. Rostov in the Russian Civil War, 1917–1920: The Key to Victory. New York: Routledge, 2005.
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These documents, collected from the Communist Party archives of the city of Rostov on the Don, are translated and interspersed with commentary. This book can be considered a follow-up to Murphy 2000. Here the author more narrowly focuses on the actions of the Bolshevik Party in Rostov during the Revolution and civil war.
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Murphy, Brian, ed. The Russian Civil War: Primary Sources. New York: St. Martin’s, 2000.
DOI: 10.1057/9780230286757Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This work consists of translated Russian archival documents from the Russian State Archive for Social and Political History (RGASPI) and GARO (State Archive of Rostov Oblast) that pertain to both the Reds and the Whites and their difficulties in conducting the civil war in the Don region. Particularly emphasized are the Don Cossacks and the Red Army’s First Cavalry Army.
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Unterberger, Betty M. The United States and the Russian Civil War: The Betty Miller-Unterberger Collection of Documents; Guide to the Scholarly Resources Microfilm Edition. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2002.
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This work contains approximately 10,000 documents from more than fifty international repositories. Most are in English. Focuses on American involvement in the Russian revolution and subsequent civil war and post-revolution US-Soviet relations.
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Wade, Rex A. Documents of Soviet History. Vol. 1, The Triumph of Bolshevism, 1917–1919. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International, 1991.
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This is a chronologically arranged collection of documents covering the revolution and civil war. The aspects of politics, culture, society, and the economy are all included. Most documents are from the Bolshevik side and include documents from Lenin’s collected works. Each document is introduced with a short heading that explains the historical context.
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Bibliographies

Despite the large volume of work related to the civil war, the subject has attracted little attention from bibliographers. Arans 1988 and Smele 2003 are the only two of note.

Arans, David. How We Lost the Civil War: Bibliography of Russian Émigré Memoirs on the Russian Revolution, 1917–1921. ORP Russian Bibliography Series 6. Newtonville, MA: Oriental Research Partners, 1988.
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This is annotated bibliography of Russian émigré memoirs published in Russian. The citations are in Cyrillic and are accompanied by an English translation and summary.
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Smele, Jonathan D. The Russian Revolution and Civil War 1917–1921: An Annotated Bibliography. London: Continuum, 2003.
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With 5,896 entries, this is perhaps the most comprehensive printed bibliography available on the subject. The entries cover the period immediately preceding World War I, various aspects of the February and October Revolutions, the warring sides, politics, society, and other topics to the end of the civil war.
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English-Language Journals

Revolutionary Russia is the only journal specifically devoted to the Russian revolutions and civil war, Noteworthy for their high academic standards, Europe-Asia Studies, the Russian Review, and Slavic Review regularly print articles on a wide variety of topics related to the Revolution and civil war. The Journal of Slavic Military Studies restricts itself to articles dealing with military aspects of the Revolution and civil war. All of the journals are published quarterly except Revolutionary Russia, which produces two issues per year.

Europe-Asia Studies. 1949–.
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Titled Soviet Studies from inception in 1949 until 1992, in 1993 it was renamed Europe-Asia Studies to reflect that its content would henceforth include not only Soviet studies but also scholarly work on Russia after the collapse of the USSR.
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Journal of Slavic Military Studies. 1988–.
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Formerly titled the Journal of Soviet Military Studies at its inception in 1988. In addition to the civil war, the journal publishes a wide variety of articles on Russian, Soviet, and Eastern European military topics.
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Revolutionary Russia. 1988–.
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This is the only academic journal devoted to the Revolution and civil war. Its articles include all genres, including history, political, economic, social, diplomatic, military, and cultural.
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Russian Review. 1941–.
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This journal publishes a limited number of high-quality scholarly articles on Russian history, broadly defined to include all aspects of the former Russian empire and Soviet Union.
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Slavic Review. 1945–.
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Titled the American Slavic and East European Review until 1961, this is the official journal of the Association of Slavic, Eastern Europe, and Eurasian Studies. The article selections are interdisciplinary, so this cannot be considered a strictly historical journal.
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Slavonic and East European Review. 1922–.
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This journal is the oldest scholarly English-language journal of Russian affairs. It does contain articles of a historical nature; however, it tends to favor pieces with a literary bent or a focus on literature.
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Russian-Language Journals

The journals listed below are all of different natures. Istoricheskii arkhiv publishes only archival documents and not articles. Rodina is well written and researched but not scholarly. Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal limits its articles to the military aspects of the Revolution and civil war. Voprosii istorii is of a high scholarly standard. Of the Russian-language journals, only Istoricheskii arkhiv and Voprosy istorii are accessible electronically. The others must be leafed through by hand. All of these journals publish issues monthly.

Istoricheskii arkhiv. 1993–.
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Published under the auspices of the State Archive Service of the Russian Federation, this journal consists of published archival documents from a variety of archives, sometimes as clusters of documents on a theme, each introduced in its historical and historiographical context. It is often illustrated with archival photos as well. There is a table of contents in English.
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Rodina. 1989–.
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This is a popular history journal aimed at the Russian-speaking history buff that tends to treat the White movement and anticommunists with sympathy. It is lavishly illustrated. Occasionally documents and eyewitness accounts are reproduced.
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Voenno-istoricheskii-arkhiv. 1997–.
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This journal publishes archival materials and articles about and based on archival documents from the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA), the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO), and the Russian State Military History Archive (RGVIA). Military events and personnel dating from the early imperial period through the Soviet era are the central themes.
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Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal. 1959–.
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Currently published under the authority of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and formerly under the Soviet Ministry of Defense, this journal generally promotes a nostalgic pro-Soviet agenda. Its writers, primarily military officers with or pursuing graduate degrees in history, have access to the ministry’s archives, enabling them to produce documents and data inaccessible to most other researchers.
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Voprosy istorii. 1945–.
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Published by the Academy of Science, Institute of History, this is Russia’s leading academic journal in history with a high scholarly reputation. It frequently has articles on the civil war that treat each side objectively. Articles written during the Soviet period are less even-handed yet are usually well researched.
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The Red Army

The Bolshevik Party hoped never to need an army and had made no plans to have one in its revolutionary state. The need to defend the Revolution from the Germans who refused the Bolsheviks’ peace terms and the outbreak of armed resistance to the Bolshevik seizure of power forced the Bolsheviks to create an army. Benvenuti 1988, Figes 1990, Reese 2000, and von Hagen 1990 chronicle the struggles, both ideological and practical, faced by the Bolsheviks in their attempt to found an army in an environment characterized by political and economic turmoil, as warfare raged. Brown 1995 illustrates the difficulty of the Bolsheviks in maintaining morale and securing the loyalty of men not inherently motivated by Marxist ideology or the class struggle.

Benvenuti, Francesco. The Bolsheviks and the Red Army, 1918–1922. Translated by Christopher Woodall. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
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This book gives a detailed analysis of the political struggles internal to the Bolshevik Party regarding its relations to the Red Army during the civil war. It is actually more a history of the Red Army than of the war, placing the creation and struggle to create an identity for itself within the context of the civil war and the state-building efforts of the Bolshevik Party.
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Brown, Stephen. “Communists and the Red Cavalry: The Political Education of the Konarmiia in the Russian Civil War, 1918–20.” Slavonic and East European Review 73.1 (1995): 82–99.
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This article examines the levels of politicization of Semen Budenny’s 1st Cavalry Army and the mutiny of the 6th Cavalry Division in September 1920, for which the Bolshevik Party blamed its political cadre. It shows that the army’s recent defeat in Poland was more relevant to the mutiny than were politics. Available online by subscription.
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Figes, Orlando. “The Red Army and Mass Mobilization during the Russian Civil War 1918–1920.” Past & Present 129 (1990): 168–211.
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This article investigates the difficulties of the mobilization and desertion of peasants in the Red Army in the civil war from the perspective of the Bolshevik state’s economic inability to provide for the army’s basic material needs. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Reese, Roger R. The Soviet Military Experience: A History of the Soviet Army, 1917–1991. London: Routledge, 2000.
DOI: 10.4324/9780203011850Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Chapter 3 of this book covers the founding of the Red Army, the civil war, and the Polish-Soviet war. It analyzes the 1918–1919 campaign in the Ukraine and the Polish-Soviet war to illustrate the major ideological, political, and economic features of the birth and development of the Red Army.
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von Hagen, Mark. Soldiers in the Proletarian Dictatorship: The Red Army and the Soviet Socialist State, 1917–1930. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990.
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The approach taken here is much like that of Benvenuti 1988 regarding the ideological angst suffered by the Bolsheviks in deciding to create an army and what form it should take. It goes further, however, into the post–civil war era, showing how the debates over having an army resurfaced, how they were resolved, and how the new state attempted to use the army to inculcate Soviet youth with its socialist values.
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The White Army

The literature on the White Army is wide and varied thematically. Studies that focus on the White Army as an institution, like those of the Red Army, do not exist. Instead, one must glean such information and insights from descriptions of the White Army in a variety of different contexts. Denikin’s memoirs (Denikin 1973) is one such source that provides a view into the workings of the leaders of the White Army in the south. Another top-down look at the White leaders’ thinking and behavior is provided by Bortnevskii 1995. Kenez 1971 and Kenez 1977 set the standard for the scholarly approach to the study of the White Army.

Bortnevskii, Viktor G. White Intelligence and Counter-intelligence during the Russian Civil War. Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies 1108. Pittsburgh, PA: Center for Russian & East European Studies, 1995.
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The author documents the ineffectiveness of General Denikin’s military intelligence and counterintelligence services due to intrigue, corruption, and chaotic bureaucratic infighting.
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Denikin, Anton I. The White Army. Translated by Catherine Zvegintzov. Russian Series 45. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International, 1973.
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This is the last book in a series of memoirs by the one-time commander of the Volunteer Army (the White Army in south Russia). He covers the civil war in a self-justifying manner while giving insight to the workings of the right-wing Volunteer Army and its lack of political vision other than anti-Bolshevism.
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Kenez, Peter. Civil War in South Russia, 1918: The First Year of the Volunteer Army. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.
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This book explains the origins of the White movement in 1917 and covers the army’s tactics, politics, and leaders and is especially thorough in detailing the political, social, and personal divisions among the Whites and their potential allies that permanently hindered their efforts.
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Kenez, Peter. Civil War in South Russia, 1919–1920: The Defeat of the Whites. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977.
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The focus here is on White administration of the areas under their control in south Russia and their failure to generate the political and economic mechanisms necessary to support their ability to rule. The military aspects of the war in south Russia are included but are treated as secondary to the political failure of the Whites in the south.
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Civil War Military Campaigns on the Periphery

There are few books or articles that attempt to map out the course of any single campaign as a study in military history. Rather, various campaigns are used as vehicles to explore other social and political issues unleashed by the Revolution and the loss of imperial authority that either fed support for or resistance to the warring parties. The study of the campaigns necessarily shifts the focus of scholarship from Petrograd and Moscow to the provinces and periphery of the former Russian empire. Many of these campaigns were not related to defeating the White armies but were related to the efforts of the Bolsheviks to consolidate their power over all of Russia. Harrison 2001, examines the strategy and tactics of all the campaigns on the periphery. As one sees in the titles of the other entries below, these campaigns were waged in non-Russian areas such as the Ukraine (Adams 1963), Siberia (Gutman 1993), Turkestan (Share 2010), the Don (Murphy 1993), and Terek (King 1987) regions. There we see ideology as a motivator for violence take a back seat to long-simmering resentment over local social, economic, and political interests.

Adams, Arthur E. Bolsheviks in the Ukraine: The Second Campaign, 1918–1919. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1963.
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The focus of this study of the Bolsheviks’ attempts to subdue the Ukraine during the civil war centers around the figures of ataman Grigoriev, a charismatic peasant freebooter, and Antonov-Ovseenko, a Bolshevik revolutionary-turned-military-commander. The author makes clear the ineptitude and amateurish nature of the campaign on both sides.
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Gutman, Anatolii Ia. The Destruction of Nikolaevsk-on-Amur: An Episode in the Russian Civil War in the Far East, 1920. Translated with an introduction by Ella Lury Wiswell. Edited by Richard A. Pierce. Fairbanks, AK: Limestone, 1993.
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Though not a scholarly monograph and decidedly anti-Bolshevik, the firsthand nature of the narrative provides a valuable historical perspective on the Red seizure of the town of Nikolaevsk-on-Amur in 1920 and the killing of some Japanese troops there, which sparked the Japanese occupation of northern Sakhalin Island. Included in the appendix are the verbatim interviews of thirty-three survivors of the episode.
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Harrison, Richard W. The Russian Way of War: Operational Art, 1904–1940. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001.
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Chapter 2 of this book first presents a summary of the creation and development of the Red Army and then gives a thoughtful and analytical overview of the Red Army’s strategy and tactics in their major campaigns in the east and south against the Whites. It concludes with a study of the Red Army’s performance in the Polish-Soviet war.
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King, Richard D. Sergei Kirov and the Struggle for Soviet Power in the Terek Region, 1917–1918. New York: Garland, 1987.
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The focus of this work is on Sergei Kirov’s role in the Bolsheviks’ manipulation of the struggle for power between the Cossacks and Islamic mountain peoples in the Terek region between March 1917 and April 1918.
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Murphy, Brian. “The Don Rebellion March–June 1919.” Revolutionary Russia 6.2 (1993): 315–350.
DOI: 10.1080/09546549308575608Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article chronicles the rebellion of the Don Cossacks against the attempt of the Bolsheviks to Sovietize the Cossack homelands through Red terror. It examines the divisions among them over whether they should go it alone in the civil war or, if not, which side to take. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Share, Michael. “The Russian Civil War in Chinese Turkestan (Xinjiang), 1918–1921: A Little Known and Explored Front.” Europe-Asia Studies 62.3 (2010): 389–420.
DOI: 10.1080/09668131003647788Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article focuses on the effects of the White movement’s use of sanctuary in northern China on the civil war in that area. The White movement, the people of Xinjiang, and Sino-Soviet relations are all analyzed in the context of being on the periphery of the former tsarist empire. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Revolution and Civil War in the Russian Provinces

The majority of studies of the Revolution center on Petrograd and Moscow; the civil war offers a venue to study and observe how the rest of Russia reacted to the Bolshevik seizure of power. Figes 1989, Kotsonis 1992, Lonergan 2008, Novikova 2008, Raleigh 2002, Retish 2008, Smele 1996, and Smith 1976 clearly show that the crumbling of central authority unleashed long-held social resentments that led to internecine fighting that enabled the Bolsheviks eventually to dominate their divided opposition, which was largely opposed to the reimposition of central authority by the Bolsheviks.

Figes, Orlando. Peasant Russia, Civil War: The Volga Countryside in Revolution, 1917–1921. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989.
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The author analyzes the attempts of the Provisional government, then Bolsheviks, and Komuch governments to impose their will, particularly with regard to grain collection, on the villages of the Volga region. Though written before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the author was able to make extensive use of several Soviet archives to gather material for this book.
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Kotsonis, Yanni. “Arkhangel’sk, 1918: Regionalism and Populism in the Russian Civil War.” Russian Review 51.4 (1992): 526–544.
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This article analyzes the disconnect between anti-Bolshevik socialists leaders and the peasants they sought to organize into an anti-Bolshevik crusade centered in Russia’s north that ultimately led to its failure. Available online by subscription.
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Lonergan, Gayle. “Resistance, Support and the Changing Dynamics of the Village in Kolchakia during the Russian Civil War.” Revolutionary Russia 21.1 (2008): 57–72.
DOI: 10.1080/09546540802085537Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article examines the methods peasants in Western Siberia employed to resist or avoid being called upon to support or obey the various groups that claimed authority over them in the power vacuum after the Revolution. It explores whether the Reds or the Whites had an inherent advantage when it came to dealing with the Siberian peasantry who were acutely aware of their own interests. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Novikova, Liudmila G. “Northerners into Whites: Popular Participation in the Counter-Revolution in Arkhangel’sk Province, Summer–Autumn 1918.” Europe-Asia Studies 60.2 (2008): 277–293.
DOI: 10.1080/09668130701820143Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article studies the dynamics of the relationship between the White regime in north Russia and the local population and the attempts by the locals to manipulate the anti-Bolshevik forces to their advantage. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Raleigh, Donald J. Experiencing Russia’s Civil War: Politics, Society, and Revolutionary Culture in Saratov, 1917–1922. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.
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Based on materials from local archives, this book is a regional study of Saratov province and the Bolsheviks’ fight for power there. The book examines how the Bolsheviks’ methods alienated all classes and resulted in the pervasive reliance on coercion.
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Retish, Aaron B. Russia’s Peasants in Revolution and Civil War: Citizenship, Identity, and the Creation of the Soviet State, 1914–1922. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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This book contains newly available archival materials and newspaper reports to challenge and widen our understanding of the social and cultural history of the Russian peasantry’s reaction to state policies and national events. This particular study is based on the province of Viatka in northeast Russia and contextualizes the peasants’ understanding of their identities as citizens relative to the still undecided political outcome of the civil war.
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Smele, Jon. Civil War in Siberia: The Anti-Bolshevik Government of Admiral Kolchak, 1918–1920. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
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Despite its lack of archival sources, this book is the definitive account of the White government of Admiral Kolchak, especially its politics and economics. It contains an exhaustive bibliography.
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Smith, Canfield F. Vladivostok under Red and White Rule: Revolution and Counterrevolution in the Russian Far East, 1920–1922. Publications on Russia and Eastern Europe 6. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976.
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Based on Russian and US sources, the author charts the changing fortunes of the various anti-Bolshevik political factions in Vladivostok after the demise of Admiral Kolchak’s regime.
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National Minorities

The civil war on the periphery, specifically the non-Russian areas, posed special problems for both the Reds and Whites when it came to recruiting support and imposing control. The national minorities saw the Revolution and the collapse of central authority as an opportunity to follow the path of self-determination, which was opposed by both the Reds (Eudin 1943) and the Whites. This led to resistance and usually ended in violence. The entries below are representative of the scholarly work, which has tended to focus on the Caucasus (Arslanian and Nichols 1979, Hovannisian 1996, Kazemzadeh 1951) and the Ukraine (Hunczak 1977, Procyk 1995, Reshetar 1952). The Ukraine and the Caucasus have produced large expatriate communities, which may explain the interest shown in them. In contrast, the Baltic and Central Asian peoples, who did produce many expatriates, have been studiously ignored as somehow irrelevant to the Revolution and civil war.

Arslanian, Artin H., and Robert L. Nichols. “Nationalism and the Russian Civil War: The Case of Volunteer Army-Armenian Relations, 1918–20.” Soviet Studies 31.4 (1979): 559–573.
DOI: 10.1080/09668137908411267Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article analyzes the failed attempt of Armenia to become an independent state following the Russian Revolution. The national aspirations of the Armenians conflicted with the competing interests of the Whites and Reds, both of which wanted to maintain the territorial integrity of Russia, and the Turks who sought to acquire Armenian territory for themselves. Available online by subscription.
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Eudin, Xenia J. “Soviet National Minority Policies 1918–1921.” Slavonic and East European Review: American Series 2.2 (1943): 31–55.
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This article analyzes Bolshevik nationality policies, in particular the struggle within the Bolshevik Party over the issue of national self-determination. It analyzes the divisions among the Bolsheviks over whether to accept declarations of independence by national minority Bolshevik Parties, which had seized power, or to create a unified empire under the control of one overarching party and government. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Hovannisian, Richard G. The Republic of Armenia. Vol. 4, Between Crescent and Sickle: Partition and Sovietization. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
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This is Volume 4 of a four-volume series (plus an introductory book) in which the author, painstakingly and in encyclopedic detail, recounts the history of the short-lived Armenian state made possible by the Revolution and civil war. Volume 4 closes the series with the failure of Armenia to secure Western support and its conquest by the Red Army.
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Hunczak, Taras, ed. The Ukraine, 1917–1921: A Study in Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977.
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This is a collection of fourteen essays that grew out of a conference organized to mark the 50th anniversary of the Ukrainian revolution. All deal with various aspects of the Russian Revolution and civil war in the Ukraine that involve the independence movement relative to the Provisional government, the German occupation, and the Bolshevik government.
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Kazemzadeh, Firuz. The Struggle for Transcaucasia, 1917–1921. New York: Philosophical Library, 1951.
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In this well-researched book, the author weaves his analysis around the combination of national, social, ideological, and strategic issues confronting the Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian nationalists in their bid for independence from Russia and the threat from Turkey. It examines the long-held historic and cultural differences and animosities that prevented unity among the Caucasians.
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Procyk, Anna. Russian Nationalism and Ukraine: The Nationality Policy of the Volunteer Army during the Civil War. Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 1995.
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The focus of this book is the interaction between Denikin’s Volunteer Army and the several governments of the Ukrainian independence movement with an eye to examining the causes of the failure of the two movements (White and Ukrainian) to unite against the Bolsheviks. The author thoroughly analyzes the struggle within the Volunteer Army over its Ukrainian policy.
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Reshetar, John S. The Ukrainian Revolution, 1917–1920: A Study in Nationalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1952.
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This is the earliest scholarly work on the attempt by Ukrainian nationalists to create an independent Ukrainian state taking advantage of revolutionary chaos. The author shows that only with the support from the Germans were the Ukrainians able to create a semblance of a state, which then became actively confronted by Poland and the Bolsheviks while struggling with internal divisions.
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Allied Intervention

The Allied intervention in Russia during the civil war has attracted a large amount of scholarly as well as amateur interest. Some works are passionately anticommunist, others apologetic, and still others filled with condemnation. That the Allies did intervene played a role in East–West relations whenever the Soviets found it to be convenient. The literature was no doubt influenced by the ebb and flow of the Cold War with dispassionate, reasoned scholarship walking a fine line. While most of the facts can be agreed on, interpretation of the intent of the Allies is still rather contentious. Allied intervention began in 1918 with the landing of small detachments of British and American soldiers in Archangel to secure military supplies given to Russia before the Bolshevik takeover. From there it escalated to include the French, Canadian, Italian, and Japanese armies and the Czech Legion, formed in Russia from POWs. The various motives of the governments involved shifted from guarding and repatriating supplies to reopening the eastern front to active support of anti-Bolshevik forces in hopes of destroying the Bolsheviks. How serious they were about overthrowing the Bolsheviks and what chance that was ever possible is still debated. To decide whether a book is a work of true scholarship, one needs to first look at the publisher. Reputable university presses and other academic presses can be counted on to have closely vetted the work. Popular presses present a challenge. Some creditable if not scholarly narratives have been produced and are included here, such as Jackson 1972, Moore 2002, Rhodes 1988, and Somin 1996. Connaughton 1990, Kettle (Kettle 1981, Kettle 1988, Kettle 1991), and Strakhovsky 1941 do attempt to limit bias in their writing and analysis.

Connaughton, Richard. The Republic of the Ushakovka: Admiral Kolchak and the Allied Intervention in Siberia, 1918–20. London: Routledge, 1990.
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This is a narrative history of the Allied intervention in Siberia woven around the person and experiences of Admiral Kolchak. Central to the book is the relationship between Kolchak and his government with the representatives of the Allies in Siberia.
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Jackson, Robert. At War with the Bolsheviks: The Allied Intervention into Russia, 1917–20. London: Tom Stacey, 1972.
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Though not a scholarly work, this is a useful examination of the various military campaigns conducted by Allied forces in which the fighting was the main focus.
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Kettle, Michael. The Allies and the Russian Collapse, March 1917–March 1918. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981.
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This is Volume 1 of three in a series on Allied intervention aimed at giving a comprehensive overview based nearly exclusively on Western primary and secondary sources. This volume deals with the politics of the Provisional government and the Allies’ concerns over the potential that Russian might drop out of the world war.
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Kettle, Michael. The Road to Intervention, March–November 1918. London: Routledge, 1988.
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This is Volume 2 of three in a series on Allied intervention aimed at giving a comprehensive overview based nearly exclusively on Western primary and secondary sources. This volume is primarily concerned with the Allied reaction to the Bolshevik seizure of power and the ramifications of its withdrawal from the world war for the Allies.
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Kettle, Michael. Churchill and the Archangel Fiasco, November 1918—July 1919. London: Routledge, 1992.
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This is Volume 3 of three in a series on Allied intervention aimed at giving a comprehensive overview based nearly exclusively on Western primary and secondary sources. Although Churchill is named in the title, the coverage of the Allied decision to intervene in Archangel extends well beyond the person of Churchill and the British government.
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Moore, Perry. Stamping out the Virus: Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1918–1920. Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 2002.
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This is more of a technical than an analytical approach to studying the Allied intervention, with orders of battle, diagrams of battle maneuvers and statistics on armaments and supplies. This book is very useful for the reader interested in understanding the battles from the tactical rather than the strategic angle.
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Rhodes, Benjamin D. The Anglo-American Winter War with Russia, 1918–1920: A Diplomatic and Military Tragicomedy. New York: Greenwood, 1988.
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A pedestrian account of the Allied intervention in Archangel and Murmansk that offers no new insight into the conflict. It does, however, offer a factually correct overview of the major issues and activities of the British and American military forces and diplomatic missions.
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Somin, Ilya. Stillborn Crusade: The Tragic Failure of Western Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1918–1920. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1996.
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This book challenges the accepted wisdom that the Allied intervention in Russia was misguided and impractical and argues that the Allies were morally right to intervene because the Bolshevik’s represented a real threat to the international community, as was borne out in the course of the next seven decades.
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Strakhovsky, Leonid I. “The Allies and the Supreme Administration of the Northern Region, August 2–October 7, 1918: A Page in the History of Allied Intervention in North Russia.” Slavonic Year-Book, American Series 1 (1941): 102–123.
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This article examines the complex relationship among the Allies occupying Archangel in 1918 and their attempt to create an acceptable and compliant Russian government. It documents the friction between the American and French ambassadors in Archangel who frequently were at odds with the British military and naval commanders over the desired political composition of an acceptable Russian government. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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American Intervention

Studies of the American role in the Allied intervention in Russia inevitably bring out the conflicted decision making in Washington, DC, under President Woodrow Wilson, as shown by Unterberger 1969. Far more idealistic in his dealings with the Russians than were the British and French, who felt the threat of a massive diversion of manpower from the East to the West rather more acutely than did Wilson, Wilson would not commit the United States to overthrowing the Bolsheviks as was felt necessary by the British. The American intervention then took on a limited scope destined to accomplish nothing but antagonize their Allies and confuse the Russians who sought their help. The problems thus created are brought out clearly in Foglesong 1995 and Halliday 1961. How events played out on the ground with the participation of US troops, who were often unclear in their understanding of their mission, are shown in Daugherty 2005; Koehler 1991; and Moore, et al. 2003.

Daugherty III, Leo J. “‘. . . In Snows of Far Off Northern Lands’: The U.S. Marines and Revolutionary Russia, 1917–1922.” Journal of Slavic Military Studies 18.2 (2005): 227–303.
DOI: 10.1080/13518040590944467Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Using archival materials, this article examines the use of the US Marines at Murmansk and Vladivostok during the Allied intervention in the Russian civil war and the Soviet government’s response. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Foglesong, David S. America’s Secret War against Bolshevism: U.S. Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1917–1920. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
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This book studies the struggles of President Woodrow Wilson’s administration to choose between nonintervention and intervention to the point of destruction of the Bolshevik regime. The result was an indecisive, limited intervention and an ineffective covert war against the Bolsheviks.
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Halliday, E. M. The Ignorant Armies: The Anglo-American Archangel Expedition, 1918–1919. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1961.
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This book presents the American side of the Allied Expedition to north Russia and highlights President Wilson’s misgivings about the venture. The essential problem in Allied relations was the American desire to limit the scale and scope of intervention, in contrast to the British, who had more extensive aims, especially that of reopening the Eastern Front.
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Koehler, Hugo William, and Peter J. Capelotti. Our Man in the Crimea: Commander Hugo Koehler and the Russian Civil War. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991.
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This book contains the letters and official dispatches of Navy Commander Hugo Koehler who served as an US observer, advisor, and spy to the White forces in south Russia. This ground-level view is very readable and engaging as it shows the activities of the interventionist forces and Whites firsthand.
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Moore, Joel R., Harry H. Mead, and Lewis E. Jahns. The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki: Campaigning in North Russia 1918–1919. Nashville: Battery Press, 2003.
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This is a history of the 339th Infantry Regiment of the 85th Division, which comprised the bulk of the American Expedition to north Russia in 1918–1919. The officer authors do not attempt to explain or justify the politics behind the commitment of US forces in Russia but are content to focus narrowly on the regiment’s experience. Originally published in 1920 (Detroit: Polar Bear Publishing).
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Unterberger, Betty Miller. American Intervention in the Russian Civil War. Problems in American Civilization. Lexington, MA: Heath, 1969.
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This book consists of three chapters that provide background and overview, twenty-one official documents, and five concluding essays of opposing interpretations on why America intervened in the Russian civil war.
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British and Canadian Intervention

The works included here focus narrowly on the decisions of Canadian and British policymakers to intervene in Russia during the civil war. Isitt 2010 and MacLaren 1976 focus on the high politics of Canada, but Isitt goes further by including the domestic pressures and consequences of the government’s decision making. MacLaren discusses the use of Canadian troops not just in Siberia but also in the Caspian and White Sea regions from the perspectives of both the politicians and the soldiers. Winegard 2007 covers some of the same ground but shows more of the political effects on the military’s endeavors once the Canadian Expedition reached Siberia. Kinvig 2006 focuses on the British origins of the Allied intervention, which resulted in Canadian participation.

Isitt, Benjamin. From Victoria to Vladivostok: Canada’s Siberian Expedition, 1917–19. Toronto: UBC Press, 2010.
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This book explains the politics behind Canada’s involvement in the Allied intervention in Siberia. In so doing, it takes a close look at the relation between Canadian society and the leftist sympathies of the working class and the corrosive effects of these on the Expedition.
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Kinvig, Clifford. Churchill’s Crusade: The British Invasion of Russia, 1918–1920. London: Hambledon Continuum, 2006.
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This book details the politics and Winston Churchill’s political maneuverings behind British intervention and gives a top-down view of the actual intervention. Churchill’s role as the driving force behind those in the British government who saw the Bolsheviks as a long-term threat to the British Empire is closely examined.
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MacLaren, Roy. Canadians in Russia, 1918–1919. Toronto: Macmillan, 1976.
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This book examines the role of Canadian Premier Sir Robert Borden in the decision to send Canadian troops to Russia alongside British and American soldiers. The author includes not only the voices of the politicians in Ottawa and London but the experiences of common soldiers as well. In general, the military viewed the intervention as misguided and not well thought through. MacLaren also analyzes the reasons behind their eventual withdrawal.
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Winegard, Timothy C. “The Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force, 1918–1919, and the Complications of Coalition Warfare.” Journal of Slavic Military Studies 20.2 (2007): 283–328.
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Using Canadian archival records and primary source documents, this article examines the history of the Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force and its relation to the other Allied forces. The author lays out the Canadian government’s struggle—and eventual failure—to develop a clearly defined policy regarding its use of force. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Politics and Diplomacy

The works in this section deal strictly with the complex diplomacy and politics of the intervening nations as they struggle to decide whether or not to intervene. The act of intervening and how it played out in Russia is not included in these works. Brinkley 1966 covers Allied dealings with the Volunteer Army and how that interaction shaped thinking in London and Paris. Kennan’s two books (Kennan 1956, Kennan 1958) still stand as the classic treatment of Wilson’s decision making regarding US intervention. Unterberger 1956 is more narrowly focused on the decision to intervene in Siberia. Ullman’s trilogy of books (Ullman 1961, Ullman 1968, Ullman 1972) established the conventional wisdom regarding British intervention central to which was the desire to reopen hostilities on the Eastern Front to keep Germany from transferring troops from there to the Western Front. In general, the French intervention in the Russian civil war has not generated the same level of scholarly or popular historical interest as that of the United States and Britain. Michael Carley is the acknowledged expert on the French intervention (Carley 1983). His work explains the thinking of the French government and military in their approach to the Bolsheviks and their seizure of power, which was not necessarily based on ideological reactions or in concert with its allies.

Brinkley, George A. The Volunteer Army and Allied Intervention in South Russia, 1917–1921: A Study in the Politics and Diplomacy of the Russian Civil War. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966.
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This book, following what would become the common wisdom, links the Allied intervention in Russia to their attempt to reopen the Eastern Front, which then gravitated to intervention in the civil war. He combines narrative with analysis and astutely integrates the issues concerning the national minorities who populated much of the area in which the interventionists and White forces operated.
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Carley, Michael J. Revolution and Intervention: The French Government and the Russian Civil War 1917–1919. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1983.
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This book analyzes the French government’s diplomatic and ideological motives for intervention and its poorly conceived plans for doing so. The fundamental ideas of this book are that the French set out to follow an independent course of action. The author contrasts French thinking to that of the British and examines the conflicts within French diplomatic and military circles.
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Fic, Victor M. The Collapse of American Policy in Russia and Siberia, 1918: Wilson’s Decision Not to Intervene (March–October, 1918). Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1995.
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This book covers the situation in Russia in 1918 regarding American intervention. It focuses on the various points of potential success for the anti-Bolshevik forces had President Wilson put America’s efforts behind them. It is written from the Cold War perspective that the intervention was justified to prevent a greater evil—the creation of the Soviet state—from taking root.
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Kennan, George F. Soviet-American Relations, 1917–1920. Vol. 1, Russia Leaves the War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1956.
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This book covers United States–Soviet relations during the period from the October Revolution to the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in May 1918, giving much insight into the workings of diplomacy under President Wilson, which often was at the expense of his ambassadors and the State Department. It is well written and won the Pulitzer Prize for history.
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Kennan, George F. Soviet American Relations, 1917–1920. Vol. 2, The Decision to Intervene. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1958.
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This volume covers March 1918 to the withdrawal of US troops in 1919. It is based primarily on the perspective of US diplomats in Russia and only secondarily on policymakers in Washington, DC. The disconnect between those in Russia and the officials in Washington is examined, as is the President’s dependence on information coming from Russia to make decisions.
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Ullman, Richard H. Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1917–1921. Vol. 1, Intervention and the War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961.
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The author offers insight into the origins of British intervention in Russia and the conflicting views of Britain’s military and diplomats. He shows that the British approach to Russia after the Revolution was based in pragmatism, mostly with regard to the war situation.
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Ullman, Richard H. Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1917–1921. Vol. 2, Britain and the Russian Civil War, November 1918–February 1920. Princeton, NJ: Princeton, University Press, 1968.
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The author outlines the twisted and unsure path of Britain’s intervention in the civil war. He portrays the introduction of British troops not as an ideological act but as a practical measure to safeguard Allied supplies that were to be repatriated and used in the ongoing war and to disrupt Soviet–German cooperation in hopes of keeping German troops in the east.
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Ullman, Richard H. Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1917–1921. Vol. 3, The Anglo-Soviet Accord. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972.
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The author deals with David Lloyd George’s attempts to heal the wounds caused by Britain’s intervention and prior hostility to the Bolshevik regime to normalize diplomatic contact and open trade relations. This book also covers the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 and the British reaction to it.
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Unterberger, Betty Miller. America’s Siberian Expedition, 1918–1920: A Study of National Policy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1956.
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One of the earliest treatments of the United States’ intervention, this book is based solely on English-language sources. Viewed from the American perspective, it offers a sympathetic treatment of President Wilson’s administration’s decision to intervene in Siberia—a decision made in part to thwart Japanese imperial ambitions in the region.
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Notable Figures

Biographical works on notable figures of the civil war give a particular view and insight to that conflict. On the Bolshevik side we have works on Leon Trotsky, Bolshevik leader and founder of the Red Army (Deutscher 1954), and the non-Bolshevik but pro-Red Mironov (Starikov and Medvedev 1978). For the Whites, there are works on General Denikin (Lehovich 1974) and on General Wrangel (Wrangel 1987). Malet 1982 is a book on Makhno, who was neither Red nor White but Green—that is, a peasant anarchist. Each of these leaders made important contributions to their causes; Makhno, Trotsky, Denikin, and Wrangel had tangible effects on the organizations they commanded that in large part were the products of their personalities and backgrounds.

Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Armed: Trotsky, 1879–1921. Vintage Russian Library 746. New York: Vintage, 1954.
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This is Volume 1 of three that focuses on Trotsky’s role as creator and commander of the Red Army during the civil war. In it the author, who was unashamedly pro-Bolshevik, lauds Trotsky’s military thinking and leadership abilities much more than is warranted but gives us a valuable picture of the workings of the top Red leadership.
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Lehovich, Dimitry V. White against Red: The Life of General Anton Denikin. New York: Norton, 1974.
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This biography of former tsarist general Denikin, the first leader of the White Volunteer Army, is written by a man who served under him, admired him, and makes no claim to objectivity. Besides the war years, this book gives insight into the Russian exile community in Europe in the years after the civil war through the end of World War II.
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Malet, Michael. Nestor Makhno in the Russian Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1982.
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This book situates the peasant anarchist Nestor Makhno and his movement in the Ukraine in the broad context of the revolution and civil war of the whole Russian empire. The author shows how Makhno and the peasant anarchists were caught between the Reds and Whites and their futile attempt to not to take sides but to carve out enclaves of peasant independence.
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Starikov, Sergei, and Roy Medvedev. Philip Mironov and the Russian Civil War. Translated by Guy Daniels. New York: Knopf, 1978.
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This is a biography of the Socialist Revolutionary Philip Mironov who was instrumental to Red victory in south Russia. Through his populist appeals, he galvanized support for the Bolsheviks among the Cossacks, mainly the younger generation, but in the end, he became a victim of the Bolsheviks who could never bring themselves to trust non-Bolsheviks.
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Wrangel, Alexis. General Wrangel: Russia’s White Crusader. New York: Hippocrene, 1987.
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This sympathetic biography covers Wrangel’s entire life but focuses on the civil war and postwar life in exile. It incorporates the reminiscences of men who served alongside Wrangel to give a ground-level view of his thinking and actions. The narrative is decidedly pro-Wrangel and anti-Bolshevik.
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Personal Narratives

The majority of the personal narratives below give ground-level views of the effect of the civil war on ordinary people—Kollontai (Dazhina 2010) being the exception as a Bolshevik official. Anderson 2010 and Carey 1997 are apolitical in nature and seek to convey their experiences for what they are worth, somewhat like adventure tales. The Russians tend to offer an interpretation and evaluation along the lines of whatever political side they took: Kollontai (Dazhina 2010), Babel 1995, and Dune 1993 for the Bolsheviks, and Babine (Raleigh 1988) and Shebeko and Pierce 1961 against the Reds. The final two narratives are by people of rank. Williamson, a British brigadier, was able to contextualize his observations and experience into a larger picture, though not necessarily a clear one (Williamson 1971). Wrangel, successor to Denikin as leader of the White Army in the south takes a partisan anti-Bolshevik stance in defense of the White movement and all of his actions (Wrangel 1929).

Anderson, Godfrey J. A Michigan Polar Bear Confronts the Bolsheviks: A War Memoir. The 337th Field Hospital in Northern Russia, 1918–1919. Edited by Gordon L. Olson. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010.
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This is the memoir of a young American draftee who served in a military hospital unit assigned to support the American military expedition to north Russia. Typical of many American firsthand accounts, the author offers no judgment on the politics of intervention but confines the narrative to a description of his own experiences.
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Babel, Isaac. 1920 Diary. Translated by H. T. Willets. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995.
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Written by the acclaimed Russian literary giant, this is the diary of his wartime service as a war correspondent with the Cossacks of the First Cavalry Army in the war with Poland. In it one sees questions arise in his mind as to the efficacy of spreading world revolution and establishing communism through an army of apolitical Cossacks.
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Carey, Donald E. Fighting the Bolsheviks: The Russian War Memoir of Private First Class Donald E. Carey, U.S. Army, 1918–1919. Edited by Neil G. Carey. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1997.
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These are the war memoirs of an infantry private who fought against the Bolsheviks in north Russia as part of the American Expedition. Decidedly unpolitical, Carey’s observations are matter-of-fact observations of how things were and not how they ought to have been.
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Dazhina, Irina M. “‘Pishu o tom, chto videla sama, o tekh liudiakh i vpechatleniiakh, kotorye vynesla lichno’: A. M. Kollontai v gody Grazhdanskoi voiny. 1919g.” Istoricheskii Arkhiv 3 (2010): 171–192.
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The article is an excerpt from the diary of Aleksandra Kollontai, a leading Bolshevik figure, from her time serving as commissar of propaganda and agitation in the Ukraine during the civil war. These excerpts are records of her impressions of people and events seen through the lens of ideology. Part 2 of this article appears in Istoricheskii Arkhiv 5 (2010): 51–86.
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Dune, Eduard. Notes of a Red Guard. Translated and edited by Diane P. Koenker and S. A. Smith. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993.
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This is a memoir of an idealistic young worker who became a member of his local Red Guard in Moscow during the Revolution and then a soldier in the Red Army during the civil war. Soon after the war Dune became disillusioned by the antidemocratic nature of Bolshevism and emigrated.
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Raleigh, Donald J., ed. A Russian Civil War Diary: Alexis Babine in Saratov, 1917–1922. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1988.
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This memoir conveys an impression of everyday middle-class life in the provinces of people dealing with the chaos and hardships of the civil war. Though he did not take up arms, the author is decidedly anti-Bolshevik.
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Shebeko, Boris, and Richard A. Pierce. Russian Civil War, 1918–1922 and Emigration: An Interview. Berkeley: University of California, 1961.
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This is the printed and edited version of a series of interviews of Boris Shebeko as part of an oral history project. Shebeko reflects on his service as an officer cadet in the tsarist army and then as a junior officer in the White Army during the civil war.
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Williamson, H. N. H. Farewell to the Don: The Russian Revolution in the Journals of Brigadier H. N. H. Williamson. Edited by John Harris. New York: John Day, 1971.
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A firsthand account by a British brigadier general assigned as an advisor to the Whites in their use of British-supplied arms and equipment in the Don region.
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Wrangel, Petr N. The Memoirs of General Wrangel: The Last Commander-in-Chief of the Russian National Army. Translated by Sophie Goulston. London: Williams & Norgate, 1929.
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Wrangel begins his memoir with the Revolution and ends with the evacuation of White forces from the Crimea in 1920. It is written largely in diary fashion and includes documents, telegrams, and correspondence.
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War and Society

The study of society during the Russian civil war has been one of the most fruitful fields of research of the late 20th and early 21st century in the field of Soviet studies. Social history methodology has revealed the deep fissures in society that ran the gamut of economic status, social origins and status, nationality, ethnicity, race, gender, and regionalism, to name the most prominent. From these studies we observe that the civil war was far more than just about politics and ideology. Until the 1980s, the “history from below” approach was relegated to the study of the revolutions, generally February 1917 through January 1918. Only in the 1980s and afterwards has this approach been extended to the period of the civil war. Several important edited collections of social history have been produced by the emphasis on “history from below.” In order of their publication, they are Gleason, et al. 1985; Koenker, et al. 1989; and Brovkin 1997. Borrero 2003 and Brovkin 1994 analyze the challenges to Bolshevik success posed by the difficulty of exercising power in ways that directly affected daily life. Koenker 1985 illustrates the unexpected challenges to Bolshevik success posed by changes in society caused by the Revolutions and civil war. Johnson 1980 shows how the Revolution and civil war opened the door for women to participate more fully in nontraditional roles in the new Soviet society. The variety of social challenges for the Bolsheviks and further research tasks for historians is laid out in Rieber 1988.

Borrero, Mauricio. Hungry Moscow: Scarcity and Urban Society in the Russian Civil War, 1917–1920. Studies in Modern European History 41. New York: Peter Lang, 2003.
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This book uses Moscow as a case study of the effects of food shortages on the population and how those shortages and popular and local government’s response to them affected the implementation of government at the local level. Of particular note is the work on the difficulty of creating a meaningful priority system of rationing, the bagman issue, public dining, and black market activities.
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Brovkin, Vladimir N. Behind the Front Lines of the Civil War: Political Parties and Social Movements in Russia, 1918–1922. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.
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The author challenges the accepted wisdom that the Bolsheviks won the civil war because they were able, through propaganda, to successfully mobilize the population to their cause. He argues that neither the Reds nor the Whites had significant popular support among either workers or peasants during the civil war.
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Brovkin, Vladimir N., ed. The Bolsheviks in Russian Society: The Revolution and Civil Wars. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997.
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This collection of fourteen articles approaches the study of Russian society as “history from below” for the period after the October Revolution through the end of the civil war. The specific thrust of the collection is to show the lack of popular support for the Bolsheviks and the scale of the social- and politically based opposition to them other than the organized White movements.
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Gleason, Abbot, Peter Kenez, and Richard Stites. eds. Bolshevik Culture: Experiment and Order in the Russian Revolution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985.
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This collection includes contributions by some of the scholars who were, or would become, the leaders of the movement for “history from below” of Soviet society in the years of the Revolution and civil war. The aspects of culture addressed by these chapters include high culture, ideology, political tactics, gender issues, social strategies, literature, crime, and politically motivated myth-making.
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Johnson, Richard. “The Role of Women in the Russian Civil War (1917–1921).” Conflict 2.2 (1980): 201–217.
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This article represents the first attempt to contextualize new opportunities for women to serve society after the October Revolution as they were shaped by the emergency of the civil war and the ideology professed by the Bolshevik Party.
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Koenker, Diane. “Urbanization and Deurbanization in the Russian Revolution and Civil War.” Journal of Modern History 57.3 (1985): 424–450.
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This article challenges the idea that Russia became deurbanized and the workers became declassed as a result of the massive exodus of workers from the major cities during the civil war. It posits that urban culture merely became transformed by the experience of civil war around a core of workers and their values. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Koenker, Diane P., William G. Rosenberg, and Ronald G. Suny, eds. Party, State, and Society in the Russian Civil War: Explorations in Social History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989.
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This combination of essays, commentary, and previously published articles represents a major foray into the social history of the civil war by some of the field’s most prominent historians. Its major sections cover topics such as social revolution, social and demographic impacts of the war, administration and state building, Bolsheviks and their relationship with the intelligentsia, workers and socialists, and the legacy of the civil war.
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Rieber, Alfred J. “Landed Property, State Authority, and Civil War.” Slavic Review 47.1 (1988): 29–38.
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This article offers a very useful and concise analytical overview of the social divisions in Russian society during the civil war that points to work done and that still needs to be done on understanding the various social aspects of the revolution and civil war. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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State Building

An important part of the civil war was the process of recreating central authority and the mechanisms of government after the destruction of both tsarist officialdom and then the Provisional government. The Bolsheviks could not wait until after the civil war to create a system of governing but developed one through trial and error in the course of the civil war. Because the government was created from nothing under emergency conditions, the civil war is thought by some to have fundamentally shaped the subsequent history of Soviet governing. Others believe the essential methods of governing were inherent in the Bolsheviks’ Party organization and ideology and the personality of Lenin. Remington 1984 represents those authors who side with the interpretation that ideology and Lenin’s exercise of it were responsible for the ultimate form the Soviet government took. Those that see the war as the cause include Lih 1990, McAuley 1991, Rigby 1979, and Service 1979. Sakwa 1988 sees both as playing roles but leans toward ideology as the dominant factor. Kenez 1985 does not explicitly address the issue of the outcome of state building but shows how the nascent Soviet state sought to communicate and justify its policies to the people, which cannot but help shed light on the eventual outcome of the state-building process. Malle 1985 is concerned with Bolshevik control of the economy during the civil war and leans toward ideology as the dominant factor in decision making. Sanborn 2003 does not directly address the issue of which is to blame for the ultimate form the Soviet state took but instead contextualizes state building in the crucible of war and war making, which contributed unique stresses to the processes.

Kenez, Peter. The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization 1917–1929. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
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The author analyzes the Bolshevik use of agitation, propaganda, and political education. The five chapters on the civil war discuss the press, agitation among the peasants, the attempts to combat illiteracy, the propaganda role of the Komsomol as a mass organization, and the use of books, film, and posters.
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Lih, Lars T. Bread and Authority in Russia, 1914–1921. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
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This book examines the food crisis in Russia, begun under Nicholas II and inherited by the Provisional government and then the Bolsheviks, as a medium to study the breakdown and then reconstruction of authority in revolutionary Russia. The author rejects ideology as the driving force behind any of the three governments’ behavior but rather frames their actions in the confines of a range of limited practical options.
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Malle, Silvana. The Economic Organization of War Communism 1918–1921. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511562921Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Virtually an encyclopedia of the Bolshevik’s civil war economy, the author identifies just about everything the Bolsheviks did wrong. The main categories of problems the Bolsheviks introduced into their economy include insisting on an impractical dogma, coercion sanctioned by ideology, an exploitative attitude toward the peasantry, and using political criteria for making economic decisions.
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McAuley, Mary. Bread and Justice: State and Society in Petrograd, 1917–1922. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991.
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Using published archival sources and contemporary newspapers, the author analyzes the tension between the Bolsheviks’ commitment to social revolution to lift up the poor and their hostility to bureaucracy, bourgeois functionaries, and inequalities that were necessary to succeed in building their revolutionary state. This book is exclusively an examination of the state-building process in the city of Petrograd.
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Remington, Thomas F. Building Socialism in Bolshevik Russia: Ideology and Industrial Organization, 1917–1921. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1984.
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The author attempts to explain the failure of the Bolsheviks to deliver the promised egalitarian, democratic socialist state that they promised in their revolutionary rhetoric. He singles out the mobilization of labor and the mobilization of science to accomplish things in the absence of a functional bureaucratic state.
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Rigby, Thomas H. Lenin’s Government: Sovnarkom 1917–1922. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
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This is a study of Lenin’s uncertain process of governing and building institutions of government during the stress of the civil war. The author argues that the Soviet government and its subordination to the Party were not what Lenin had intended but were products of the emergency conditions imposed by the civil war under which Lenin created his government.
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Sakwa, Richard. Soviet Communists in Power: A Study of Moscow during the Civil War, 1918–21. New York: St. Martin’s, 1988.
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Using Moscow as a case study, this book analyzes the centralization of power by the Bolsheviks, in particular that over the economy, as caused by ideology, the party’s political culture, and the circumstances of the civil war. The author’s explanation leans most heavily on the ideological underpinnings of the one-party state, which guided its thinking when faced with practical problems.
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Sanborn, Joshua A. Drafting the Russian Nation: Military Conscription, Total War, and Mass Politics, 1905–1925. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2003.
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This book addresses the issue of expanding the obligation of military service to adult males of all races and nationalities in Russia and then the USSR as a state-building exercise. The civil war is placed in the context of the mass mobilization of manpower and militarization of society from World War I, from which the revolution and civil war emerged.
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Service, Robert. The Bolshevik Party in Revolution: A Study in Organisational Change, 1917–1923. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1979.
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The author sees the dictatorial aspects of post–civil war Bolshevik rule not as coming from Lenin or Marxist ideology but as a result of the Bolsheviks’ unpreparedness to rule and the great stresses the circumstances of world war, civil war, and lack of popular support to which the Bolsheviks were forced to react. These reactions were consistently in the direction of unity, centralization, and control from the center.
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The Politics of White and Liberal Anti-Bolshevik Movements

In general, historians have come rather late to the study of the anti-Bolshevik political movements on the right, having instead concentrated on the military aspects of the opposition. Although the right-wing opposition lost its struggle against the Reds, their political outlooks and efforts are very much worth studying because these are the ideas around which they organized their armed opposition and with which they attempted to mobilize popular support. There are only two truly noteworthy books in this genre: Pereira 1996 is limited to a regional study of the politics of the Siberian anti-Bolshevik opposition, while Rosenberg 1974 traces the efforts of the liberal Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets) in several parts of Russia. The articles below are divided geographically. Karpenko 2010 and Lazarski 1992 study the politics of the White movement in south Russia; Novikova 2005 studies the White movement in north Russia from a regional perspective; and Rupp 1997 examines the failed attempt by the Socialist Revolutionaries and more conservative elements in western Siberia to combine forces against the Bolsheviks.

Karpenko, S. “The White Dictatorships’ Bureaucracy in the South of Russia: Social Structure, Living Conditions, and Performance (1918–1920).” Soviet and Post-Soviet Review 37.1 (2010): 84–96.
DOI: 10.1163/187633210X490808Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article analyzes the economic, political, and moral factors of Generals Denikin’s and Wrangel’s military dictatorships that contributed to red tape and corruption in their bureaucracies. Almost all aspects of their attempts to organize their movement and to govern areas under their control of the White Army in the south proved to be self-defeating because of their reliance on conservative social elements. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Lazarski, Christopher. “White Propaganda Efforts in the South during the Russian Civil War, 1918–19 (the Alekseev-Denikin Period).” Slavonic and East European Review 70.4 (1992): 688–707.
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This article compares White to Red propaganda and analyzes its strengths and weaknesses, concluding that it was not as bad or even counterproductive as commonly perceived at the time or by historians since. The Whites in south Russia in fact put much effort into disseminating their message, which at times was effective in conveying their message and countering Red propaganda. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Novikova, Liudmila G. “A Province of a Non-existent State: The White Government in the Russian North and Political Power in the Russian Civil War, 1918–20.” Revolutionary Russia 18.2 (2005): 121–144.
DOI: 10.1080/09546540500345084Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Here the author examines the conflicted outlook and actions of the leaders of the Arkhangel’sk regional movement, showing that they counterpoised their desire to overcome the backwardness and isolation of north Russia with the need to support the White movement and its centralizing tendencies, which they saw as a threat to their autonomy. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Pereira, Norman G. O. White Siberia: The Politics of Civil War. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996.
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This book analyzes the similarities and differences of the programs and ideologies of the several anti-Bolshevik factions in Siberia and their weaknesses, which led to the failure of the White counterrevolution there. The author downplays the regionalist aspects and asserts great Russian sentiments to the regional leaders, whose liberal tendencies led them to support the White movement.
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Rosenberg, William G. Liberals in the Russian Revolution: The Constitutional Democratic Party, 1917–1921. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974.
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This history of the Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets) during the Revolution and civil war highlights the failure of the party to make itself relevant in the anti-Bolshevik movement. The two most significant problems the author highlights were that the Kadets were out of touch with the spirit of the Revolution held by the masses and their internal fractiousness.
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Rupp, Susan Zayer. “Conflict and Crippled Compromise: Civil-War Politics in the East and the Ufa State Conference.” Russian Review 56.2 (1997): 249–264.
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This article examines the failure of the Socialist Revolutionary government (Komuch) in Samara to effectively unite with the more conservative government of Western Siberia to form a single anti-Bolshevik bloc in 1918. Anti-Bolshevism proved to not be a sufficient common ground for the members to overcome their social and ideological differences. Available online by subscription.
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The Politics of Leftist Anti-Bolshevik Movements

The leftist anti-Bolshevik movements have attracted somewhat less scholarly and popular attention than the White movement. It has been more difficult for scholars to access primary sources on those movements than on the Whites, particularly the peasant-oriented anarchist movements and uprising. Those movements did not create many documents, and the Bolsheviks’ records of their destruction of those movements were inaccessible until recently. Brovkin 1991 is the single authority on the Mensheviks during and after the revolutionary period, but the anarchists have several champions, especially the Antonov movement, in Landis 2008 and Radkey 1976. The Makhno movement in the Ukraine is covered by Avrich 1968 and Palij 1976. Schapiro 1977 presents a more comprehensive view of the overall leftist opposition to the Bolsheviks to include the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries.

Avrich, Paul. “Russian Anarchists and the Civil War.” Russian Review 27.3 (1968): 296–306.
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This article analyzes the dilemma of anarchists having to choose between the Reds and the Whites, which split the anarchists between those who retained their independence and those who allied with the Bolsheviks. The author also discusses Nestor Makhno’s failed attempt to carve out his own peasant anarchist enclave in the Ukraine in the context of the Bolshevik’s desire for an absolute one-party dictatorship. Available online by subscription.
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Brovkin, Vladimir. The Mensheviks after October: Socialist Opposition and the Rise of the Bolshevik Dictatorship. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991.
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The author examines the potential of the Mensheviks as a viable alternative to the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the October Revolution. Until outlawed by the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks polled very well in elections to local Soviets and workers used many of their slogans in anti-Bolshevik strikes.
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Landis, Erik C. Bandits and Partisans: The Antonov Movement in the Russian Civil War. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008.
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Using provincial and state archives and international document collections, the author shows the economic and social roots of the rebellion and the internal divisions of the Bolsheviks as they crushed the revolt. The author deals less with the ideology of the uprising and Antonov and devotes considerable effort to explaining the practical economic and social roots of the uprising.
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Palij, Michael. The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno, 1918–1921: An Aspect of the Ukrainian Revolution. Publications on Russia and Eastern Europe of the Institute for Comparative and Foreign Area Studies 7. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976.
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Placed within the context of the Ukrainian nationalist revolution, this is an intellectual history of the idea of anarchism as understood and enacted by the anti-Bolshevik/anti-White peasant anarchist leader. Ultimately, the Ukrainian revolution failed in part because Makhno refused to ally with the various more organized Ukrainian governments and at times opposed them.
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Radkey, Oliver H. The Unknown Civil War in Russia: A Study of the Green Movement in the Tambov Region 1920–1921. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1976.
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This book was the first to study Antonov’s nearly nine-month-long anti-Bolshevik peasant rebellion in Tambov. Excessive grain requisitioning and conscription quotas pushed the peasants into revolt. The revolt spread and gained strength through the efforts of Antonov who professed a democratic, anarchist political philosophy, which the author believes was the catalyst for the expansion and duration of the resistance.
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Schapiro, Leonard. The Origin of the Communist Autocracy: Political Opposition in the Soviet State, First Phase, 1917–1922. 2d ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977.
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This is a detailed study of the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary parties’ opposition to Lenin and the Bolsheviks during the Revolution and civil war. According to the author, although circumstances played their role, Lenin, rather than Marxist ideology, was ultimately responsible for the revolution producing the dictatorship that it did and subsequently Stalinism.
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Fiction

The three most notable works of fiction on the civil war were written by Soviet writers who had contemporary experience with the Revolution and civil war. Babel (Babel 1994) and Sholokhov (Sholokhov 1996) both served in the Red Army, and Pasternak (Pasternak 2010) experienced the revolution as a worker and teacher in a chemical plant. Sholokhov portrays the Revolution and civil war in a light favorable to the regime, Pasternak in an unfavorable light, and Babel in a rather neutral light. Eventually Babel and Pasternak would run afoul of the Soviet regime for nonconformance in their writing. Babel was executed in Stalin’s purges, and Pasternak and Sholokhov were awarded Nobel Prizes for Literature.

Babel, Isaac. Collected Stories. Translated by David McDuff. Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics. London: Penguin, 1994.
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Of particular interest is the section titled “Red Cavalry,” which is a collection of thirty-five short stories based on his experiences riding with the First Cavalry Army during the civil war as factually portrayed in his 1920 Diary (Babel 1995, cited under Personal Narratives). Much like in 1920 Diary, the depictions of the Cossacks, the First Cavalry Army, and their way of war was unvarnished and gritty.
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Pasternak, Boris. Doctor Zhivago. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York: Pantheon, 2010.
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This novel, set during the Revolution and civil war, recounts the life of physician Iurii Andreevich and the struggles of his family, their destitution as a result of the Revolution, their flight to the Urals, and their capture by Red partisans, intertwined with the main character’s love for his mistress Lara Antipova. It earned Pasternak the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958.
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Sholokhov, Mikhail A. Quiet Flows the Don. Translated by Robert Daglish. Revised and edited by Brian Murphy. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1996.
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This novel, based on Sholokhov’s experience as a participant in the civil war as a teenager, chronicles the life and experiences of a pro-Bolshevik Cossack soldier during World War I and the civil war. Published in the Soviet Union in 1940, it earned him both the Stalin Prize in 1941 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1965.
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