A Nasty Little War
The Western Intervention into the Russian Civil War
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
The first comprehensive history of the failed Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War, a decisive turning point in the relationship between Russia and the West
Named a Best Book of 2024 by Foreign Affairs
Overlapping with and overshadowed by the First World War, the Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War was one of the most ambitious military ventures of the twentieth century. Launched in the summer of 1918, it drew in 180,000 troops from fifteen different countries in theaters ranging from the Caspian Sea to the Arctic, and from Poland to the Pacific. Though little remembered today, its consequences stoked global political turmoil for decades to come.
In A Nasty Little War, top Russia historian Anna Reid offers a sweeping and deeply researched account of the conflict. Initially launched to prevent Germany from exploiting the power vacuum in Eastern Europe left by the Russian Revolution, the Intervention morphed into a bid to destroy the Bolsheviks on the battlefield. But Allied armaments, supplies, and loans could not prevent Russia’s anti-Bolshevik armies from collapsing, and the Allies were forced to retreat in defeat. The humiliation sapped British imperial swagger, chastened American idealism, and stoked militarism and nationalism in France and Germany.
Combining immersive storytelling with deep research, A Nasty Little War reveals how the Allied Intervention reshaped the West’s relations with Russia, and set a pattern for other interventions to come.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this meticulous and searing account of British, French, and American involvement in the Russian Civil War, journalist Reid (Borderland) lambasts the West for poorly coordinated military operations and a dismal understanding of the conflict at large. Noting that a "roller-coaster of events" led to the 1918 intervention during WWI—including British refusal to grant Czar Nicholas II and his family asylum just before the Bolsheviks executed them—Reid explains that initially, the Allies feared that Germany would take advantage of Russian infighting to get control of northern ports. After the armistice, the goal of the intervention became stopping the revolutionary Bolsheviks, or Red Army, and supporting the czarists, or White Army. The U.S. limited its involvement to ferrying aid and refugees, and France exited in spring 1919 after its navy, out of sympathy for the revolution, refused to fire on advancing Bolsheviks in Crimea. The British, however, continued until 1920, when the White Army finally collapsed. Throughout, Reid accuses the British government of "willed blindness" toward war crimes committed by White Army leaders (though she notes the Red Army also committed atrocities). By comparing diary entries with official reports, she reveals how British commanders hid or shifted blame for their failures, and how the government's anti-Bolshevism would disrupt relations for decades. The result is a vivid critical assessment of Western meddling in foreign affairs.
