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“Crusades Against Bolshevism”?: International Dimensions of the Russian Civil War in Four Countries
Full text linkThe Russian Civil War (1917-1922), fought between Bolshevik and anti-Bolshevik factions, was one of the most pivotal conflicts of the 20th century. It led directly to the rise of the world’s first socialist state, the Soviet Union, which for decades was at the forefront of the international communist movement and a major global power until its collapse in 1991, around 70 years after its founding. The victory of the Bolsheviks was not always a guaranteed outcome, however. In fact, to an outside observer in February of 1917, it would have appeared one of the less likely. The six months that followed would produce the conditions for a communist takeover, and the Russian Civil War was the conflict that would decide that outcome. The war itself was multidimensional, and to portray it merely as a bipolar conflict between White and Red armies misrepresents its true nature, which was the fragmenting of one of the largest land empires in history. Countless nationalities that had formerly been subjects under the Russian Empire made a break for independence, some successfully and others not. It is for this reason that historian Jonathan Smele insists on applying the term Russian Civil Wars to the series of conflicts that erupted across the territory of the Russian Empire over a ten-year period from 1916 to 1926
