Revolution and Civil War in North Russia - by Alistair S Wright (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Revolution and Civil War in North Russiashines a much-needed light on the establishment and consolidation of Bolshevik power on the civil war periphery and examines the Allied/anti-Bolshevik military and home fronts from a previously uncharted perspective.

Expanding our understanding of the Russian civil war, this book provides the first detailed, archival-based study in English to analyse the two neighbouring regions of Karelia and Murmansk. Despite not being far from the revolutionary capital, Petrograd, both territories resisted the establishment of Bolshevik power longer than many others and so this study offers novel insights into the complexities of the struggle that eventually led to communist rule.

Alistair S. Wright reflects on how both Karelia and Murmansk relied on food being imported, comparing how this problem was dealt with by the two independent local governments. Wright shows, for the first time, how providing Murmansk with food supplies was a key feature of Allied intervention during the conflict, part of an informative analysis of Bolshevik and Allied food supply polices to be found throughout the book.

Review Quotes

Revolution and Civil War in North Russia is a masterful study of the overlooked northern regions of Murmansk and Karelia. Alistair Wright provides a detailed account of the regions' unique experience of revolution and civil war shaped by the Allied intervention to win the world war and its northerly environment. At the same time, Wright deftly shows how the various debates over the direction of the revolution and the political crises in the centre echoed loudly in Murmansk and Karelia. This is an essential reading for anyone interested in regional history of the Russian Revolution.
Aaron B. Retish, Professor of Russian History, Wayne State University, USA

About the Author

Alistair S. Wright is an independent scholar and alumnus of the University of Glasgow, UK, where he received a PhD. He has published articles in the journals Revolutionary Russia and Europe-Asia Studies and was a contributing author to the book Russia's Home Front in War and Revolution, 1914-22. Reintegration - The Struggle for the State (2018).