Russia cover art

Russia

Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Russia

By: Antony Beevor
Narrated by: Rob Heaps
Try Premium Plus free

Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $33.99

Buy Now for $33.99

About this listen

Between 1917 and 1921 a devastating struggle took place in Russia following the collapse of the Tsarist empire. Many regard this savage civil war as the most influential event of the modern era. An incompatible White alliance of moderate socialists and reactionary monarchists stood little chance against Trotsky's Red Army and Lenin's single-minded Communist dictatorship. Terror begat terror, which in turn led to even greater cruelty with man's inhumanity to man, woman and child. The struggle became a world war by proxy as Churchill deployed weaponry and troops from the British empire, while armed forces from the United States, France, Italy, Japan, Poland and Czechoslovakia played rival parts.

Using the most up to date scholarship and archival research, Antony Beevor, author of the acclaimed international bestseller Stalingrad, assembles the complete picture in a gripping narrative that conveys the conflict through the eyes of everyone from the worker on the streets of Petrograd to the cavalry officer on the battlefield and the woman doctor in an improvised hospital.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Antony Beevor (P)2022 Weidenfeld & Nicolson Military Russia War Imperialism Stalin Winston Churchill Civil War Red Army British Empire

Critic Reviews

"The book is a masterpiece." (The Spectator)

"A gripping narrative history of one of the most complex episodes in modern Russian history." (Sunday Times)

"Antony Beevor's Russia is a masterpiece of history." (Daily Telegraph)
All stars
Most relevant  
Amazingly detailed research. Structuren and delivered in a highly digestible format. Brilliantly narrated in a crisp clear voice

wow!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
As always Beevor delivers with a stark reminder of Russian history. Well read and a must read

Brutal Reminder

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Beevor meticulously chronicles the vast panoply of the hugely destructive war(s) between Russians and dozens of smaller nations, nationalities and ethnicities. Although more of a political than military history it would have nonetheless benefited from greater detail of the major decisive battles, particularly in the latter half of the civil war. Some statistics to flesh out the scale of losses would have helped more than relentless descriptions of barbarity that became almost repetitive by the final chapters. But these are minor quibbles when viewing the enormous scope of the truly awful conflict that Beevor describes. The huge array of characters on all sides (there were often more than just Whites and Reds!) is brought together and narrated, often by their own writing in a compelling way not previously seen in histories of this now remote but crucially important period of modern history.

A Chronicle of Barbarity

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The research alone on this book is fantastic. I didn't know much at all about this chapter of history and I'm glad I listened to this book where I now feel I have a strong overview.

Brutal civil war

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The audible cordon suffers from a lack of maps and ability to see the many names of the vast array of characters written down so can become confusing and hard to recall as the book progresses

But in all other respects this is a tremendous history of a less well known period Post the Russian revolution of 1917 of the reds and whites

Get me a map !

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Difficult and immensely topic but Beevor nailed it. Requires a lot of focus and occasional rewinding to understand given the broad array of combatants. well worth it!

Russian Revolution Antony Beevor

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This gives us a greater understanding of why the troubles of Easter Europe are still here today
H

Great read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A deep level of research presents a detailed coverage of the conflict. It explores a chronological walk through of all the events if that's what you are looking for, but the personal stories and deep dives into major issues is not really here.

Thoroughly detailed account of events

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Antony Beevor is a brilliant historian and has once again painted this complex and confusing period with vivid broad strokes. Many historians wear the reader down with military minutiae. However, his writing gallops along breathlessly with the speed of a Cossack charge.
Rob Heaps' voice and tone are easy to listen to, and he managed the difficult task of accurately pronouncing Russian names with aplomb.
For those who are not familiar with Marxist or any revolution, this will be a bloody saga. While many revolutions begin with the legitimate goals and diverse parties, all these voices will in the end be silenced by the most venal and vicious. This latter group may be called the Jacobins or the Bolsheviks, but the resulting blood baths that follow are predictably familiar. In Russia's case, it seems that all the abuse and oppression of centuries culminated in this horrific boil-over, leaving a pack of paranoid and vicious Bolsheviks to methodically devour each other until Stalin reigned supreme. Sadly, this methodology still determines Russia's leaders.
After 1918, the German Weimar Republic was to sign an agreement of cooperation with the USSR to secretly train their military and airforce in Russia. This would give Germany's new masters basic training in the methodologies of brutality, control, and mass murder. Most of today's so-called Marxist anti-Nazis are completely ignorant of these facts, which are "left-right out" in their meaningless left-right debates. Barely a coat of paint separates them. A bit like Whies and Reds.

The Descent into Hell

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This book - like everything written by Antony Beevor - is stunning in its command of both “big picture” and detail. The unrelenting horror of the narrative left me exhausted but with a much greater understanding of modern Russian history. The book is beautifully produced - and if the reader is authoritative - I now have a much better command of the pronunciation of Russian place names. Thank you for this extraordinary work.

An extraordinary book, compelling in its detail.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.