Summary of Richard Overy's Russia's War

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The Russian Civil War was a crucial period in the history of the Soviet Union, as it was here that the Red Army was formed, led by Communist commanders. The war was also central to the attitude towards war held by Soviet leaders and future commanders of the Red Army. #2 The civil war played a major role in defining the character of the new Communist state. It defined the enemies that the new society faced and continued to face in Communist demonology: the club of imperialist capitalist powers, which sent troops and supplies to help the counter-revolutionary forces, and the reactionary bourgeois agents who were the mortal class enemies of the worker-peasant alliance. #3 The civil war was a clash of ideologies and social forces, and it placed Soviet Communism on a war footing. The new party became an agent of mobilization, in the towns and villages, where food was seized with a savage disregard for peasant survival. #4 The cult of struggle was not limited to the Soviet Union. It was central to the world-view of Adolf Hitler, who became during the war the greatest of the many enemies that Soviet Communism faced.