Civil War in Siberia: The Anti-Bolshevik Government of Admiral Kolchak, 1918-1920

Jonathan D. Smele. Civil War in Siberia: The Anti-Bolshevik Government of Admiral Kolchak, 1918-1920. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. xix, 759 pp. Maps. Bibliography. Index. $69.95, cloth.

As Mr. Smele notes in his introduction, the White movement in the Russian Civil War has received far less attention than fledgling Soviet Russia. The reasons are understandable: Soviet historians could not deal with the topic honestly and Western historians, at least in the past few decades, have been primarily interested in what they considered social history. Many of them aimed to show that the Bolshevik taking of power was a genuine revolution, expressing the interests and sentiments of the working classes, and for this task there was no need to investigate the character of the White movement. Now the situation is changing. In Russia there is enormous interest in the enemies of the Bolsheviks at the time of the Civil War, though up to this time historians have not yet been able to produce first rate works. In the West last year two important books appeared on the counterrevolution in Siberia, the most neglected major theatre of the conflict.

Although the two books, naturally, tell essentially the same story, they also complement one another. Norman Pereira in his much briefer book, White Siberia: The Politics of the Civil War [reviewed in Canadian Slavonic Papers, vol. 38, nos 1-2Eds.], makes a greater effort to put Kolchak's movement in a larger context. Smele, on the other hand, gives the most detailed history and analysis of the White struggle in Siberia. The author describes aspects of the White movement in Siberia, such as the financial policies of Kolchak's government, Kolchak's biography, the agrarian policies of the Whites, the fate of the Russian gold reserve, etc., which have never been told so well and so fully. It is difficult to imagine that there would be need in the near future for someone else to go through the same material. This is the definitive work on the Kolchak regime. The opening of the Russian archives did not add a great deal to our knowledge and it is unlikely that we would find documents in those archives that would compel us to revise our views substantially. As Mr. Smele honestly tells us, this book is largely based on materials available in the West.

What picture ultimately emerges from this long book? First of all, the reader will be aware of the enormous complexity of the struggle. Civil wars imply anarchy, and anarchy by its very nature is difficult to describe. The number of conflicting social and economic interests and political points of view in Siberia was staggering. Secondly, Smele gives us a clear picture of the weakness of the White movement and the causes of its defeat. Kolchak was the wrong man for the job: he was not cut out to be a dictator; he was not competent to command armies; and he was not a good judge of men. In spite of his admirable personal qualities such as patriotism and honesty, he bears a large portion of the blame for the failures. His administration, beset by petty jealousies and corruption failed to win over the peasantry to the White cause. A movement that staked everything on military victory, was in fact led by criminally incompetent generals. On the other hand, as Smele argues in his conclusion, it is too simple to blame defeat on the character of the "Dictator." He was dealt a bad hand, and it is far from clear that more able persons could have turned the fortunes of war around. The White movement in the perception of the peasantry was associated with the failed Tsarist regime, and it was difficult to motivate people to be enthusiastic for that cause.

Mr. Smele wrote a fine and important book. We can understand the Russian Revolution and the Civil War that followed only if we can form as clear a picture of the Whites as we already have of the revolutionaries. Peter Kenez, University of California at Santa Cruz