RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR II

“Lenin on the Wire”

The Russian Civil War was a titanic struggle between the “Reds” under Lenin and a host of opponents ranging from the Czarist officer dominated “Whites”, a variety of independence movements such as the Cossacks, Finns and Ukrainians called “Greens” and foreign interventionist forces such as the British, Germans, French and Japanese.

The war came out of Russia’s defeat during the Great war and was fomented by the world revolutionary ideology of communism. The Red Bolshevik’s rapid attainment of power in November 1917 was almost at once threatened by these other colours and the bloody fighting soon stretched across all of Czarist Russia.

The game will again portray the stirring events of the creation, or possible demise of the first modern Socialist state. The Russian Civil War was thus a key event in world history and largely shaped the twentieth century. The break-up of the USSR has again focused attention on the foundations of the Soviet system and how it came about and whether it had to lead to Stalinism. These issues and more will be covered in this game which will cover the years 1917-20.

The “Reds” too were not a unified group, but were heavily split by ideological divisions ranging from the extreme of the “Blacks”, the anarchists, through the rural Social Revolutionaries to the Bolsheviks themselves and on to the more moderate Mensheviks.

The theatre of war was massive, occupying 1/6th of the worlds land surface, but due to war weariness and poor organisation of both sides, minute forces could decide the fate of regions as large as European states.

It is thus classic Megagame material where organisation, preparation and the ability to delegate will probably bring success, but that as befits a civil war this was very much a war of each again all.