Новая академическая история Гражданской войны в России
A New Academic History of the Russian Civil War

Summary/Abstract: The article reviews the 12th volume of the multi-volume academic “History of Russia” dedicated to the Civil War. It notes the large-scale and ambitious nature of the project, aimed at creating a full-scale picture of the country’s history in a complex and controversial period. The role of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Nauka publishing house, the History of the Fatherland Foundation, and PJSC Transneft in the project is emphasized. The structure of the volume, consisting of two books, the authors’ collective (including the participation of Belarusian and Ukrainian historians), the role of editors-in-chief V.I.Goldin and V.V.Kondrashin, and the logic of the presentation of the material are described. The problems of the Civil War in Russia are shown: causes, historiography, the transition from a “small” civil war to a large-scale one, the main stages of military operations, and the results. The article analyzes individual topics considered by the authors of 12th volume, in particular, state building, the role of the Bolshevik Party, the party-political spectrum of confrontation, the activities of punitive organs, the Red and White Terror, the participation of social groups, and intervention. Attention is drawn to the economic aspects of the war — the policy of war communism, the food requisitioning, the social policy of the Soviet government and its opponents, the functioning of industry and transport, and money circulation. The human dimension of the Civil War, human losses and the demographic situation, education and science, national processes and national movements are considered in detail. The work reflects the national-state building in Ukraine and Belarus. The authors’ balanced approach to interpreting the history of the Civil War, high-quality historiographic analysis, the use of archival materials, and competent architectonics are noted.

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