Russia's civil war - Geoffrey Swain

Great land battles in the frozen east of Europe such as Kazan and Kakhovka proved very different from those fought in the west (something the Nazis would also learn to their cost twenty years later). However, the Allied armies together with the forces of Cossack warlords penetrated deep into Russia from Vladivostok towards Moscow conquoring an area the size of Britain before being retreating in the face of a decisive counter-offensive. Likewise the Red Army did not fight alone. Its victory was achieved in alliance with peasant partisans. Unwilling to share his victory, Lenin began a struggle for the soul of the Russian peasantry; this bloody stalemate was only ended by Stalin a decade later through a terror in which millions Russians perished.