The British Intervention In Transcaspia

Intervention by British-Indian troops in Transcaspia in 1918, and the temporary occupation of the great oil city of Baku by a British force from N.W. Persia, were to give rise to a controversy that continues today. This little-known military venture, hardly more than a sideshow of the First World War, has assumed considerable importance because of its use in Soviet Cold War propaganda in an area vital to the defense of the Western World. Colonel Ellis, who took part in the operations in Transcaspia and was an eyewitness of many key events, is the first to give a detailed authoritative account of what really happened. In the Soviet view, Britain, with the connivance of American "capitalism", perpetrated a deliberate act of aggression, as part of a long-term plan to seize and colonise Russian Central Asia: but from the British standpoint it was simply part of a hastily improvised plan to block a Turko-German advance through the Caucasus to India and Afghanistan. Colonel Ellis shows how the two contrasting versions arose, and throws light on the strange episode of the twenty-six Bolshevik Commissars supposedly shot on British orders, and in the presence of British officers, in the desert to the east of Krasnovodsk in 1918.

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The Russian Revolution and Civil War in the years 1917 to 1921 is one of the most widely studied periods in history. It is also somewhat inevitably one that has generated a huge flow of literature in the decades that have passed since the events themselves. However, until now, historians of the revolution have had no dedicated bibliography of the period and little claim to bibliographical control over the literature. The Russian Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1921offers for the first time a comprehensive bibliographical guide to this crucial and fascinating period of history. The Bibliography focuses on the key years of 1917 to 1921, starting with the February Revolution of 1917 and concluding with the 10th Party Congress of March 1921, and covers all the key events of the intervening years. As such it identifies these crucial years as something more than simply the creation of a communist state.

Ronald Grigor Suny examines the Revolution in Baku, important provincial capital and oil center of the Russian empire. His study of Baku's national and class conflicts, Bolshevism as it developed in the city, and the failure of the Commune in 1918 amends our picture of the Revolution as the work of a highly conspiratorial party, seizing power by force and imposing its will on a reluctant population by terror. Originally published in 1972. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In an intriguing work based largely on new sources, Richard H. Ullman shows how the British government--the politicians, civil servants, military and naval officers--dealt with the problem of Russia during the critical period bewtween the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917 and Britain's de facto recognition of the Soviet government in March 1921. Volume 1 describes the tragic misunderstandings and desperate hopes of the British in the troubled year before the Armistice, which stands as a watershed in the history of Anglo-Soviet policy. As diplomacy failed, British forces found themselves fighting not only in North Russia but in the Caucasus and on the frontiers of India. The second volume, to be published later, will cover the story to 1921. Dr. Ullman's exciting portrayal of these evetns is a companion work to George Kennan's several-volume study of the same period, "Soviet-American Relations, 1917-1920." Originally published in 1961. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.