White Siberia: The Politics of Civil War

Maria Hrycaiko Zaputovich lectures in Chinese, Russian, and Japanese
history at the universities of Guelph and Toronto.

N.G.O. Pereira has undertaken the daunting task of researching and
chronicling a time of great chaos in Siberia. During the period from
1917 to 1922, numerous parties and alliances were formed and broken.
Admiral A.V. Kolchak, leader of the Whites, showed the most promise of
defeating the fledgling (Red) Bolshevik Party under Lenin. However, the
Whites made the mistake of ignoring the peasantry and thinking that
military effort negated the need for social reform.

Unfortunately, Pereira ignores events in Ukraine that had an impact on
the final outcome in Siberia. No mention is made of the fact that Kyiv
(not “Kiev,” which is the Russian spelling) was already largely
occupied by West Ukrainian forces in August 1919. The Bolsheviks
retreated because of Denikin’s advance and the White offensive in
Siberia. The West Ukrainian forces, having no quarrel with Denikin,
pulled back voluntarily. Here Denikin made what was perhaps his greatest
tactical error in refusing to ally his forces with the Ukrainians,
choosing to

attack them instead. Had Denikin joined with the Ukrainians, the civil
war might have taken a different direction. As a result, Denikin was
defeated by the Bolsheviks in the fall of 1919. In April 1920, the East
Ukrainians, under Ataman Petliura, joined forces with Marshal
Pilsudski’s Polish forces, and together they took Kyiv. Pilsudski’s
forces did not take Kyiv alone, as the author states.