Russia cover art

Russia

Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Russia

By: Antony Beevor
Narrated by: Rob Heaps
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

 'A masterpiece of history'
DAILY TELEGRAPH

Between 1917 and 1921 a devastating struggle took place in Russia following the collapse of the Tsarist empire. Many regard this savage civil war as the most influential event of the modern era. An incompatible White alliance of moderate socialists and reactionary monarchists stood little chance against Trotsky's Red Army and Lenin's single-minded Communist dictatorship. Terror begat terror, which in turn led to even greater cruelty with man's inhumanity to man, woman and child. The struggle became a world war by proxy as Churchill deployed weaponry and troops from the British empire, while armed forces from the United States, France, Italy, Japan, Poland and Czechoslovakia played rival parts.

Using the most up to date scholarship and archival research, Antony Beevor, author of the acclaimed international bestseller Stalingrad, assembles the complete picture in a gripping narrative that conveys the conflict through the eyes of everyone from the worker on the streets of Petrograd to the cavalry officer on the battlefield and the woman doctor in an improvised hospital. Europe Military Russia War Imperialism Stalin Winston Churchill Civil War Red Army British Empire

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Russia at War, 1941–1945 cover art
Crimea cover art
To Besiege a City cover art
A Continent Erupts cover art
The Collapse of the Third Republic cover art
A Savage War of Peace cover art
Natasha's Dance cover art
Saipan cover art
The Thirty Years War cover art
Russia's War cover art
Gods and Generals cover art
The International Brigades cover art
Enemy at the Gates cover art
Russka cover art
The Splintered Empires cover art
Destination Casablanca cover art

Critic reviews

A magnificent piece of work - as superbly researched and original as Stalingrad, and compellingly told by a historian at the top of his powers. So much of the tragic story of Russia and the bloodlands of Eastern Europe over the past century make sense after reading Antony Beevor's epic and often shocking tale of revolution, civil war, oppression, starvation, brutality and shifting borders; if anyone needs to know why history matters, this book has the answers. Stunning.
Brilliant and utterly readable.
In Stalingrad, Berlin and The Second World War, Antony Beevor transformed military history by evoking the experiences of those who fought and suffered in some the greatest wars of the twentieth century. Now he has given us what may be his most brilliant book to date - a masterpiece of historical imagination, in which the tragedy and horror of this colossal struggle is recaptured, in its impact on everyday life as well as its military dimensions, as never before. This is a great book, whose depiction of savage inhumanity speaks powerfully to our present condition.
In this brilliant marshalling of a notoriously complex history, Antony Beevor opens up a magisterial canvas of terror and tragedy.
A completely riveting account of how the Russian Revolution, which started with such high hopes and idealism, degenerated into a tangle of civil conflicts marked by hideous cruelty on all sides. Antony Beevor brings his great gifts for narrative and his deep interest in the people who both make history and suffer it to illuminate that crucial period whose consequences we are still living with today.
Beevor, best known for his formidable book Stalingrad, commands authority as a historian because his research is comprehensive and his conclusions free of political agenda. He's a skilled writer, but his prose is not what makes his books special. Rather, it's the confidence that his authority conveys - one senses that he knows his subject as well as anyone. He allows his mountain of evidence to speak for itself, simply charting the course of this horrible war, exposing its boundless cruelty. This is easily the most horrifying war story I've ever read. One wonders how Russia could ever contain so much suffering. (Gerard DeGroot)
Antony Beevor's Russia is a masterpiece of history - and a harrowing lesson for today... This is a hugely complex story, and Beevor tells it supremely well. The book is groundbreaking in its use of original evidence from many archives; it adds new facts, tests old claims and demolishes myths on both sides. It is impressively objective.. (Noel Malcolm)
Beevor has provided an illuminating account of one of the darkest, and most misunderstood, periods of 20th-century history. It should be essential reading for anyone with an interest in the origins of Soviet Russia. (Jonathan Eaton)
All stars
Most relevant
An Excellent listen don’t forget to look at attached PDF I wish I had seen this first before I started listening to it all. Maps do help alot!
The saga is brutal sad and not a light read, it requires focus to keep up. But you are rewarded with a full understanding of a terrible chapter in Russian and Eastern European history. From which Nazi Germany basically learned a play book for committing atrocities across Russian and Eastern Europe. That part shocked me the most, in that it was all not the first time this had happened to these peoples.

Excellent Comprehensive Book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A fantastic work, brutally exposing the horrific violence triggered in 1917 that laid the foundations of decades of misery & suffering, the ramifications of which are still influencing the world today.

Stunning

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A very complex but detailed account of the Russian Revolution. When i think of all the brutal regimes through out history this one is by far the worst in my opinion. At times i found it very difficult to listen to.there were no good guys just genocide commited by all sides. But i enjoyed the audio and narration.👍😢

Russia

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
An excellent account of the horrors of the Russian Civil War, which Prince Charles would do well to read so he might talk somewhat more sensibly about historical events.

Prince Charles should read this book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This the first of Beevor’s books that I have listened to rather than read. All the author’s typical flair for combining strategic sweep with individual catastrophe and pathos is there. I confess that I knew relatively little of the many tragedies arising from the Russian revolution. Taken together with the enormities of the Third Reich, this book emphasises the fragility of authority, the rule of law, and public safety. The human tendency to vicious cruelty and greed is conveyed all too vividly.
The narrator’s performance was good, albeit a little plodding at times.
Overall, I would recommend this book highly.

Harrowing but essential

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews