The October Revolution of 1917, which saw the fall of the tsar and the installation of a provisional government in Russia, was a momentous event in modern history. The establishment of a Bolshevik regime under charismatic leader Vladimir Lenin shook a world already destabilized by years of world war. However, the Russian Revolution was far from the end of the story of the establishment of Communism in Russia.

Within months, the Red Bolsheviks were under attack by the reactionary Whites, who were opposed to the new government. The civil war between these two groups raged for more than two years, leaving many millions of people dead and many millions more homeless or displaced. Still, this was much more than a war between Russian factions. Troops from more than 20 other countries, including the United States, Great Britain, France, Japan, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire, were all directly involved in this destructive civil war.

The ultimate victory of the Reds paved the way for the spread of Communism around the world and ultimately to the Cold War of the late 1940s that saw an armed stand-off between East and West that was to last for more than 40 years. Although it is much less well-known than the revolution that preceded it, the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922 did far more to shape the modern world.

It was also a war where new forms of warfare were used alongside much older weapons; during this war, there were massed cavalry charges as well as the widespread use of tanks, machine guns, and aircraft. This was not a repeat of the static trench warfare of World War I, but a war of movement and change. This, too, paved the way for changes in military outlook that would see their culmination in World War II.

While the Russian Revolution changed the regime in Russia and shook many European nations, the Russian Civil War helped to spread the ideology that made Communism a global movement. This is the story of that bloody, brutal, and relatively little-known conflict