The early years of Bolshevik rule were marked by dynamic interaction between
Russia and the West. These years of civil war in Russia were years when the West
strove to understand the new communist regime while also seeking to undermine
it. Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks tried to spread their revolution across Europe at
the same time they were seeking trade agreements that might revive their
collapsing economy. This book tells the story of these complex interactions in
detail, revealing that revolutionary Russia was shaped not only by Lenin and
Trotsky, but by an extraordinary miscellany of people: spies and commissars,
certainly, but also diplomats, reporters, and dissidents, as