KEY POINTS:
Among the precepts of Marxism that have taken a bit of a bashing is the idea of historical inevitability and this excellent little book illustrates why.
In February 1920 Lenin took the decision to send a Russian army into Poland. It was intended as a pre-emptive strike, as he feared Polish ambitions, but had the dual purpose of mobilising support for the Bolsheviks whose grip on power was still shaky after the October Revolution of 1917.
The invasion was sold to the soldiers as part of the triumph of the revolution. An order was issued to the troops proclaiming: "In the West the fate of World Revolution is being decided ... on our bayonets we will bring happiness and peace to the toiling masses of mankind."
The Soviet general Tukhachevsky thought victory was a foregone conclusion. "Like Lenin he made light of what the Bolsheviks called 'stupid patriotism' and thought Poland was defeated."
Unfortunately for them the Poles hadn't read the script. Poland had only just been reborn as a nation, having been out of existence for more than 100 years since being carved up by its neighbours, including Russia, in the third partition of Poland of 1795.
The flame of nationalism had never died and the Poles, determined to hold on to their statehood, were led by the messianic figure of Jozef Pilsudski.
Inspired by patriotism and religion they resisted the Soviet invasion and by October had absorbed the attacks and were driving back the invaders at such a rate that the Russians had to accept a ceasefire and a subsequent peace agreement.
In another of the tantalising "what ifs" of history, a Soviet victory might have spread Bolshevism into Western Europe, changing the shape of 20th century politics. Instead the Russians withdrew into the isolation in which Stalin seized power and imposed a reign of oppression on his people.
The events of 1920 also coloured Soviet attitudes to what, after World War II, would become its subject regimes. Zamoyski's big best-sellers, like his account of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow and the proceedings of the Congress of Vienna, have been on an epic scale.
Here he tells an almost unknown miniature in similarly captivating style. Inevitably, there is a concentration on the manoeuvres of the campaign but the characters give the book an appeal for more than just the armchair strategist. The rough-hewn, flamboyantly moustached Pilsudski, with "all the apparatus of sombre genius", was matched on the Soviet side by the likes of Semion Budionny, a semi-literate, swashbuckling cavalry leader, also given to spectacular moustaches and theatrical costume.
Several of the Soviet military leaders, who took part in this ill-fated campaign, went on to high rank in World War II while others fell victim to Stalin who began to develop his sinister political skills. The fighting itself was from another age.
In one extraordinary clash of cavalry units commanders of each side rode out like medieval champions and engaged in a personal duel until "a trooper galloped out of the Polish ranks and cut down the Russian with a slash of his sabre".
Zamoyski puts this almost-surreal struggle in its context to provide an absorbing read that hooked me to complete it in one sitting. I am now turning to his useful further reading list.
* John Gardner is an Auckland reviewer.
Warsaw: Lenin'S Failed Conquest Of Europe
By Adam Zamoyski
(Harper $29.99)
