The Great Game, Russo-Japanese war and Russian Revolution

Meanwhile in Central Asia: Peter Hopkirk: The Great Game. The Russian and British empires struggle for power. Diplomacy, trade blocks and straighforward warfare. Someone should write a computer game about the era.

The Crimean war of 1853-1856 and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 were naturally related to the struggle. Both of them are somewhat known in Finland. The Baltic theatre was a minor site of the Crimean war and the British navy half-heartedly tried to capture the Aland islands (immortalized by a folk song "Oolannin sota"), at that era the outpost of the Russian Empire in the west. Since Finland was still a Russian province (an autonomous grand duchy) during the Russo-Turkish war, a Finnish regiment fought in Pleven (Bulgaria). Pleven, known as Plevna in Finland, became a surprisingly popular name to designate the era or to honour the regiment. There are still buildings called Plevna, maybe the most famous of them is now a popular restaurant in Tampere.

I truly do not know much about history, but the Russo-Japanese war (1905), the 1st world war and the Russian revolution (1917) set the stage for later development of the Great Game. Mr. Mannerheim writes about the events in his memoirs, available in English, and naturally in Finnish and Swedish. They can be inaccurate but really read like best spy novels.

John Reed's account of the Russian revolution (Ten Days that Shook the World) is famous, of course. The Penguin edition's preface by A.J.P Taylor is almost as interesting as the book itself.

So, what happened in the revolution? Chaos, lack of information, conflicting political programmes etc. However, as we know, the bolshevists managed to gain control and keep it. The Congress of Soviets had some great declarations including a land reform (turned later violent collectivisation) and a "democratic peace" to end the First World War. It is most interesting to note that at meeting where these declarations were made, the participants believed that everything is going to change in world politics - even secrecy and diplomatic deals were to be replaced by openness since the worker's democracy did not need secret deals.
I wonder if the Bolshevist leaders knew all along that these were just ideals to appeal the masses or if they really believed in them. Anyway, the reality shortly after was quite different from the ideals..

.. as the main characters in Thomas Keneally's Peoples Train (2009) find out, too. This semi-fictional book has a slow start, but once the main characters get to Russia, things really start happening. In fact Keneally's account is a bit different from the preface to Reed's book. In Keneally's story, the bolshevists are quite cunning and manage their politics and finances (even by bank robberies) well.