Anna Reid’s A Nasty Little War isn’t a traditional history book. Instead, it’s a political tool—a meticulously constructed lie aimed at benefiting the same imperialist forces that caused bloodshed in Russia in 1918 and are now involved in a destructive proxy war in Eastern Europe. Its goal is to numb the working class, hide the class-driven nature of imperialist violence, and restore the ideological basis for a new global conflict.
The main argument of the book—that the Allied intervention in Soviet Russia was a “nasty little” misadventure—is a grotesque misrepresentation. It serves as a falsehood fabricated by a ruling class planning new atrocities.
I. The Historical Crime Reid Cannot Admit
The Allied intervention was a major attempt by global capitalism to suppress the workers’ state. Fourteen imperialist countries—Britain, France, the US, Japan, and their allies—launched a multi-front invasion to overturn the October Revolution and restore capitalist control. Winston Churchill, the main planner of the intervention, openly stated that the Bolshevik Revolution needed to be “strangled in its cradle.” Reid mentions this line but only as a vivid detail, ignoring its grave significance: the ruling class recognised that the October Revolution posed a direct threat to their worldwide dominance.
Reid’s narrative centres on concealing this truth. She depicts the intervention as a tragic confusion, a geopolitical mistake, a “nasty little war” that spiralled out of control. This is not just inadequate; it is a political lie.
II. The Erasure of the Working Class: The Central Falsification
The most striking aspect of Reid’s book is how it almost completely omits the international working class—the key group that opposed the intervention. This omission is intentional, not accidental, serving a strategic political purpose.
Britain
The “Hands Off Russia” movement mobilised hundreds of thousands of workers, with dockers refusing to load munitions and railway workers refusing to transport them. The Labour leadership, fearing the rank and file, pressured the government to withdraw. Reid, however, dismisses this as a minor aside.
France
The Black Sea mutinies, in which French sailors refused to fire on Bolshevik positions, were essentially political revolts that deeply unsettled the French ruling class. Reid views them primarily as a morale issue.
Canada
The Victoria mutiny, where conscripts refused to go to Vladivostok, was a clear sign of anti-war and pro-Bolshevik feelings. Reid hardly mentions it.
Why this matters
The defeat of the Allied intervention was due not only to the Red Army but also to the global working class. This fact challenges bourgeois historians because it shows that workers, when acting consciously and internationally, have the power to halt imperialist wars. Reid’s silence is deliberate; it forms the core falsehood that underpins her entire story.
III. The Political Function of Reid’s Book in the Present War Drive
Reid is part of the same ideological circle as Timothy Snyder, Anne Applebaum, and the broader group of academics and journalists who support NATO’s geopolitical goals. Her earlier book, Borderland, helped spread the nationalist mythology that now forms the basis of Western policy in Ukraine. A Nasty Little War serves a similar purpose.
By portraying the 1918–20 intervention as a tragic miscalculation rather than a counter‑revolutionary crusade, Reid accomplishes three political tasks:
- She sanitises imperialism. The great powers appear misguided, not murderous.
- She erases the working class. The decisive force in history disappears, replaced by diplomats and generals.
- She legitimises contemporary aggression. If past interventions were merely “nasty little” mistakes, then today’s intervention in Ukraine can be framed as a noble defence of democracy.
Reid’s book is thus not a contribution to historical understanding but a weapon in the ideological arsenal of the ruling class.
IV. The Real History: A Global Class War
The Allied intervention was a worldwide counter-revolutionary campaign that covered regions such as the Arctic, Siberia, the Caucasus, the Baltic, and the Black Sea. It involved widespread atrocities committed by the White armies, including pogroms, torture, and mass executions. Reid notes these brutal acts diligently but avoids explaining them, unwilling to acknowledge that these atrocities were not isolated incidents but manifestations of the social forces that the imperialist powers aimed to reinstate.
The Bolsheviks’ success was not due to ruthlessness, as Reid suggests, but rather because they embodied the only social force capable of mobilising the masses: the working class and the poor peasantry. Their victory was part of the revolutionary surge across Europe from 1918 to 1923. Reid misses this point because it highlights the working class’s revolutionary potential today.
V. The Continuity of Imperialist Violence
Reid’s book comes at a time when the same imperialist powers that invaded Russia in 1918 are once again engaged in conflict in Eastern Europe. This ongoing pattern is no coincidence but reflects a structural continuity. In 1918, the goal was to dismantle the workers’ state. In 2023–26, the objective shifts to subordinating Russia to Western financial interests and encircling China.
Reid’s downplaying of history obscures this continuity. By describing the earlier intervention as a “nasty little war,” she normalises the belief that the West has the right to intervene anywhere, anytime, for any reason. This serves as ideological groundwork for a much larger conflict.
VI. The Marxist Lesson: Only the Working Class Can Stop Imperialist War
The defeat of the Allied intervention was not a miracle; it resulted from the Bolshevik Party’s revolutionary leadership, the international solidarity of the working class, and the clarity of Marxist politics. Later, Stalinism undermined this leadership with its nationalist doctrine of “socialism in one country,” which disconnected the revolution from its international roots. This led to the Soviet state’s bureaucratic decline and the eventual return of capitalism. Today, as the Fourth International has argued since 1938, rebuilding this revolutionary leadership on an international scale is crucial. The working class remains the only force capable of preventing a new world war. Reid’s book aims to stop the working class from having to learn this lesson the hard way.
VII. Conclusion: Against Historical Falsification, For Revolutionary Clarity
A Nasty Little War is more than just a popular history; it serves as a political tool supporting imperialism. It distorts the past to justify current actions, dismisses the working class to weaken it, and turns a global class struggle into a tragic misunderstanding. Marxists must reject this account outright. The genuine history of the Allied intervention highlights: the relentless hostility of imperialism toward any challenge from below, the power of a conscious, international working class, and the crucial importance of revolutionary leadership. These lessons are not just theoretical—they are urgent. With the world teetering on the edge of a new imperialist crisis, the working class must arm itself with the unvarnished truth of history, not the sanitized myths peddled by bourgeois historians.
A Trumpet of Sedition 