Il grano e le armi. Rivoluzione, ‘controrivoluzione’ e guerra civile popolare nella Russia del Nord, 1917-1920

This article analyzes grass-root politics in the Russian Civil War, challenging the traditional assumption that the Bolsheviks with their program of radical revolutionary change enjoyed greater popularity than their White adversaries. On the example of the Northern region, it demonstrates that the local «counter-revolutionary» government commanded considerable sympathies of the provincial population. This popularity was based on the government's ability to supply the population of this non-agricultural province with imported grain, to provide military protection and arms for self-defense. Ultimately, the article strives to explain the outcome of the Civil War not by conflicting ideologies and policies, but by practical circumstances and local factors that on a grass-root level conditioned changing political loyalties.