"The Opportunity of a Thousand Years": Chinese Merchant Organisations in the Russian Civil War

Abstract

Historians have recently begun to engage more systematically with the regional and inter-cultural dimensions of the Russian Revolution and Civil War. Attention was first focused on Russia’s provinces, where revolutionary processes adapted to local economies, institutions and structures of power. The Revolution’s impact on various ethnic and religious groups, such as Ukrainians, Jews and Muslims, has also been studied. The Russian empire’s size, the diversity of its periphery and its complex relationships with both European and Asian neighbours made non-Russian and cross-border interests impossible to ignore. [...]