Hello, Tomislav-- Thank you for presenting your excellent idea for a map game based on the Russian Civil War.
It happens that I watched the ADMIRAL movie several months ago and also enjoyed it greatly.
By way of introduction, I am a native-born American of Ukrainian ancestry who grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, an industrial city that at the time was populated largely by recent immigrants from Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic Countries, and Eastern Europe.
All my life I have pondered how world history might have been different had the White Armies defeated the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War.
Some decades later, I have concluded that neither side deserved to win, and that the war's outcome was determined to a large degree by chance and factors extraneous to either side's true merits.
In order to achieve victory over the Red Army, I believe the White Armies would have had to deserve that victory by undertaking true political reform, showing good behavior toward the Russian people under their influence, and offering a political program that carried a realistic promise of progressive change.
Alas, Admiral Kolchak was too flawed a leader to rise to the level required of him and his inner circle were little better. By the time General Denikin launched his offensive in the summer of 1919, Kolchak's Siberian Armies were already a spent force and the Whites had lost Western military and financial support.
What could have induced Kolchak to behave differently and deserve to win the war?
I believe the solution can be found in the masterly new novel, MAID OF BAIKAL, by Preston Fleming, recently published on Amazon.com.
It is an alternative historical novel in which the Siberian Armies recover from the failure of their Spring Offensive in Aprii/May of 1919. They then link up with the Southern White Armies on the Volga and together take Moscow by the end of 1919.
In the new novel, this alternative outcome to the Russian Civil War is achieved through the military, political and spiritual influence of a modern-day Siberian Joan of Arc.
The novel closely follows the life story of the historical Joan of Arc during 1429, the final the year of her life, at the peak of the Hundred Years War between France and England. But the story goes on to superimpose the real Joan's fateful actions upon a fictitious Russian Joan, a young woman from the Lake Baikal region, and portrays in vivid detail the harsh conditions that prevailed in 1919 Russia.
The independent American publication KIRKUS REVIEWS has called MAID OF BAIKAL “A Russian war story that lives and breathes from a writer at the peak of his powers.”
I am aware of no other novel that gives serious consideration to how the White Armies might have won the Russian Civil War.
If you intend to pursue your promising idea of a Russian Civil War game, I recommend MAID OF BAIKAL to you. It includes three custom maps and photographs of characters in the novel who were actual historical personages.
If you or any of the others posting on this thread decide to read the book, I would be very interested in reading your comments.
With best regards, EmilShepard.
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