“Mad Mongols”, Uncivilised Russians

Abstract

This article examines US military reactions to violence during the Russian Civil War in the Far East (1918 - 1922). Paying close attention to US descriptions of anti-Bolshevik-perpetrated atrocities, it demonstrates that American military officers fell back on stereotypes of Russians and other ethnicities as having an “Asiatic” propensity for barbarism. This reasoning caused some American observers to misunderstand the dynamics of violence in the Far Eastern theatre. By relying on these accounts to describe the violence of the Russian Civil War, historians of the US intervention have at times perpetuated myths and misunderstandings, rather than exploring the relationship between perceptions and violence. This article thus shows how a critical examination of primary sources that also analyses various forms of violence can improve our understanding of the Russian Civil War in the Far East.