Fighting the Bolsheviks : The Russian War Memoir of Private First Class Donald E. Carey, U.S. Army, 1918-1919

by Neil G. Carey

Release Date: 12 August, 1997

Edition: Hardcover

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Memoir of a little known event should have been so much more

Tales of World War I are often the most overlooked in military history. Everyone knows the war happened; many know the parties involved; few even know the causes of that war. Yet, it typically serves as a footnote to its much bloodier, more devastating, and clearer cut offspring of two decades later. Those who know some of World War I do know that November 11th, 1918 served as the day of the armistice between the Allied and Central Powers, ostensibly declaring the end of the physical portion of the war and the beginning of the treaty negotiations. What few people know is that fighting involving the Allies continued almost a full year after Armistice Day, but it didn't involve any of the defeated Central powers. With Russia having had to withdraw from the Great War in 1917 because of the Bolshevik rebellion, many western nations looked to that country with fear of the new 'red menace' that was being propagated by the Bolsheviks and Communists. As a result, during the dying days of World War I, the Allies sent what amounted to a police force to such northern Russian provinces as Siberia to contain the Bolshevik threat. Some skirmishes were fought, men died, but in the end, nothing much changed. The Bolsheviks still controlled all of Russia and sat as an impending threat to the west and the Allies who were involved in this action were disillusioned by the weather and the need to continue fighting well after their compatriots on the Western Front had returned home.

Very little has been written about this specific military action. However, one of the privates in the U.S. Army who served in Bolshevik campaign did keep an extensive memoir from beginning of basic training until being relieved from duty at the end of this action. "Fighting the Bolsheviks" is Private Donald E. Carey's remembrance of that difficult time. One of Carey's sons edited his father's journal and filled in the missing elements that would enable the reader to better understand what was happening there. Unfortunately, "Fighting the Bolsheviks" isn't a very good book. It's possible that this is because Donald Carey only intended his journal to be a personal or family record, but there's no getting around the boring, dry nature of the narrative and the events that take place. Carey does convey the monotony and misery of the environment he served in, as well as the tremendous displeasure he and his fellow American soldiers felt at being enduring the patronizing attitudes of their British superiors. The problem stems from Carey's preoccupation with needing to make constant reference to and commentary on things like the camp VD inspections, immoral actions (read: sex) by fellow soldiers, and his strong dislike for his British superiors. While the dislike of the British faction can be understood, Carey's obsession with the carnal behaviors of his fellow soldiers seems self-righteous and distracting. The first time it's mentioned and Carey expresses his revulsion for those behaviors because of his devout faith, we get it. We don't need to keep 'getting it' throughout the rest of the book. It almost seems as though the battles fought are merely glossed over so that Carey can launch into another moral commentary about his colleagues. This is tremendously disappointing and renders what should an insightful look into a largely unknown event into a ponderous and tasking read. "Fighting the Bolsheviks" could have been so much more. It's too bad that it's not.

Where the streets are mud

PFC Donald Carey was drafted into the U.S. Army in the waning days of WW I. Instead of the fields of France, He and the 339th Infantry Regiment were sent to the icy plains of Northern Russia, to fight Lenin's Bolsheviks, in a place as unfamiliar to a Michigan schoolteacher as hardtack is to troopers today.
This excellent account of America's forgotten true "Cold War" with the Soviets is bound to captivate and surprise, as this conflict is generally forgotten or relegated to a few lines in foreign policy texts. (See George F. Kennan's excellent "Soviet-American Relations, 1917-1920, Volume II: The Decision To Intervene" for a fascinating diplomatic and military discussion of the American North Russian Expeditionary Force).
Carey's journal is lucid and revealing of a small town man placed into a larger and unfamiliar world that he deals with extremely well. The parochialisms of 1900's America do show, as he refers to some of his fellow soldiers as "wops", but he never denigrates them further, and learns from them. His penchant for temperance leads him to remark on the passage of Prohibition as good for America, as he also is celibate while overseas, unlike many of his fellow soldiers, who succumb to various venereal diseases.
All in all, a very good book on an obscure but still important chapter of American history.