Russian Civil War Trivia Quiz

Answer: Vladimir Ilich Lenin

Lenin purchased the last Rolls Royce to be sold in Russia for over 70 years. As it was armour-plated, he felt at ease driving around Petrograd in it without risk of assassination.

Answer: One small, armed riverboat

Kolchak had only an army to command. After losses in the First World War and by desertion, almost nothing remained of the Russian Navy for Kolchak to command.

Answer: The Red Army massacred them too

After total defeat of the White Army, the Black Army lay exhausted with vast numbers of casualties. However, instead of the deal that had been agreed, Trotsky ordered the immediate assassination of its leader and for the Red Army to massacre their own allies. Although the leader of the Black Army survived, it is said that he escaped with only 17 other men.

Answer: The weight of armour gave them a top speed of 25 miles per hour

Some of the Mongolian commanders in Siberia had such contempt for the Bolshviks that they used dead Bolshvik corpses as fuel instead of wood or coal.

An old bronepoesd that was given to Kim Il Jong is still in use according to defence analysts.

Since one was to demolish a bronepoesd was to remove a rail in front of it, many were fitted with devices to allow them, even at speed, to remount the rails after being derailed.

Answer: Foreign diplomats found dealing with his mistress helped reign him in

General Semyonov's mistress was one Maria Semyonov, a beautiful gypsy girl from the Caucasus. She was hated by foreign diplomats as she quickly became the "power behind the throne", ensuring that Semyonov did what she thought best, not what Foreign powers wanted.

However, as she was, herself, Jewish, she absolutely insisted that Semyonov leave the Jews alone in Eastern Siberia which he controlled and brutally punished any of his men who contravened his orders on this matter.

Answer: She led the defence of Volgagrad in 1918

Some Bolshevik ideas were bizarre, not least the view that rape was no worse than just giving a woman a free cup of water and it was encouraged amongst much of the Red Army. Although short lived, the Bureau for Free Love was even more bizarre, and in some places, men were paired with women, whether they liked it or not and regardless of what the woman thought.

Answer: The average age of the US engineers was 63

In order to ensure that the railroads ran, they had primarily selected engineers from the Great Northern as this winds its way through the mountains and it was presumed that their engineers would have the experience, therefore, of working in a cold climate.

Working in the midst of a Siberia that had become little more than "bandit country", these 800 or so brave men, found by 1919 that they were pretty much the only ones left keeping the trains moving.

Their leader, Ben O Johnson was a particularly brave man. As the Bolshevik Army poured into the city, slaughtering anyone "Middle Class", he waited until the last second to board the very last train out of Oriel to safety.

Answer: On a train

As the diplomatic situation was so unstable, the US kept its mission and its Consul permanently on a train to allow for easy escape.

Answer: A confession, no matter how it is beaten out of the accused

Many would say that it was Karmic justice that Krylenko who had devised this system ultimately was tortured, tried and executed by Stalin using the system that he had himself created 20 years or so later.

Answer: He dressed up as a nurse to sneak out the country

Since embassies were being violated by the Bolsheviks, Kerensky, leader of the Provisional Government that Lenin had overthrown, seems to have concluded that sneaking out of Russia dressed as a nurse was his best option for survival. His disguise worked, and he later settled in the US.