Doomsday 1917: The Destruction of Russia's Ruling Class by Douglas Brown (PT225)

Published 1976: Hardcover / Very Good Condition / Illustrated throughout

Original black cloth with silver titles on the spine and original pictorial dust jacket. 204 very clean and bright pages, mild speckled top edge. Slight shelf wear on the dust jacket and slightly rubbed with time consistent with age.(PT225)

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After the Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 most of Russia’s ruling class either went into exile, were killed or dispossessed. The author uses contemporary letters and diaries to illustrate the impact of the Revolution on that class of people.

Reviews:
Douglas Brown presented (1975) a concise, but fairly detailed and well-documented account of the sequence of events that led to the overthrow of the Czarist government in 1917 and the utter destruction of the ruling classes that had governed Russia for centuries. With the insight of a correspondent, Brown brings personal accounts of those insiders and foreign embassy personnel who witnessed the collapse and brings many interesting details to light. Wealthy aristocrats who were living in opulence and with unquestioned authority in lavish mansions during 1916-17, suddenly faced with Bolshevik rule in 1917-18 found their homes and possessions confiscated and often faced arrest, exile or execution as the Red forces solidified their hold on the State. Unlike French aristocrats who fled the Revolution of 1789 by crossing borders, many Russian nobility and rich were unable to flee due to the World War and its dangerous battle lines and blockades. --- The social order did not just collapse, but was suddenly turned upside down. The feared secret police (Okhrana) that sought out traitors and agitators at the behest of the ruling classes under the Czar, suddenly found that the soldiers and Cossacks who supported their efforts to crush dissent had murdered their officers and joined the mob. The Tsarist secret police was suddenly and quickly destroyed in February 1917 by the troops and mob. Many of the aristocrats and wealthy who were not affiliated with the old regime were able to linger in their old lives until the Bolshevik revolution in October-November 1917 destroyed the liberal-socialist revolutionary government and created its own secret police forces and military establishment. Their declared purpose was the elimination of personal wealth (capitalist and aristocratic) on behalf of the masses. --- This book is an object lesson on the limitation of the power of personal wealth in the political scene. You can't buy influence or bribe politicians if those in control of the armed forces and police have ability and willingness to simply seize whatever you own and take your life in the bargain. Driving the suffering masses of Petrograd into desperation set off a chair reaction of events that is ably chronicled in this concise and ably written little book. Google Books.