"Former People" was the designation Bolsheviks gave Russian aristocrats and nobles. Class warfare was embraced and the Bolsheviks did everything they could to harass or eliminate them.

Many aristocrats fought for the White army during the civil war. When the red army won, anyone who fought for the whites was as good as dead; their relatives were also considered fair game.

Former people focuses on two of the great Russian aristocratic families, the Sheremetevs and the Golitsyns and their children and grandchildren. At the end of the civil war Count Sergei Dmitrievich Sheremetev and Prince Vladimir Mikhailovich Golitsyn were the heads of the two families. Sergie lay dying as the Cheka harassed him and his family.

The economy went to pot almost immediately after the state assumed ownership of all land and businesses. This forced Lenin to allow some local businesses to operate and things began to improve. He also allowed The American Relief Administration to enter the country. Young aristocrats idolized the Americans and took on a lot of their culture, including jazz and the dance craze, the fox trot. This infuriated some of the older Bolsheviks. When Lenin died Trotsky and Stalin fought over who would take his place, with Stalin ultimately prevailing. Believe it or not, the fox trot got a lot of people sent to prison or killed.

I've read a lot of Russian history through the years, but I didn't know Lenin was considered a noble; his father was superintendent of schools; civil servants were designated minor nobles. Lenin didn't try to hide it and mentioned it in some of his speeches. I also didn't know that the higher ups in the Bolshevik/Communist circle sometimes lived as though they were the new aristocrats. For instance when in the Crimea, Stalin lived in the former palace of Prince Felix Yusupov who killed Rasputin. Vyacheslav Molotov, chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, drove a sixteen-cylinder Cadillac along with several Packards and Fords. Their excuse was that they didn't own any of these properties; they were allowed to use them by the state.

Some of the aristocrats contributed to their own misery as several fought for the Reds during the Civil War. Many were repaid by being shot during the purge.

At times this book is as hard to read as a Russian novel, mainly because several of the Golitsyns and Sheremetevs and Trubetskoys have the same first name. Vladimir is a common name, and it's hard to tell which Vladimir author Douglas Smith is talking about.

Millions of people were killed and sent to the Gulags during the Great Terror, but perhaps the most disgusting event was when the Communists dug up graveyards and used the marble, building materials etc. to help build the new Moscow subway.

What can we learn from this book? Karl Marx certainly had a point when he criticized capitalism's depredations, but ideology under any form ultimately goes off the deep end, and the original intentions are debased.

Dave Schwinghammer's unconventional mystery, SOLDIER'S GAP, is available on Author's Den and Amazon.com, new and used.