Comrades - Brian Moynahan

This account of the cataclysmic events in Russia in 1917 begins with the murder of Rasputin by an Oxford-educated transvestite, and the collapse of Old Russia. It ends with the creation of the secret police and the slide to dictatorship on 7th December.;Nobody in Russia, contends the author - least of all the Bolsheviks - expected the country to become the world's first communist state; it was the random forces of personality, luck and mischance that created 1917. The narrative chronicles the February revolution that began with an obscure labour dispute; the Tsar's abdication in February; the Kerensky government's descent into chaos during the summer turmoil; Lenin's flight to Finland; the October coup by the Bolsheviks; and the Red Terror which followed.;The story is told partly in the words of the personalities involved, including Rasputin, Nicholas and Alexandra, Kerensky, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Gorky, Chaliapin and John Reed.;Brian Moynahan also wrote "The Claws of the Bear", "The Tourist Trap" and "Airport International".