The Fatal Years: Fresh Revelations on a Chapter of Underground History by B. V. Boris Vladimirovich Nikitine

The Fatal Years: Fresh Revelations on a Chapter of Underground History by B. V. [Boris Vladimirovich] Nikitine lands on the shelves of my shop, where it will be found in my History Russia section.

London, Edinburgh & Glasgow: William Hodge & Company, 1938, Hardback.

From the cover: This book is the translation of a work published in the Russian language in Paris a few months ago.

It is of historical importance, as it gives a first-hand account of the events in Petrograd from March to July, 1917. It is, too, a human document, reproducing as it does, the hopes and fears of the patriotic author, one of the handful of real Russian officers who tried to stem the rot that had set in in Petrograd after the March Revolution and was inevitably leading to the catastrophe of the Bolshevik usurpation of power in November, 1917.

The March Revolution was merely a mutiny of the 300,000 reserve troops crowded in the capital. These men forced the Government to promise not to send them to the front, but to retain them in Petrograd to safeguard the revolution as they called it, i. e. as the author remarks, to save their own skins.

Colonel Nikitine arrived from the front in the capital in March on short leave, and was compelled, much against his will, to remain there to organise a counterespionage office. He tells of his difficulties in dealing with politicians impossible to trust and of his success in obtaining convincing proof of the connection of the Bolshevik leaders with German agents from whom they drew enormous sums of money. He describes how the disclosure of these traitorous activities by bringing back the soldiery temporarily to some glimmering of their duty turned the scale in favour of the Provisional Government in the July rising. He tells how Kerensky then lost his last chance in refusing to sanction the arrest of the Communist leaders and in substituting for the order of the disarmament of the population a ludicrous appeal to the non-existent patriotism of the people to return the rifles required at the front.

Introduction by: Sir Alfred Knox

Poor. Heavily bruised at the head, tail and corners of the boards with heavy tanning to the spine. Edges of the text block lightly spotted. Text complete, clean and tight but a little age-tanned.

Blue boards with Black titling to the Spine. [XIII] 312 pages. 8¾” x 5½”.