Overtaken by the Night: One Russian's Journey Through Peace, War, Revolution, and Terror

The principal actors in the Russian revolution and the end of the monarchy are well studied. However, high-ranking functionaries such as Vladimir Dzhunkovsky (1865–1938), eventually promoted to head of the tzar's gendarmes, often receive little notice. Robbins (emeritus, history, Univ. of New Mexico; Famine in Russia: 1891–1892) extensively uses Dzhunkovsky's recently published memoirs to reconstruct the turbulent revolutionary era from the point of view of a nonprincipal actor; one devoted to the tzar but navigating the era while transitioning from statesman to noncitizen (lishentsy) status under Bolshevism. Robbins explains Dzhunkovsky's possible involvement with the counterintelligence effort Operation Trust in the 1920s, which identified anti-Bolsheviks. Though there is a lack of documentary evidence, that Dzhunkovsky, serving a five-year sentence, lived until the Great Purge of the 1930s gives rise to speculation by historians that he consulted with the secret police apparatus to root out counterrevolutionary groups. Later chapters illuminate the end of Russia's fight in World War II and offer more insights into the revolutionary struggle.