The Empire Must Die: Russia's Revolutionary Collapse, 1900-1917

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I am not a historian, but a journalist. As such, this book was written according to the rules of journalism: as if the characters were alive and I had been able to interview them—rather like my previous book, All the Kremlin’s Men.

Fortunately, most of my protagonists told their own stories, having left behind detailed diaries, letters, memoirs, and public statements. In order to recreate the picture of early twentieth-century Russia, I tried to read as many of the available sources as I could. There is no doubt that although many people lied (especially in their memoirs), most did so sincerely, convinced that they were telling the truth.

My primary objective was to view the world through contemporary eyes. I did not have a ready-made answer to the question of why the Russian revolution happened. I did not have a theory that I wanted to prove to the reader; that would have required some fact-filtering. On the contrary, it took me a great deal of work to clear the picture of prejudices and stereotypes, and to peel away the layers of sediment deposited by dozens of professional historians. Many had their own preconceived concepts and off-the-shelf answers. Many looked upon Russia’s revolution as a single, irreversible process.

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