Former People

BBC Reading - 5 X 15 mins

Former People is a euphemism first coined in the French Revolution for their aristocracy. The same expression was adopted after the Russian Revolution for anybody regarded as a class enemy, ranging from a handful of extremely wealthy aristocrats, through nobility with titles but no wealth and down to anybody regarded as bourgeois - seemingly, anybody who wore a tie to work. These people were made to suffer and kept on subsistence rations. In the 1930s, they suffered a further round of persecution under Stalin.

A fascinating account of this period of history, including vignettes such as the story of the Countess and her guests who were forced to flee from a dinner party by the arrival of revolutionaries, only to watch the revolutionaries sitting down at the same dinner table to continue the recently abandoned meal and served by her own staff.