The book of the gendarme general A.I. Spiridovich (1873-1952) presents the history of the Bolshevik party, devoid of the mythologization and embellishment characteristic of Soviet historiography. In 1906-16 the author headed the personal guard of Nicholas II, collecting at the same time materials about the revolutionary movement in Russia. The work was written on the basis of genuine documents of the RSDLP and data from the Police Department. Some of the materials were first published by the author in 1914 to familiarize officers of the gendarme corps with the history of Russian Social Democracy. The book reflects the unpleasant facts of the tough internal party struggle and the methods of suppressing dissent used by Lenin at the dawn of the construction of the party apparatus and later laid the foundation for totalitarian governance of the country. The readers are presented with portraits of Lenin and his associates: Parvus, Ganetsky, Krasin, Martov, Kamenev, Zinoviev and others, many of whom, after the October coup, formed the backbone of the first Soviet government. Of particular interest are the chapters detailing the dramatic events of 1917.