About the book: 2009 / William Fuller, a recognized expert on Russian military history, chose the notorious case of Colonel S.N. as the theme of his new book Myasoedov and General V. A. Sukhomlinov. Drawing on investigative materials not yet used by historians, the author combines a biographical account full of vivid details with an analysis of police, intelligence, and judicial practices and offers an insightful reconstruction of the spy mania of the military and political elites of late imperial Russia. The central questions around which the book is built: how and why was it possible to incriminate officers, albeit morally deficient and dishonest, but never inclined to treason and untalented, with the most serious crime in wartime and convince a huge number of people of their guilt? How did these “revelations” affect the prestige of the monarchy itself? Fuller argues that in the thinking, rhetoric and pseudo-legal techniques of the organizers of the trials of 1915-1917, the main features of future Bolshevik repressions - an obsession with finding scapegoats and the presumption of guilt - appeared in an embryonic but already ominous form..