The fanatical commissar of killing

To Break Russia’s Chains: Boris Savinkov and His Wars Against the Tsar and the Bolsheviks by Vladimir Alexandrov (Simon & Schuster, £22)

Owen Matthews is an historian and journalist who has written extensively about Russia

“FTHE MAN WHO SAYS he knows how things should be,” sang the Soviet dissident Alexander Galich. “He doesn’t know.”

Boris Viktorovich Savinkov — terrorist, novelist, revolutionary and would-be regicide — certainly believed that he knew how Russia should be. During his short but extraordinary life, Savinkov was a condemned murderer, a friend of Amedeo Modigliani and Diego Rivera, a minister in Russia’s provisional government, an army commander, and an advisor to Winston Churchill. He spent his career energetically scheming, plotting and killing for the sake of the betterment of humanity.

But like most of the busy legion of self-proclaimed saviours