A review of A.M. Popovs book Two Steps to the Abyss: Intrigues against the Minister of War and the Self-Destruction of Power in Russia. 1907-1915 (Moscow, 2023) discusses the studys contribution to the study of the struggle within Russian government circles in the first half of the 1910s. It demonstrates that A.M. Popov thoroughly examined the background and history of the conflict between V.N. Kokovtsov and V.A. Sukhomlinov in 1912, refuting a number of established historiographic notions. However, in other cases, the authors assertions appear questionable.
V. A. Demin (Wed,) studied this question.