Interestingly enough, there were a few branches of the Romanov family that weren't in Russia at the time - they were off living in Switzerland, Italy, France, etc. They created a family association about 35 years ago and it's still around today - www.romanovfamily.org is their website.

They've kept their honorific titles but they don't hold any real power anymore.

Many of the aristocrats (at least those who did not emigrate) successfully adapted to Soviet society in the 1920s. They used their education to become skilled workers, scholars, and cultural figures. For example, Aleksei Tolstoi, a relative of Lev Tolstoy from the same vastly rich and powerful aristocratic family, became a well-known writer of historical and science fiction. There were lots of reasons for this. Plenty of aristocrats had no particular commitment to the aristocracy as a social group--they saw the extreme injustice of Imperial Russian society as well as other people did. Plenty of aristocrats were not in fact rich or in any sort of financial shape to emigrate. The tradition of partible inheritance had created a large pool of people who had aristocratic titles but no land (or, before 1861, serfs), and while they had had certain legal privileges in the Empire, under the Soviets they were in the same boat as everybody else.

However, surviving in the Soviet Union as a former aristocrat was difficult. It was a workers' state, and people who were from an industrial proletarian background enjoyed major advantages for employment and advancement. People with an aristocratic background, on the other hand, faced severe discrimination. If you were not exceptionally talented or well-connected, you could forget about high-ranking posts, especially in the party or the state (I think you generally wouldn't even be allowed to join the party). As a result, many aristocrats concealed their origin and falsified the documents that attested to it. Often they would lie to their children and impose strict codes of silence in the family. There are probably hundreds of people living in Russia today who have some claim to an Imperial title of nobility, but would never know about it.

Of course, this came to a head during the Stalin years. An aristocratic background during this period was not just a career-killer--it was grounds for terror and certainly social ostracism. In 1935 the NKVD launched an operation to "resettle" (to remote regions where many of them would die before they even arrived) the "former people," which eventually covered about 40,000 people. Obviously if you were found to be falsifying or concealing your background, this was sufficient evidence that you were a potential subversive. If you were not actually "resettled," then you were still blacklisted from any form of halfway desirable employment. A few of these people then managed to get rehabilitated in the post-Stalin period, but the chances of survival were not great.

Look for sources on the "White Emigres." Your people are among this group of exiles.

Generally, the aristocracy and many other groups left Russia after the October Revolution. Most of the prominent families relocated to their residences in the more desirable foreign capitals. They were aristocrats after all, with close familial ties to the other European aristocracies. For a time, there was a sense that the Bolsheviks would be defeated and the monarchy restored. There were restoration committees in Paris and London. Other European aristocrats were gravely concerned about communism, and worked with the Russian exiles to further the goal of restoration.

The same sort of thing happens whenever a popular revolution occurs anywhere. There are still voices in the media calling for the restoration of the Shah of Iran's successors.

I'm in a rush so I can only quote below from an old post. Essentially Rendle's Defenders of the Motherland is the work you want on the pre-war aristocracy. Fitzpatrick is probably the leading academic on post-revolution identities and social mobility.

On an individual level, this is obviously hard to quantify. Some notable Old Bolsheviks did have ancien regime backgrounds (eg, Litvinov was from a family of bankers, Kollontai and Dzerzhinsky were of the nobility) but these were hardly typical of the Soviet movement or the Bolshevik party. When it comes to individuals there are always exceptions that prove the rule.

But, on a broader level, the Russian Revolution should disprove the idea of revolution as "an upper class affair": 1917 did see the destruction of the old elites as classes. While there was some continuity (see below), between the October Revolution and subsequent civil war I can't think of any significant grouping of the old elite that emerged with its position enhanced. The landowning class was largely stripped of its estates, the nobility formally abolished as an estate and the wave of nationalisations of 1918 (something driven from below) severely restricted the urban bourgeoisie.

It's safe to say that of the 500,000-3,000,000 Russians who emigrated during the course of the revolution and civil war, a substantial percentage was members of the old elite. Those that remained were classified as lishenets, disenfranchised and subject to persecution and discrimination. All of which contrasts to their position of privilege during the Tsarist years.

That said, there was significant continuity and, while they didn't thrive, substantial sections of the old ruling class did survive under the new Soviet regime. While the old estates were almost entirely abolished, a decent percentage of former landowners (approx 12% by one estimate) remained on part of their estate until well into the mid-1920s. Similarly, in both the state and industry 'bourgeois specialists' provided the Soviet government with much needed skills; ex-nobles and engineers were able carve out areas of influence and power within the state. Indeed, as late as 1933, despite strenuous efforts to promote workers into positions of authority, only 30% of leading soviet officials were former workers. Now, not all of the remaining 70% would have been pre-revolution bureaucrats but certainly they would have comprised a significant chunk of this.

This was even more pronounced in the Red Army. Despite the officer class providing the backbone of the resistance to Soviet power, and initial revolutionary fervour, it's been argued that 30% of those who were officers on the eve of the October Revolution eventually joined the Soviets (with 40% fighting for the Whites). Many of these were 'national Bolsheviks', like Brusilov, who joined not out of sympathy for Bolshevik ideals but out of a base patriotism. Similarly, the academic establishment (almost uniformly pro-White) managed to come to a very comfortable arrangement with the Bolsheviks, retaining most of their privileges and freedoms. In all cases efforts were made by the state to protect these 'specialists' from popular anger/discrimination during the 1920s. This lasted until the Shakhty show trials of 1928 when a group of industrial specialists were accused to wrecking. This signified the start of Stalin's 'great turn' and, despite some oscillations in policy, the final end of the old elite. They were eventually lost amongst the masses of newly promoted workers and reduced by purges and repression. The 1930s created a new elite that would rule the USSR for the next few decades.

In summary: whatever about individuals, the old elite lost most of its privileges and positions of power following the revolution. Elements often survived by aligning themselves to the new Soviet state (until the Stalinist drive in the late 1920s) but it can't be said that they 'benefited' from it.

Sources: Rendle, Defenders of the Motherland; Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union; Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism; Davies, Crisis and Progress in the Soviet Economy

I know it's a long short/kind of weird, but did any of the former aristocracy denounce their rule? Did any of them fight for the reds or return to Soviet Russia at a later time? I assume if they had they would have been assumed to be a detriment to society either way..

I might be able to tangentially answer your question - I hope it helps in any case.

My only reading related to this subject comes from Jochem Hellbecks Revolution on my Mind. His book explores 4 Soviet diarists' diaries, particularly under periods of Stalins reign. A young woman by the name of Zinaida Zenidevskaya is a member of the intelligentsia, not the aristocracy (though hiding ones past is a bit of a theme throughout this monograph). I'm not a Russian historian by any means so I cannot speak to the similarities and differences of the aristocracy and the intelligentsia. In Zinaidas case she is at one point disgusted, later enthralled, and eventually joins with the movement of her country.* She was alive from 1887 - 1933. So, before Soviet Communism had become the order of the day, she was very able to critique the movement without fear of reprisal. Though this changed for many reasons, possibly as a signal of the times, but also possibly because of her loneliness she latched onto the movement. The climax of her life seems to come when she enters a political march (will give date later) and feels as if she has become a part of her political surroundings - a type of catharsis shortly before her untimely death. As later examples show, the system became more and more rigid to those with backgrounds not of working class. Even so, Zinaida represents an example of not necessarily welcome by the party, but certainly not rejection and exile.

*I can't remember the exact dates she was alive, but in certain it was before the 1917 revolution. Obviously a very important point in the change of Soviet Communism. I'll give dates when I awake tomorrow!

'The Flight of the Romanovs' was good

http://www.amazon.com/The-Flight-Romanovs-Family-Saga/dp/0465024637

A few were killed, but a few managed to escape the country. An interesting part of this was that since the Romanov family was tied to the English Monarchy, you would think that the English Royal Family would help right away.....NOPE....Members of the English government were afraid of the backlash they would receive if they started smuggling out Romanovs, because people in the UK felt the Romaovs treated the Russian people pretty bad (they did). Later in, the British did start to get members of the family out of the country, but not after a few were executed.