It is regarded as a work of social realism, and it depicts the bottom of Russian society (like Gorky's other early works, including his most famous play The Lower Depths)[1] The novella was included in Gorky's collection Sketches and Stories (1899).

The term "former people" developed other meanings, relating to Russian society.

Creatures that Once Were Men is a novella about residents of a doss house who start a conflict with their landlord, which leads to an inhumane outcome.

It is no exaggeration to say that these people of whom Gorky writes in such a story as this of "Creatures That Once Were Men" are to the Western mind children.

Through all runs that curious Russian sense that every man is only a man...About 1897 Realism begins to outweigh Romanticism, and in "Ex-People" (Byvshii lyudi, 1897; in the English version, "Creatures That Once Were Men", an arbitrary mistranslation) Realism is dominant, and the heroic gestures of Captain Kuvalda fail to relieve the drab gloom of the setting.