Gordon Brown discussed deploying troops on Britain's streets as news of the 2008 financial crisis became clear, an ex-Labour spin doctor has claimed.
In extracts of a book published in the Daily Mail, Damian McBride said the former prime minister feared "anarchy" once the scale of the crisis was known.
According to the book, Mr Brown said: "We'd have to think: do we have curfews, do we put the Army on the streets, how do we get order back?"
Mr Brown has not yet commented.
Mr McBride, who resigned in 2009 after he was caught planning to smear senior Conservatives, said he had a meeting with Mr Brown on the evening before he announced the part-nationalisation of UK banks in October 2008.
'Anarchy tomorrow'Mr Brown is quoted as saying: "If the banks are shutting their doors, and the cash points aren't working, and people go to Tesco and their cards aren't being accepted, the whole thing will just explode.
"If you can't buy food or petrol or medicine for your kids, people will just start breaking the windows and helping themselves.
"And as soon as people see that on TV, that's the end, because everyone will think that's OK now, that's just what we all have to do. It'll be anarchy. That's what could happen tomorrow."
According to the book, Mr Brown feared panic from other countries could spread to the UK.
"It was extraordinary to see Gordon so totally gripped by the danger of what he was about to do, but equally convinced that decisive action had to be taken immediately," Mr McBride wrote.
He claimed the then prime minister understood the situation better than other world leaders, his UK opponents and senior bankers.
And the former spin doctor rated Mr Brown's actions as "up with those of President Kennedy and his advisers during the Cuban Missile Crisis".
The book also makes claims about in-fighting between Mr Brown and Tony Blair while Mr Blair was prime minister.
Mr McBride said he was "out to convey the message that Blair was hanging on to power for the sake of it", while "Blair's mob" were trying to portray Mr Brown as uneasy and "not looking prime ministerial".
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