Inside Stalin's Archives: Discovering a New Russia

In 1992, Jonathan Brent traveled to Russia in an attempt to publish some newly opened archives. Boris Yeltsin had declared that he would declassify secret state and KGB archives, and there was expectation that a new Nuremberg Tribunal would be convened, this time with the Communist Party in the dock. Brent managed to compile a vast amount of material, and in this work, he takes us all the way to Stalin's personal papers, giving us a precise account of the massacres committed by the dictator. As a cultural history and personal memoir, this book is a vivid, ethical, and moving portrait of Russia in the 21st century. "It interweaves images of Russians in their daily lives with an intelligent analysis of Joseph Stalin's legacy." – Philip Roth "It reveals as much the austere reality of post-Soviet life and bureaucracy as it does the archives themselves." – The New York Times