Of all the despots of our time, Joseph Stalin lasted the longest and wielded the greatest power, and his secrets have been the most jealously guarded—even after his death.

In this book, the first to draw from recently released archives, leading USSR scholar-historian Robert Conquest gives us Stalin as a child and student; as a revolutionary and communist theoretician; as a political animal skilled in amassing power and absolutely ruthless in maintaining it. He presents the landmarks of Stalin's rule: the clash with Lenin, collectivization, the Great Terror, the Nazi-Soviet pact and the Nazi-Soviet war, the anti-Semitic campaign that preceded his death, and the legacy he left behind.

Distilling a lifetime's study, weaving detail, analysis, and research, Conquest has given us an extraordinarily powerful narrative of this incredible figure—one of the most enigmatic and terrifying figures of modern times.