"Imagine being an adult and nearly all the truth you know about the world around you and outside your own country has to be absorbed in a matter of a year or two or three. The entire country is still in a state of mass disorientation." (Grigori Pomerants, Chapter 1, Page 7.)

"The farther away you keep from the Czar, the longer you stay alive." (An unnamed Byelorussian woman, one of Kaganovich's oldest neighbors. Chapter 2, Page 12.)

"You know, when we talk about all these people, I know now that they are all gone. It is horrible to say, but you must imagine a state that used every means to kill the best among us." (Lydia Korneievna Chukovskaya, Chapter 3, Page 29.)

"Compared to Lenin, Stalin was a mere lamb." (Vyacheslav Molotov, Chapter 4, Page 45.)

"During that time, a man's life was not as valuable as it is now. In this country, we had...