About the book: 2017 / The author of the book is a senior state security major (corresponding to the army rank of general), an illegal resident of Soviet intelligence in France, Austria, Italy (1933— 1937), resident of the NKVD and adviser to the Republican government on security in Spain (1937-1938), a high-ranking official in the central apparatus of the NKVD. Thanks to his official position, he was well aware of how the mechanism of political repression of 1937 was launched and functioned. And in June 1938, rightly fearing for his life, he fled to the West. Many years later, he wrote in detail about the crimes Stalin committed in order to retain power in his hands, about the processes he organized against the leaders of the October Revolution, and about his relations with the people whose death he prepared.