On January 1, 1928, Bazhanov escaped from the Soviet Union and
became for many years the most important member of a new breed-the
Soviet defector. At the age of 28, he had become an invaluable aid
to Stalin and the Politburo, and had he stayed in Stalin's service,
Bazhanov might well have enjoyed the same meteoric careers as the
man who replaced him when he left, Georgy Malenkov. However,
Bazhanov came to despise the unethical and brutal regime he served.
One he decided to become anti-communist, he sought to bring down
the regime. Planning his departure carefully, he brought with him
documentation which revealed some of the innermost secrets of the
Kremlin. Despite being pursued by the OGPU (an earlier incarnation
of the KGB), he arrived eventually in Paris, and Bazhanov set to
work writing his message to the West. While Bazhanov did
successfully escape to the West, Stalin had Bazhanov watched and
several attempts were made to assassinate him. Bazhanov may have
been fearful for his life much of the time, but he was a man of
courage and conviction, and he damned Stalin as often and as
publicly as he could. In this riveting and illuminating book,
Bazhanov provides an eyewitness account of the inner workings and
personalities of the Soviet Central Committee and the Politburo in
the 1920s. Bazhanov clearly details how Stalin invaded the
communications of his opponents, rigged votes, built up his own
constituency, and maneuvered to achieve his coup d'etat despite
formidable odds. he also provides a better understanding of the
curiously vapid way in which he other revolutionary leaders, most
notably Trotsky, failed to appreciate the threat and let Stalin
override them. He reveals how those Soviets with a sense of
fairness, justice, and ethics were extinguished by Stalin and his
minions, and how the self-centered, protective bureaucratic machine
was first built. Bazhanov's view, at the right hand of Stalin, is
unique and chilling. Bazhanov's post-defection prediction of
Stalin's continuing and fatal danger to Trotsky shows how well
Bazhanov understood the dictator. His formation, in 1940, of an
armed force recruited from Soviet Army prisoners to help Mannerheim
defend Finland from Stalin's forces and his 1941 decision to
decline the position of Hitler's Gauleiter of German-occupied
Russia are fascinating. But perhaps the most interesting facet to
Bazhanov's tale is the fact that almost no Soviets-even today-know
the real story of the Communist party's criminal acquiescence in
Stalin's rise to, and abuse of, power.
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