This compelling work of documentary history tells a story of idealism betrayed, a story of how the Comintern (Communist International), an organization established by Lenin in 1919 to direct and assist revolutionary movements throughout the world, participated in and was ultimately destroyed by the Stalinist repression in the late 1930s. Presenting and drawing on recently declassified archival documents, William J. Chase analyzes the Comintern's roles as agent, instrument, and victim of terror. In both principle and practice, the Comintern was an international organization, with a staff that consisted primarily of Communist emigres who had fled dictatorial regimes in Europe and Asia. It was, however, headquartered in Moscow and controlled by Soviet leaders. This book examines the rise of suspicions and xenophobia among Soviet and Comintern leaders and cadres for whom many foreigners were no longer the heroes of the class struggle but rather possible enemy agents. Some Comintern members internalized and acted on Stalin's theories about the infiltration of foreign spies into Soviet society, supplying the Soviet police with information that led to the exile or execution of imigris. Thousands of other imigris also became victims of the purges. Together the text and documents of this book convey graphically the essential roles played by the Comintern, providing a unique perspective on the era of Stalinist repression and terror.

"What a long, extraordinary process digging into the deepest secrets of the Gulag has been. Now, here is its history, fully, factually, and humanly effected for the present day by Oleg Khlevniuk."- Robert Conquest, from the forward The human cost of the Gulag, the Soviet labor camp system in which millions of people were imprisoned between 1920 and 1956, was staggering. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and others after him have written movingly about the Gulag, yet never has there been a thorough historical study of this unique and tragic episode in Soviet history. This groundbreaking book presents the first comprehensive, historically accurate account of the camp system. Russian historian Oleg Khlevniuk has mined the contents of extensive archives, including long-suppressed state and Communist Party documents, to uncover the secrets of the Gulag and how it became a central component of Soviet ideology and social policy. Khlevniuk argues persuasively that the Stalinist penal camps created in the 1930s were essentially different from previous camps. He shows that political motivations and paranoia about potential enemies contributed no more to the expansion of the Gulag than the economic incentive of slave labor did. And he offers powerful evidence that the Great Terror was planned centrally and targeted against particular categories of the population. Khlevniuk makes a signal contribution to Soviet history with this exceptionally informed and balanced view of the Gulag.