From 1923 to 1928, Boris Bazhanov was Stalin's personal secretary. He had access to the most secret documents of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. After escaping from the Soviet Union, he published his memoirs in France, vividly characterizing Stalin's personality, his methods of achieving power and political intrigues in the Kremlin. The book details behind-the-scenes political intrigues in the Kremlin, starting with the expulsion of Trotsky, as well as Stalin's subsequent actions to eliminate from the political scene his associates and rivals - Kamenev, Zinoviev, Rykov, Frunze, Bukharin and Many chapters of B. Bazhanov's memoirs are perceived as an action-packed political and criminal detective story.