The book by E. Maudsley and S. White is a one-of-a-kind study spanning an entire era. This is a collective biography of the Soviet political elite over the 75 years of the existence of the Soviet Union. Without such research, it is impossible to understand what the Soviet regime is and why the leading elite played a decisive role in state affairs. In the Soviet period, all power was in the hands of the CPSU. And within the party there was always a group of people who had almost unlimited opportunities, although it was understood that after the revolution, citizens themselves would rule the state. Using the bureaucratic apparatus for their own purposes, the elite influenced all members of the party and, in a broader sense, all spheres of society.