He was born under Alexander III and died under Mikhail Gorbachev. He lived for 96 years. He lived a huge life, which carried him from the Vyatka hinterland to the very heights of world politics and lowered him into a pool of opals. More than once he managed to walk along the razor blade, balancing between life and death. The secretary of the Central Committee at thirty-one, a member of the Politburo at thirty-six, the prime minister of the Soviet Union at forty, he turned out to be one of the few who survived from the Leninist team...