The book attempts to find the reasons for the Stalinist repressions of the early 30s, when more than half of the members and candidates for membership in the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks elected at the XVII Congress were exiled and shot. The question of what then the party was, what it was at the time of the revolution, was considered. Individual leaders are discussed in detail - Trotsky, Sverdlov and others.