For the first time, on a very wide and reliable documentary base, including those gleaned from the FSB archive, the situation surrounding the writer with mass repressions of the 30s, when he worked under the NKVD sword of Damocles, is recreated. The true biography of Kh. Ermakov, the prototype of Grigory Melekhov, the struggle of M.A. Sholokhov against violent collectivization, the nature of his relationship with I.V. Stalin, the inconsistency of speculation about the authorship of the novels "Quiet Don" and "Virgin Soil Upturned. "Intended for historians, literary scholars, students, a wide range of readers.