What is the reason for the Stalinist repressions of 1937? What was their scale? What role did they play in the history of our country? The answers to these questions, which still occupy researchers, political scientists, publicists, and everyone who is interested in the past of the USSR, are in this book of three famous authors. Each of them reveals a certain aspect of the topic: Yu. Zhukov focuses on reforms of the state apparatus in 1937, V. Kozhinov writes about changes in national ideology, Yu. Mukhin talks about the fight against the "fifth column" in the USSR in the 1930s. The vastness of the factual material, its deep analysis, accessibility and simplicity of presentation - all this is present in the works of Yu.N. Zhukov, V.V. Kozhinova and Yu.I. Mukhina.