I don’t remember how I was introduced to this book, but once I knew it existed I wanted to read it. I looked forward to reading a firsthand account of one of the victims of Stalin’s purges. Bukharin played a leading role in one of Stalin’s show trials and was sentenced to death. I wanted to see how Larina would portray those events and how she would describe various party members such as Stalin and Lenin.

Larina begins the book when she is already in prison. She starts “In December 1938, I was returning to an “investigative prison” in Moscow following a year and a half of arrests and imprisonments. First came exile in Astrakhan, then arrest and imprisonment there.”

The reader follows Larina on her prison journey with multiple flashbacks to her life before exile and arrest. In some ways this chops the story up so that you don’t get a chronological outline of her life. She can be outlining prison life in 1938 and suddenly she recollects an event from the 1920s.

Larina’s life was an extraordinary one. She was an eyewitness to the inner workings of the Soviet Union. Below is an excerpt from an interrogation she recounted with Beria.

““You can ask this now after the trial?” Beria answered, getting louder. “You can continue to think that Bukharin was devoted to the party? He was an enemy of the people! A traitor! The leader of the bloc of rightists and Trotskyists! And you know what that bloc was. In the camp, you had the opportunity to learn about the trial from newspapers.”
So this is what had been hiding under the mask of phony curtesy: lies and hypocrisy! The floor swam beneath my feet, the room went dark before my eyes, and Beria’s face became a gray, amorphous mass. From that moment on, I felt the same hatred for the “new people’s commissar” as I had for the old. Beria studied me, evidently gauging the effect of his vile words.”

As Bukharin awaited his fate Larina recalls his hunger strike and his thoughts of suicide and of survival. She outlines how he reached out to Stalin for help even though it was Stalin who wanted him dead. She noted: “Even though he knew what Stalin was worth, his hope for life compelled him at times to trust the monster “ She also notes how Stalin “could not resist playing his malevolent game” with Bukharin in the lead up to his arrest.

Overall this is an insightful book that presents a personal view into the abject horror of the show trials and prison camps presided over by Stalin. I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars.