The history of modern Russia traditionally has Communism at its centre: Lenin defines its rise, Gorbachev its fall, and Putin its aftermath. In this radical new history, Yuri Felshtinsky and Vladimir Popov, however, introduce a new historical axis: the Cheka-the Bolsheviks' nebulous revolutionary intelligence service. Wrapped around the Party in a fight to the death from 1918 under its first head Felix Dzerzhinsky, only Stalin was able to resist its stranglehold at the cost of enormous bloodshed. Luring Russia into submission over less than a century, its murder-plots and unrivalled scheming culminated in the capture of the Kremlin in 2000.
Drawing on Popov's secret documents of over two decades as a senior officer in one of the KGB's key covert sections, and on Felshtinsky's encyclopedic knowledge of Russian state archives open in the 1990s, little-known sources, and access to leading oligarchs, a new Russian history emerges. The story they tell is often unexpected while introducing a new cast of characters still of great influence-potentially surpassing Lenin's role-on our world today.
In addition, the authors introduce a host of hitherto unknown characters who should be considered as pivotal, not least Felix Dzerzhinsky the ruthless first head of the Cheka. Obscure in comparison to Lenin or Stalin, he should however be considered as important an architect of modern Russia as Lenin.
From Red Terror to Terrorist State is the first comprehensive history of the Cheka, its vice-like hold over Russia, global reach and ambitions. A monumental record by two exceptional Russian-intelligence experts, it presents an unrivaled wealth of unknown, authoritative, and detailed facts. Narrated from inside the intelligence services, it fundamentally transforms our understanding of how Russia works and how the Kremlin should be viewed.
