A murder on a cold Moscow night. Random killing or conspiracy? From the wastes of Siberia to war-torn Spain, individuals are drawn together by their mutual links with the dead Tulayev. Now available in English for the first time in over 20 years, this classic novel - the best ever written on the show trials and purges in Stalin's Russia - is an unsurpassed exposition of individual behaviour under tyranny. Serge uses fictional form in order to penetrate the inner motivations of those caught up in the purges both executioners and victims skillfully blending individual tragedy with historical disaster. Has there been a plot to kill a person, or to erase the legacy of an entire revolution? Serge himself insisted, 'this novel belongs entirely to the domain of fiction,' yet it remains an important source in understanding a turning point in twentieth-century history.