Stalinism is one of the most contentious political issues of the 20th century. Historical enquiry has in part benefited from, in part suffered from this. Controversy has stimulated research into modern Russian history. On the one hand, political passion has all too often determined the interpretative frameworks utilized by historians. Until comparatively recently, for example, the totalitarian model was virtually unchallenged. Many researchers accepted at face value the Stalin regime's claims to monolithic efficiency. Those sympathetic to the Soviet experiment emphasized the supposed unity between the state and the people, those antipathetic to Stalinism pointed to the purges as the logical expression of dictatorship. By focusing on key themes in the history of Stalin's Russia - from the rise of the General Secretary at the end of the 1920s to the world of "late Stalinism" - this book takes the reader to the centre of the contemporary debate on Russia under Stalin and shows how historical enquiry has been conditioned not only by prevailing ideological fashions but also by the nature and quality of the sources available to researchers. This book is designed to be of interest to students of modern Russian history, Soviet studies or politics.