Written by the revolutionary novelist and historian Victor Serge just after his release and expulsion from the Stalinist gulag, this title presents a documentary account of the Stalinist system. It also includes Serge's retrospective of the Russian Revolution on its thirtieth birthday, "Thirty Years After the Russian Revolution".

The introductory essay by Susan Weissman, "Victor Serge: The Forgotten Marsixt", introduces the reader to Serge, evaluating his contribution to current understanding of the former Soviet Union. Susan Weissman also updates Serge's accounts of the fate of various oppositionists with information from the newly opened Soviet archives.