A brave and revelatory account of how a small-minded, low level KGB operative came to control the world\'s largest country and, in an astonishingly short time, destroyed years of progress, making Russia once more a threat to her own people and to the world. \'Gessen\'s engaging prose combines a native\'s passion with a mordant wit and caustic understatement that are characteristically Russian\' }Daily Telegraph{.
A brave and revelatory account of how a small-minded, low level KGB operative came to control the world\'s largest country and, in an astonishingly short time, destroyed years of progress, making Russia once more a threat to her own people and to the world