What happened in the Kremlin in the last Stalinist years? What plans did the leader have until his death hour? Why were there endless purges in the Lubyanka department and some security officers imprisoned others? For what reason did Stalin’s faithful comrades find themselves in disgrace and expect the worst? And why, immediately after the death of the leader, a fierce struggle for power unfolded in the Kremlin, which ended with the execution of one of the country’s leaders? This is perhaps the least studied chapter of Russian history. In his new book, Leonid Mlechin, painting pictures of Kremlin life in the fifties, offers his own version of events, unexpected and stunning. But, describing the events that determined the future of our country, the author relies on the results of modern historical research, on only recently declassified documents and the memoirs of participants in those dramas and tragedies that have become known.