But just days after Stalin’s death, in 1953, the project was canceled amid the subsequent “thaw.” Since then, the railway’s gulag camps have lain abandoned, sinking further into the forest ...

tireless machinations, and frail allegiances, absolutely no one is safe; not even the feared chief of the secret police, Lavrenti Beria. In the end, who will prevail after the death of Stalin?

Stalin gains new skills working as a mediator for officials throughout the party. After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin begins ruthlessly promoting himself as his political heir. Many in the party ...