Stalin knows where he wants to get to--and is getting there -- 'Autonomization versus federation' (1922-3) -- 'Cadres into heretics' -- The party and its apparaty -- Social flux and 'systemic paranoia' -- The impact of collectivization -- Between legality and bacchanalia -- How did Stalin rule? -- The purges and their 'rationale' -- The scale of the purges -- The camps and the industrial empire of the NKVD -- Endgame -- An agrarian despotism? -- 'E pur, si muove!' -- The KGB and the political opposition -- The avalanche of urbanization -- The 'administrators' : bruised but thriving -- Some leaders -- Kosygin and Andropov -- Lenin's time and worlds -- Backwardness and relapse -- Modernity with a twist -- Urbanization : successes and failures -- Labour force and demography : a conundrum -- The bureaucratic maze -- 'Telling the light from the shade'? -- What was the Soviet system?
