The history of Russia after 1917 is traditionally written as the rise of the Communist Party from Lenin to Stalin to Gorbachev. Is that still the correct approach?

Based on a trove of new historical sources from inside the Russian secret services, this exceptional book retells the story in the light of modern Russia and starts with the pivotal role of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the leader of the Communist Secret Service, the Cheka. He is relatively unknown, but was even more important in the overthrow of the Tsarist regime and submission of its people than Lenin. The leaders of the various guises of the Cheka fought tooth and nail to wrest state control from the Communist party. With the presidency of Vladimir Putin in 1999, Dzerzhinskys ultimate goal finally came to fruition. It explains why modern Russia is a state without ideology, the worlds only mafia-state programmed to forever extort, pillage and loot.

There is one single reason why Communism succeeded in Russia: rather than Lenin’s oratory, it was the formation of the Cheka (The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission) under Felix Dzerzhinsky – a ruthless killer and Vladimir Putin’s predecessor as head of the Russian secret service and hero. This is the first history of the struggle of the Russian secret service with the party to gain control over the state and what drives it. This book makes clear that behind Putin stands a hundred year organisation with overriding values of its own, ready to replace him should that be necessary – like Russian dolls. 

Dr Yuri Felshtinsky taught at Boston University and was a Fellow of the Hoover Institute, University of Stanford. He wrote bestseller Blowing up Russia (‘Crucially important’ Prof. Robert Service, Oxford University) with Alexander Litvinenko (Netflix bioseries in 2023), Colonel Vladimir Popov was a KGB operative from 1972 to the KGB putsch in August 1991 in which he refused to take part. He emigrated to Canada where he currently resides. 

* Written by two of the world’s foremost experts on the history of the Russian secret service.
* We wrongly see Communism as the key driver in Russian history, it was the Cheka, Russia’s secret service.
* The first history of Russia’s secret service from 1917 to the present day.
* ‘Scholarly and scrupulous…and an appalling crime story’. Viktor Suvorov ex GRU.
* ‘Magisterial’ Oleg Kalugin ex KGB colonel .
* ‘Destined to be the standard work’ Yuri Shvets ex- KGB resident in Washington.
Publicity: will be featured in the first week of October on ABC.
* https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-20/how-russian-secret-service-took-control-of-presidency/103052176

* FINANCIAL TIMES MAGAZINE Front-page article, first page p23 title credit ‘author of From Red Terror to Terrorist State’ 24 Feb - ft.com /content/46753c29-78f9-485f-8f02-8b203557c40e?shareType=nongift ‘They are among us’: Russia’s terrifyingly effective poisoning operation Yuri Felshtinksy, a KGB historian and author of From Red Terror to Terrorist State, a book about Russia’s intelligence services.
* SILICON CURTAIN podcast 73.5k subscribers (10% in AU) 35k views interview Yuri Felshtinsky 1hr 16 Feb - youtube. com/watch?v=PWGC2il6svU

• ‘facts worthy of John le Carré.’ Telegraph
• ‘Many insights into both the Soviet and the more recent neo-Soviet political systems in Russia.’ East West Review: The Journal of the Great-Britain Russia Society
• ‘Shines a light on the rationale for Putin’s dictatorship… for all those wishing to understand the enigma that is Russia, Professor Colin Shindler, Jewish Chronicle\

•     ‘The infamous history of the KGB’ express

• ‘Very interesting in its long lines to the world’s present predicament.’ Paolo Valentino, Corriere della Sera
• ‘One of the most illuminating books on the history of contemporary Russia. A must read.’ La Revista
• ‘Unputdownable.’ Martin Dewhirst, Honorary Fellow Glasgow University
• ‘A stunning book.’ Silicon Curtain
• ‘A scholarly and scrupulous analysis as well as a dark crime story which describes a bloodthirsty monster so slippery that it has so far defied description.’ Viktor Suvorov, ex-GRU colonel and historian
• ‘[L]eading experts on Russian assassinations.’ Bill Browder
• ‘[A] detailed, compelling history of the deep-seated thirst for carnage endemic in Russia’s intelligence services. A magisterial work by two of its foremost experts.’ Oleg Kalugin, ex-KGB major-general
• ‘Destined to become the standard work.’ Yuri Shvets, ex-KGB resident in Washington DC and former Putin classmate
• ‘Truly interesting.’ Victor Sebestyen
• ‘Meticulous and timely... many new facts.’ Former ambassador Eugène Berg, La Revue Defénse Nationale
• ‘A powerful dissection of a secret and sprawling institution whose members – if they do not succumb to novichok, indigestion, or the law of gravity first – know that they can never retire. Bruno Deniel-Laurent, Revue des Deux Mondes
• ‘We come across a thousand spies and double agents and as many secretive and camouflaged assassinations as “accidents”… How the Cheka, the political police created by the Bolsheviks and Lenin in the aftermath of the October Revolution, quickly became autonomous from political power and from all - powerful Communist Party to defend its own political line as well as its members, with one objective: one day to upset our world order.’ Romain Gubert, Le Point