The Secret History of Stalin's Crimes

New York: Random House, 1953. First Edition. First printing. Octavo (21.5cm). Black cloth hardcover; dustjacket; blue top-stain; xvi,366pp. Mild toning to front endpapers, else a tight, clean Near Fine copy, with topstain even and unfaded. In the original dustwrapper, price-clipped, gently sunned on spine panel; Very Good.

Orlov (1895-1973), a colonel in the NKVD (Soviet secret police), was one of the highest-ranking Soviet defectors of the Thirties. His inside position gave him extraordinary insight to Stalin's totalitarian tactics – to the degree that, fearing assassination, he lived his life in the U.S. under an assumed name, successfully (truncated) eluding detection by NKVD and FBI agents alike for more than a dozen years. Publication of the current work was timed to take place after Stalin's death. It was the first detailed public account by an insider of the Moscow show trials and the Red Army purges of the Thirties. Uncommon in dustwrapper; this a particularly nice copy. (Inventory #: 85112)