Niels Erik Rosenfeldt is Associate Professor at the East European Department at the University of Copenhagen. He is the author of numerous books and articles on Stalin and Russia/the Soviet Union.

"Rosenfeldt (Univ. of Copenhagen) has written a thorough, heavily documented book on the secret processes, agents, and agencies making the decisions in Stalin's totalitarian system. With impressive access to the Russian archives that opened after the fall of the Soviet Union, Rosenfeldt has built an impressive two-volume edifice showing the guiding principles and structures of Stalin's secret directory, or chancellery, which operated under his purview and outside of normal governmental agencies. ... A major contribution to the literature of the Stalinist era. Summing Up: Highly recommended. - D.J. Dunn, CHOICE, Vol. 46, No. 11, 2009

"Rosenfeldt's work can be recommended not only for its insights into the history of the Russian revolution and government under Stalin. It is also fascinating as an insight into the process of research." - Ian D. Thatcher, Brunel University, European History Quarterly, Vol. 40 No. 2, 2010

"THIS WORK REPRESENTS THE CULMINATION OF MORE THAN 30 years of Rosenfeldt's research into the secret structures and bases of Stalin's power. As such this is truly a life's work; but it may also fairly be described as a masterwork, for nobody has described, let alone analysed in such overpowering and meticulous detail, the comprehensive sweep of the Stalinist control mechanisms from their inception to the death of Stalin and in some cases beyond that...this work is going to be indispensable to any serious effort to analyse Stalin and his state for years to come. While it is probable that new discoveries and arguments will come to challenge this work, so that it cannot be considered the last word on the subject, it will be the first, if not the only word on many of the issues and agencies analysed here for the foreseeable future." - Stephen J. Blank, Europa-Asia Studies, Vol. 63, Issue 1.