Tracing the rise of Joseph Stalin after the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924.

Stalin's rule descended into mass terror, culminating in the Great Purge.

Many notables from the West traveled to the new communist state and came away impressed, or rather deluded, by Soviet propaganda.

Charting Stalin's plan for world domination in light of international politics in the 1930s.

Espionage often went hand in hand with party membership, and survey successive red scares.

The Soviet Union's role in defeating Nazism gave the communist movement enormous prestige.