Srubov is a part of CHEKA, the secret police Lenin established after the Bolshevik Revolution. They arrest, interview for a minute, try in ten seconds, and execute intellectuals, aristocrats, Jews, clergy, and their families. In the building basement, five people at a time are shot as they stand...
The year is 1949. One of the last outbreaks of Stalinist terror was a bloody buffoonery under the auspices of the fight against cosmopolitanism. In the Writers' House near Moscow, where a young writer finishes her story about her husband's arrest and death, there is a painful atmosphere of fear,...