The study by the modern Russian scholar, Doctor of Historical Sciences Yuri Nikolaevich Zhukov, focuses on the issue of power in the USSR in the period 1938–1954. Based on a number of documentary sources—many of which are inaccessible to historians—the author reveals unknown pages of Russia’s past and characterizes the activities of the country’s leading figures in power, their policies in state security, defense, industry, finance, and more. The book is recommended for publication by the Academic Council of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences.