the diary of a Gulag prison guard, 1935-1936
"Originally written in a couple of humble exercise books, which were anonymously donated to the Memorial Human Rights Centre in Moscow, this... diary is one of the few first-person accounts to survive the sprawling Soviet prison system. At the back of these exercise books there is a blurred snapshot and a note, "Chistyakov, Ivan Petrovich, repressed in 1937-38"--Jacket flap.
