About the book: 2016 / Pyotr Deryabin served in the NKVD-MGB, in government security, for more than ten years. This was at the end of the Stalin era, when the security system of the top leadership of the USSR reached a perfection that has not yet been surpassed anywhere in the world. In his book, published in the West, where Deryabin fled after Stalin’s death, he described this system in detail in order, in his words, “to put an end to all sorts of fables about it.” The author shows how Stalin’s “personal guard” was formed and what they did — Main Security Directorate (GUO) of the NKVD-MGB. It was a kind of “state within a state” in the Main Directorate of State Security of the NKVD of the USSR, it had the broadest powers, the best professionals worked here; P. Deryabin talks about preventive measures to prevent attempts on Stalin's life, about operational work and other methods of the Main Directorate of the NKVD. Of course, there were portraits of the leaders of this time: the reader will see in the book, in addition to I. Stalin, also L. Beria, V. Molotov , G. Malenkov and other Stalinist leaders.