About the book: 2017 / Ivan Aleksandrovich Serov (1905–1990) - a monumental figure in our modern history, one of the leaders of the NKVD-MVD of the USSR in 1941–1953 ., first chairman of the KGB of the USSR in 1954–1958, head of the GRU General Staff in 1958–1963, army general, Hero of the Soviet Union, perhaps the most powerful and informed person of his time. By the will of fate, he found himself involved in the most important events of the 1940-1960s, literally being one of their creators. Meanwhile, modern historians paint the portrait of Serov mainly in gloomy, negative colors. His real merits and successes are almost unknown to society, and in most studies he appears as a narrow-minded Stalinist executioner, capable only of brutal reprisals. The diaries published today reveal for the first time the scale of Ivan Serov’s personality. The publication is equipped with comments and notes by the famous publicist, State Duma deputy, member of the Central Council of the Russian Military Historical Society Alexander Khinshtein. The uniqueness of the book is added by photographs and documents unknown to this day from the personal archive of I. A. Serov.