Yakovlev validates everything that Conquest and others have ever written about, but he's able to quote directly from Party documents. He also gives a unique insight into how the members of the Politburo thought. In some ways it verifies what we've known or suspected, but there are other moments where some of the politics behind the scenes were even stranger than we imagined.
I'm about 60 pages into the book, and am taking a break with some "brighter" reading before I continue. This thing should be a mandatory part of any course examining Communism or Russia. Yakovlev is definitely a fierce anti-communist, but he does an amazingly good job of keeping his emotions in check, unlike Solzhenitsin.
Hey, nice book cover! When will you go to print?
I hope to have the book printed in March.
I hope.