Stalin's Terror of 1937-8 is one of the most extraordinary events of the twentieth century. His seemingly irrational attack on the military, technical, and political élite on the eve of war, precisely the time when he needed them most, remains difficult to understand. Stalinism and the Politics of Terror provides a new explanation of the political violence of the late 1930s by examining the thinking of Stalin and his allies, and placing it in the broader context of Bolshevik ideas since 1917.