as the first of a small group of people.

From 1929, he was the leader. And from 1937, he was the leader with absolute power of life and
death over everybody. So it was a sort of -- grew -- it was very slow. He was very cautious. Extremely
clever politician. Subtle. And he meandered his way to where he wanted to get to.

And that`s one of the things that`s different in this book, by the way, about him. Normally it`s just
presented he just bursts on the scene, after Lenin`s death as this kind of dreaded, satanic, omniscient, sort of
demigod, seething with evil -- evil and absolute power. Not true. And one of the things this shows is that
until 1937, when he suddenly unleashed this great terror, he wasn`t a figureof fear to people at all. In fact,
they were so intimate with him, they were happy with, you know, they felt very comfortable with him. And
indeed, you know, one of the fascinating things I found was in 1935, when most books said the terror had
already began and everyone was quivering with fear, he invited the Svanidzes, who were a couple who were
very close to him, I`ve always -- they were family, invited them to dinner. They forgot to turn up. They
forgot to turn up to dinner with Stalin, you know, which gives you an idea. They were so comfortable with
him. They remembered two hours later and they turned up. Stalin was grumbly and playing billiards with
his bodyguards.

Well, these people were shot two years later, or arrested two years