Introduction: Party documents and Bolshevik mentality -- Part I. Closing ranks. The new situation, 1930-32 -- Party discipline in 1932 -- Repression and legality -- Growing tension in 1935 -- Screening cadres -- The fork in the road -- Pat II. The terror. The face of the enemy, 1936 -- The tide turns -- The sky darkens -- Party discipline and the fall of Bukharin -- The storm of 1937: the party commits suicide -- Ending the terror, 1938 -- Two Bolsheviks.