Examines the harsh reality of people living with the legacy of Stalinism. The author spent the first half of 1991 in the former Soviet Union interviewing gulag survivors, former camp guards and members of the secret police, writers, artists, human rights activists, neo-Stalinists and ordinary citizens about their opinions of Stalin. This haunting report reveals that the dictator's legacy persists in widespread denial, amnesia, numbness and pervasive fear among people whose lives were scarred by mass arrests, killings and Stalin's spy network. Comparing Stalin's purges to the witch craze of early medieval Europe, the author attributes this "self-inflicted genocide" partly to Russians' age-old habits of scapegoating and passive obedience