In this memorial to Stalin’s victims, David King has selected and reproduced at full page size a few of the photographs taken by the OGPU and NKVD of their suspects. The images are full-face portraits, and their subjects look at the camera with expressions ranging from the apparently terrified to the apparently amused; the majority are blank, unreadable. The simple text that accompanies each photograph, recording the name, date and place of birth, occupation, whether the subject was a member of the Communist Party, the charge, the sentence, and, in many cases, the date of ‘rehabilitation,’ is eloquent in its repetitions.

Francis Boutle Publishers | Paperback 192 pp. |ISBN: 9781903427156