This book provides a wide-ranging history of every aspect of Stalin's dictatorship over the peoples of the Soviet Union. Drawing on a huge array of primary and secondary sources, The Stalin Era is a first-hand account of Stalinist thought, policy, and the effects of both of these. The book places the man and his ideology into context both within pre-Revolutionary Russia, Lenin's Soviet Union, and post-Stalinist Russia. The Stalin Era examines collectivization; industrialization; terror; government; the cult of Stalin; education and science; family; religion and the Russian Orthodox Church; and art and the state.