Millions of peasants suffered deportation, imprisonment, and finally death by starvation as the forced collectivization of farms led to a massive famine. Interviews with peasants, old Communist Party activists, and survivors of the famine provide an eloquent and moving testament to the abuse of power enacted by Stalin in his iron-willed determination to make collectivization a success.

Five survivors, both victims and perpetrators, recount their stories of Leningrad in the 1930s, of 'the Great Terror'. They remember the shame of confessing to crimes that they never committed. Secret police interrogators remember that time when they controlled people's lives.

Hundreds of thousands of peasants, workers, and intellectuals were sent to the Kolyma Gulags to mine gold during the 25 years of Stalinist rule. These vast, isolated wilderness camps are visited for the first time by a film crew whose record of this desolate landscape is intercut with the memories of prisoners and enforcers.