Edvard Radzinsky

Radzinsky became a writer of popular non-fiction books on historical subjects, publishing more than forty.

His book Stalin: The First In-depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secret Archives (1997) was based on research in Russian and Soviet archives made newly available after 1991.

[1] In the book Radzinsky drew on documents from the archives to support the finding that Soviet command had plans for a preemptive strike against Nazi Germany in 1941.

His book includes an interview with a former bodyguard of Stalin, who stated that on the night of Stalin's death, the bodyguards were relieved of duty by an NKVD officer named Khrustalev.

This same officer was briefly mentioned in Memories, the memoir of Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva.