Emmy Awards nominee for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Research: Multi-faceted portrait of the man who succeeded Lenin as the head of the Soviet Union. With a captivating blend of period documents, newly-released information, newsreel and archival footage and interviews with experts, the program examines his rise to power, deconstructs the cult of personality that helped him maintain an iron grip over his vast empire, and analyzes the policies he introduced, including the deadly expansion of the notorious gulags where he banished so many of his countrymen to certain death.

Edward Herrmann
Narrator (voice)

Joseph Stalin
Self (archive footage)

Vladimir Lenin
Self (archive footage)

Lev Kopelev
Self

Dodo Chichinadze
Self
Lev Razgon
Self
Leonid Zamyatin
Self

Edvard Radzinsky
Self

Alexander Burdonsky
Self

Dmitry Likhachev
Self
Olga Trifonova
Self

Genrikh Yagoda
Self (archive footage)

Memoirs of a Geisha
Memoirs of a Geisha

Pantani: The Accidental Death of a Cyclist
Pantani: The Accidental Death of a Cyclist

The Elephant Man
The Elephant Man

Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Ghosts of Hiroshima
Ghosts of Hiroshima

From Where They Stood
From Where They Stood

39/45 : Amours interdites
39/45 : Amours interdites

Viva Zapata!
Viva Zapata!

Michael Collins
Michael Collins

Großes Kino made in DDR
Großes Kino made in DDR

The Man Who Defied Beijing
The Man Who Defied Beijing

The Hawker Hurricane
The Hawker Hurricane