oh i forgot you guys - read kotkin's biography of stalin, it's amazing. kotkin is nato propagandist in everything else, being a sorosz fundie, but his stalin bio draws directly from the nkvd archives and politburo transcripts, and it is a treasure trove of information about how things worked in the ussr. there are two books, running up to 1939 so far. his other works - magnitogorsk and soviet armageddon (avoiding collapse) are also great.
Serbia