This doctoral dissertation provides an in-depth analysis of Stalin's secret Party chanceller and of several other secret structures within the Soviet Communist Party, the Soviet State Security Service and the headquarters of the Communist International. Stalin's chancellery numbered approximately 100 staff members from the mid-1920s and functioned as a kind of invisible service organ through which Stalin's decisions - whether on social-economic change or on police matters and terror - were implemented. When the Soviet Union collapsed the formerly closed archives were to a certain degree opened for research. Since the mid-nineties Niels Erik Rosenfeldt has on several occasions visited these archives. Partly based on this research he here presents a thorough and groundbreaking study of some of the most secret structures of Soviet society.