“A groundbreaking book that offers the only comprehensive history of the death penalty in the Soviet Union. Fate in My Hands offers a brilliant and original reinterpretation of the worldview of Soviet citizens.”

Alan Barenberg, author of The Gulag: A Very Short Introduction

“This important book is both beautifully written and powerfully captures the voices of Soviet citizens who had been sentenced to death.”

Edward Cohn, Grinnell College

“In Skorobogatov’s hands, the USSR’s death penalty becomes a remarkable portal into the relationship between state and citizen, shifts in Soviet moral reasoning, and what she calls ‘life-and-death writing’. A highly original book, with fresh and illuminating insights into the second act of Soviet history.”

Benjamin Nathans, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement

“This striking, pioneering study recovers the voices of death row inmates to trace the moral transformation of the post-Stalin Soviet Union. Through meticulous archival research, Skorobogatov shows how ordinary citizens fashioned new ethical and legal vocabularies as the Soviet state gradually lost its authority as the chief arbiter of right and wrong.”

Alexei Yurchak, University of California Berkeley