As a leading figure in the shaping of the Stalinist state, Lazar Kaganovich has, not without cause, had a bad press. He has been treated as the bête noir of the Stalin era, as a kind of ogre; vilified by Trotsky, depicted as a Stalinist sycophant by Khrushchev, denounced by delegates to the XXI Party Congress as one of the architects of the Great Terror. In the post-Soviet Russia, he was characterised as the ambitious, self-hating Jew who showed little loyalty to his fellow compatriots. He was heavily implicated in many of the worst of Stalin's crimes and evokes little sympathy. At the same time, the works dealing with his life and career are often oversimplified, producing a caricature with little subtlety or nuance. This work attempts to draw a fuller picture of Kaganovich as a political actor, to understand his contribution to the creation of the Stalinist system. But the study is above all about the nature of the inner dynamics of the ruling group, and of its transformation over time. Stalin cannot be understood without understanding the role of his deputies, while the role of his deputies cannot be understood without understanding Stalin.

The Stalinist leadership had no figures of standing comparable to Trotsky or Bukharin under Lenin. Its intellectual formation was much narrower, less cosmopolitan, and more provincial. Many had only limited formal education and were essentially self-educated. Kaganovich has no claim to be considered an intellectual or theoretician.