James Conacher Oldfield was one of the first Western correspondents allowed into the Soviet Union after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. At the time Oldfield was Foreign Editor of the British newspaper The daily Herald, and his trip to Russia was made in July and August of 1954. The book is put together from Oldfield's notes by his son Alex, and describes his journey from Finland to Leningrad and to the Crimea's and the Donbas region. The notes were intended for later publication but never were.