"Himmelsstürmer" were the young people who were passionate about the October Revolution in 1917 and dedicated themselves to the radical transformation of society. Many met tragic ends: in the camps of Kolyma or in the basements of the Lubjanka, the notorious Moscow secret police prison. They were the students and companions of Lenin who fell victim to the violent excesses of his successor, Stalin. For Mikhail Ryklin, this drama is personal history. The sons of his great-grandfather, a clergyman in Smolensk, belonged to the Bolshevik elite. Nikolai Tchaplin rose to leadership in the youth organization Komsomol, while Sergei, a few years younger, worked as a courier at the age of fifteen and later served in the foreign intelligence service in Finland and Estonia. One worked from within for the revolution, the other sought to spread it to the world - until both were caught in the machinery of terror.