Short answer is no

Who pulled the strings?

It depended. In some instances it was a single person. But most often it was a result of a debate among top leadership. Sometimes such group was informal - e.g. "small Politburo" of Stalin's era, "full member-only, closed meetings" of Brezhnev era. Originally Central Committee was an organ for producing collective decision. As it bloated away over time, Politburo was selected and formalized. But then Politburo was also separated into 2 classes: non-voting "candidates to members" and "full members". And even that decisionmaking pool was routinely trimmed down to most trusted members (e.g. informal "small Politburo").

The Soviet premier was always a figure of some kind (think: Kruschev, Gorbi, etc.) but... there was always the Politburo. Didn't they appoint the premier?

No, Politburo didn't appoint a "premiere" or anybody else - being technically just an advisory board.

The Soviet premier

If you've meant Secretary General of Central Committee - he was elected at summits of CPSU Central Committee (Пленум ЦК КПСС). There was a position of Prime-Minister too, but it was ~3^rd in real power - after Secretary General (think supreme party leader) and Chairman of Supreme Soviet (think President). For prolonged periods of time those 2 positions were held by single person.

Politburo was "recommending" a candidate to party's summit. Formally Politburo didn't have any direct power, only providing help to its members and guidance for the rest of Central Committee and CPSU. It was a political office (in theory), not executive. Many Politburo members were also ministers, so all branches of power were intertwined in Politburo.

But guidelines and policy decisions of Politburo were taken almost literally and formalized into laws or government decrees very quickly.

Did he fear them, or regard them as his superiors?

It was complicated. Alliances were forged, undercover struggle for power was waged - in that sense everybody feared to lose in the struggle. There were people, who felt quite confident for long period of times, only to find themselves kicked out of Politburo.

Some examples (over the years):

• Trotsky lost undercover struggle to Stalin. Note that in 20s Central Executive Committee (Центральный Исполнительный Комитет - ЦИК) was a nexus of power. Stalin gradually undermined it and shifted real power to Central Committee first (he was a Secretary General and originally it was nothing more, than record keeping).

• L. Beria - one of major contenders for position of Secretary General, was arrested and hastily executed for "treason and espionage" during intense power struggle after Stalin's death. Many Politburo members, aligned with Malenkov, Bulganin, Khruschev (who wasn't a frontrunner back then) took part in it. See [1]

• V. Molotov, L. Kaganovich, - sent to early retirement after losing to Malenkov, Khruschev, Bulganin, also during struggle after Stalin's death

• N. Khruschev himself suddenly found exiled to grow cabbages on his dacha - after young and active Brezhnev blocked with Suslov, Kosygin to stop what they've perceived as failing policies (like separating CPSU into "industrial" and "agricultural" sections, forcing to grow corn everywhere etc.)

• A. Shelepin - being a young, rising star of "hardliners", aspiring to take Khruschev's place - lost to M. Suslov and L. Brezhnev's group ("Dniepropetrovsk's group") by 1975 and faded slowly into retirement by 1984

• A. Kosygin - being Prime-Minister (right after Khruschev) and close to industry, arguing for cooperatives and need for economic reforms, lost to Suslov and sent to retirement in 1979, didn't live long after that. Anti-Soviet dissident Acad. Sakharov called him "the most intelligent and toughest man in the Politburo".

• One of major factors in dissolution of USSR was power struggle between B. Yeltsin (who was elected as a President of Russian Federation) and M. Gorbachev (who was elected as 1st and only President of USSR). While the struggle ended outside of Politburo, it started very publicly at Politburo Plenum (plenary meeting) in Oct 28th, 1987. Last instance of somebody in Politburo showing any public disagreement (Plenum was broadcasted on TV) with Secretary General was when Trotsky argued with Stalin (broadcasted over radio).

For such complicated topic I prefer primary sources. I've yet to see a book which would capture all nuances of power struggle at the top. Most of this struggle wasn't public and only documents left were protocols of Politburo (which were kept secret until recently and which capture just a trace of extensive oral arguments).

Most of "accessible" books on subject (esp. western) are taking easy route - by casting Politburo personalities into narrow molds and brushing off facts which doesn't fit their narrative.

Sources

1. russian - Politburo and Beria affair. Collection of documents (edited by O. B. Mosokhin). Политбюро и дело Берия. Сборник документов / Под общей ред. О. Б. Мозохина. — М.: Кучково поле, 2012. — 1088 pages. Only selected documents are posted online, in chronological order. O. B. Mosokhin is highly regarded historian, researcher of political repressions. Example of extreme case in power struggle inside Politburo. The only case when Politburo member was arrested and executed after Stalin's death.

2. JSTOR - Yoram Gorlizki. Stalin's Cabinet: The Politburo and Decision Making in the Post-War Years. Europe-Asia Studies Vol. 53, No. 2 (Mar., 2001), pp. 291-312. Covers only Stalin post-war period, but gives good insight in Politburo and informal "small Politburo". In English.

I am unsure what you mean by saying "The truth, I am starting to believe, isn't what we are told in the official history books." However I can point you towards some things.

I do not know of a book that details the entire workings of the Politburo throughout the existence of the Soviet Union. The workings under Khrushchev varied greatly than when Stalin was in control. However, the best first hand account of what the political system worked would be Nikita Khrushchev's memoirs. Memoirs of Khrushchev: Volume 3, The Statesmen goes in depth on what it was like for Khrushchev to be running the Soviet Union and the political struggles he faced on his rule from the Party. I good companion book would be Khrushchev: A Man of his Era by his son Sergei Khrushchev, who is currently a Professor at Brown University.

These would be the best ways to see into the life behind the curtain of the Politburo.

This is an indirect source but Mao by Jung Chang does a fair amount of discussing what the Russian (and Chinese) Politburo's were like. The book itself has been criticized a bit, perhaps fairly, but is still an excellent read. You may also want to read something like Robert Service's biography on Lenin but if you're past all that and want something more specific then I would suggest Stalin & Co. : the Politburo, the Men Who Run Russia by Duranty. There is also The Lost Politburo Transcripts by Yale Press.

I think you need to read several books on this topic because difference sources can give you a completely different impression. For example, the transcripts are a direct source and that's great, but you also have to bear in mind that everything that was said on the record is suspect to be propaganda, or that the actors involved in the meetings themselves could have been purged or executed by saying the wrong thing.

How it actually worked? Who pulled the strings?

You aren't going to get a detailed answer because the truth is that it changed greatly behind the scenes from Lenin to Stalin and then beyond. Even within Stalin's life it changed. It especially changed because of Stalin (and his purges) -- So you have all of these little "micro" periods where the dynamic of power is unique to the next and various episodes (like another purge) that "move the system" from point A to B. A better question would be something like this:

What was the Politburo like in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis? Who pulled the strings? Or, what was the Politburo like in 1941 with the onset of Operation Barbarossa and how as it different than the Politburo set up by Lenin in 1917?

If you read the Mao book you can get a real sense of this sort of struggle and going back and forth between the Politburo and I think it portrays the sort of dynamic that you're really after. You don't necessarily want to know what they did, you want to know how they operated with the context of the state vis-a-viv the premier, or chairman, or what have you.

You probably aren't going a well written (or sourced) comment that escapes all criticism because the nature of these regimes was to lie and publish propaganda, plus they changed so much over time. You can make the argument that all political states are like this but the conversation just descends into another conversation and moves further away from your question regarding Russia and its Politburo. You just kind of read multiple sources and get a "feel" for what it was really like.

The truth, I am starting to believe, isn't what we are told in the official history books. Anything?

My response to this is from a piece of fiction. Please forgive me:

What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies.

Network, 1976

I would recommend anything by Oleg Kalugin. I know he has an autobiography. I believe he has written other books as well. He is a former KGB general and double agent. He was a longtime head of KGB operations in the United States and later a critic of the agency.

Edit: Here is his wiki page. Turns out he has 4 books. They are listed in the wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Kalugin Edit 2. Not sure why this would get down voted. I'll assume you have not read anything by him. He talks a lot about the inner workings of the Politburo in his autobiography.

David Remnick's book Lenin's Tomb, if I recall, goes into some depth on the functioning of the upper echelons of government as the empire unravelled. Regardless, if you're interested in the functioning of the USSR system, Remnick's book is indispensable.