HSE Publishing House

The first half of Joseph Jughashvili-Stalin’s life had been lived before  the Revolution of 1917. This part of his biography is highly controversial. His political enemies claimed him to have been a secret police agent or a gangster. And his contributions to the revolutionary struggle had been highly exaggerated by the official sycophants. But it would be wrong to think that the details of Stalin’s life before the Revolution are mostly obscure. On the contrary, there are plenty of sources: memoirs of his enemies and brothers-in arms, the party and police documents. The problem, however, is that few of them are reliable and impartial. Stalin’s biography had immediately become the field of power games and political warfare. It would be a fascinating task for a researcher to try to find out why and how the sources distort the truth. 

The book is addressed to a wide audience of readers interested in history.