ABSTRACT
An investigation of historical biographies of Stalin will help to highlight the problems facing all authors who treat the subject of Stalin. In the USSR the real facts of Stalin's life have been too sensitive for unbiased enquiry, and an elaborate tissue of myth and counter-myth has grown up around the dead dictator. Any discussion of Stalin and Stalinism is likely to raise highly controversial issues and evoke contradictory historical opinions and judgements. History was rewritten to create a legend about Stalin's early life, especially with regard to the period 1899-1917. Stalin was such a controversial figure that since his death in 1953 no full-length biography of him has been published in the USSR; his achievements have, however, been subject to drastic revaluations. Ian Grey's aim is to provide a more balanced assessment of Stalin distinct from the extravagant eulogies of the 'cult' period and the moral indignation of western biographers.
