ABSTRACT
After Lenin’s death in January 1924, it took Stalin five years to become the uncontested leader of the Soviet Union. From now on he was free to interpret Leninism without the chance that the master might correct him. Although the written works of the founder of bolshevism remained, and could only be ignored at the peril of losing legitimacy in the eyes of his party comrades, Stalin was free to develop his own political thought in relative independence. In the rest of this book, I will treat the development of that thought in thematic chapters.
