Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains the meanings ascribed to Joseph Stalin by focusing on his background, interpretations of his character and investigations of those factors which have generally been advanced to explain his rise to power. Historians have always debated Stalin’s role within the Soviet Union, and until quite recently most were content to accept that some kind of coherent system existed in the USSR. The book provides veers away from debates about Stalin, the coherence of the political and economic system or the general nature of Stalinism, although, of course, the themes inflect all the extracts assembled under the rubric Living Stalinism. The ‘Great Breakthrough into Socialist Construction’ astonished contemporaries and it continues to fascinate historians.