page_title: Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928
section_title: Synopsis
hierarchical_section_title: Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 / Synopsis
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of Joseph Stalin taken in 1917.
context_page_description: Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 is the first volume of an extensive three-volume biography of Joseph Stalin by American historian and Princeton Professor of History Stephen Kotkin. Originally published in November 2014 by Penguin Random House: Hardcover and Kindle and as an audiobook in December 2014 by Recorded Books. The second volume, Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941, was published in 2017 by Penguin Random House.
context_section_description: This first volume details Stalin's life from his birth through his rise to power within the Bolshevik party in 1928. 
  Paradoxes of Power can be viewed as having two halves: the first half where the world Stalin developed in is explored, the state of Russian society, the Russo Japanese war, World War I, and other forces changing Russia. In this section, Stalin as an individual plays only a minor role compared to the world around him. The second half of the book shifts to focus on the revolutionary movement, the revolution itself, and the development of Bolshevik power and Stalin's place in it. In this half Stalin emerges from the background and his role in the revolution and his rise to power with the paradoxes that accompanied it are the focus.  
  The book's appendix contains a significant 49 page categorized bibliography (written in small type), which will please anyone seeking to research Stalin and his times further.
caption: Stalin 1917
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