Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin [ru: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин] (né Dzhugashvili [Джугашвили]) (5 March 1953) was a Georgian-born revolutionary, politician, and Marxist theoretician who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in the spring of 1953.
Works (so-called "Collected Works")
During the middle 1920s, as historian Geoffrey Roberts observes, a "small industry" emerged publishing the collected works of prominent Bolshevik worthies, including V.I. Lenin, Lev Kamenev, Grigory Zinoviev, and Leon Trotsky.Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin's Library: A Dictator and His Books. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2022; p. 29. Having produced a smaller number of leaflets, pamphlets, articles, published speeches, and books than his peers, Stalin was not immediately part of this publishing frenzy, with his first systematic selected works volume appearing only in 1926.I. Stalin, Voprosy leninizma [Problems of Leninism]. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo, 1926.
Initial planning and collection of material for a Stalin collected works began in the early 1930s, with Stalin himself outlining a plan for an 8-volume collection in 1931. Stalin's secretary Ivan Tovstukha began the process of gathering such materials about this time. In August 1935, shortly after the death of Tovstukha, the Politburo began to push forward definitively on a Stalin collected works project, passing a revolution decreeing that such a collection should be published and assigning the Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute (IMEL) the job of compiling and producing such a work, operating in conjunction with the propaganda department of the All-Union Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) [VKP(b)].
Propaganda department chief Alexei Stetsky was the first coordinator of the project, outlining a plan for a 10-volume series of Stalin collected works in November 1935. This set was to include all of Stalin's previously published writings, supplemented with previously unpublished transcripts of speeches, letters, and telegrams. Publication was to be made not only in Russian and the other national languages of the Soviet Union, but also in an array of foreign languages, according to Stetsky's plan.
This project underestimated the difficulty of the project and its scope, however, and projections rose from 10 to 12 volumes, and later to 16.Roberts, Stalin's Library, p. 30. Nevertheless, according to Stetsky's plan, actual publications were to begin in 1936 and to be completed by 1937 — in time for celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution.
The Stalin Sochineniia (Works) was published in 13 volumes from 1946 until 1954. It is not truly a "Collected Works" per se, being incomplete both in terms of chronology (ending with material published in January 1934) and content (suffering tendious alterations, after-the-fact editing, and omissions of many complete items) even within the truncated timeline.Robert H. McNeal, Stalin's Works: An Annotated Bibliography. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace/Stanford University, 1967; pp. 4–5.
Volume Content Dates Notes Volume Link 1 Writings 1901 – 1907 Anarchism or Socialism? LINK 2 Writings 1907 – 1913 Marxism and the National Question LINK 3 Writings March 1917 – Oct. 1917 Revolutionary journalism and speeches. LINK 4 Writings Nov. 1917 – 1920 Civil war journalism, speeches, and letters. LINK 5 Writings 1921 – 1923 Organizational report to 12th Congress of the VKP(b) LINK 6 Writings 1924 On Lenin / Foundations of Leninism LINK 7 Writings 1925 Political Report of the CC to the 14th Congress VKP(b) LINK 8 Writings Jan. 1926 – Nov. 1926 "The Social Democratic Deviation in Our Party" LINK 9 Writings Dec. 1926 – July 1927 Speeches at 7th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI LINK 10 Writings Aug. 1927 – Dec. 1927 Political Report of the CC to the 15th Congress VKP(b) LINK 11 Writings Jan. 1928 – March 1929 Speeches at the July 1928 Joint Plenum CC and CCC LINK 12 Writings April 1929 – June 1930 The Right Deviation in the VKP(b) LINK 13 Writings July 1930 – Jan. 1934 Report of the CC to the 17th Party Congress CPSU(b) LINK
Problems of Leninism (Selected Works)
For the introduction to the first edition of this book, see On the Problems of Leninism
Unlike his Communist Party peers V.I. Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev, there was no attempt made at publishing a comprehensive collection of Stalin's writings in the 1920s. Instead, a selected works volume called Problems of Leninism [Voprosy leninizma] first appeared in 1926. It remained in print for the rest of Stalin's life, running through 11 editions before being terminated in 1954, following his death. Content of this volume changed over time. The table below lists the contents of the 1st,Russian: 1926; English: 1928. 9th,Russian: 1933; English: 1933–1934. and 11thRussian: 1939 and annually thereafter to 1954; English: 1940, 1941, 1943, 1945, 1947, 1953, 1954. editions of this volume, all of which are readily available in English translation.
Prior to 1940, the English translation of this selected works collection was simply titled Leninism.
Title Item date Type 1st Edition 9th Edition 11th Edition Foundations of Leninism April–May 1924 Speech yes yes yes The October Revolution and the Tactics of the Russian Communists 17 December 1925 Book Preface yes yes yes On the Problems of Leninism 25 January 1926 Book Preface yes yes yes Results of the Work of the 14th Conference of the VKP(b) 9 May 1925 Speech yes yes no The Nationalist Question in Yugoslavia 30 March 1925 Speech yes yes no Political Tasks of University of Peoples of the East 18 May 1925 Speech yes yes no Questions and Answers 9 June 1925 Speech yes yes no The Nationalist Question Once Again November 1925 Article yes yes no The Tasks of the Young Communist League yes yes no Political Report of the CC to the 14th Congress of the VKP(b) 18 December 1925 Speech yes no no Slogan of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat...in Preparation for October 20 May 1927 Letter no yes yes The Question of the Workers' and Peasants' Government June 1927 Letter no yes no The Party's Three Fundamental Slogans of the Party on the Peasant Question July 1927 Letter no yes yes Interview with the First American Labor Delegation in Russia 9 September 1927 Interview no yes no Interview with the Foreign Workers' Delegations 5 November 1927 Interview no yes no The International Character of the October Revolution 6 November 1927 Article no no yes Regarding the Workers' and Peasants' Government no yes no On the Grain Front 28 May 1928 Speech no yes yes Lenin on the Alliance with the Middle Peasants no yes yes The July Plenum of the Central Committee of the VKP(b) 13 July 1928 Speech no yes no The Right Danger in the VKP(b) 19 October 1928 Speech no yes yes The Industrialization of the Country and the Right Deviation in the VKP(b) 19 November 1928 Speech no yes no The Right Deviation in the All-Union Communist Party 22 April 1929 Speech no yes yes A Year of Great Change 3 November 1929 Article no yes yes Problems of Agrarian Policy in the Soviet Union 27 December 1929 Speech no yes yes On the Policy of Liquidating the Kulaks as a Class 19 January 1930 Article no yes yes Dizzy with Success 2 March 1930 Article no yes yes Reply to Collective Farm Comrades 3 April 1930 Article no yes yes Political Report of the CC to the 16th Congress of the VKP(b) 27 June 1930Includes "Speech in Reply to the Debate," 2 July 1930. Speech no yes no The Tasks of Business Executives 4 February 1931 Speech no yes yes New Conditions, New Tasks 23 June 1931 Speech no yes yes Some Questions Concerning the History of Bolshevism late October 1931 Letter no yes yes The Results of the First Five-Year Plan 7 January 1933 Speech no no yes Work in the Rural Districts 11 January 1933 Speech no no yes Speech at the First Congress of Collective Farm Shockworkers 19 February 1933 Speech no no yes Report of the CC to the 17th Congress of the CPSU(b) 26 January 1934 Speech no no yes Address to Graduates from the Red Army AcademiesAmerican pamphlet title: The Soviets and the Individual. 4 May 1935 Speech no no yes Speech at the First All-Union Conference of Stakhanovites 17 November 1935 Speech no no yes On the Draft Constitution of the USSR 25 November 1936 Speech no no yes Dialectical and Historical Materialism September 1938 Book Chapter no no yes Report of the CC to the 18th Congress of the CPSU(b) 10 March 1939 Speech no no yes
English-language pamphlets
The following pamphlets were published in English translation but never appeared in Problems of Leninism or Works or in the standard collection of World War II-related speeches and orders of the day, On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union. Most of these have alternate titles for national reprints. Pamphlets which were incorporated into any of the standard Stalin works collections mentioned above are not included. Produced in a multitude of alternate titles in English-speaking countries around the globe, the total of such "reused" English-language pamphlets issued runs into the hundreds.
Title Item date Type Publisher Publication Date Notes Stalin's Speeches on the American Communist Party 6 May 1929; 14 May 1929 Speeches Central Committee, CPUSA 1929 Anti-Lovestone. Edition of 100,000. Two Speeches: 1. Speech at a Conference of Harvester-Combine Operators. 2. Speech at a Conference of the Foremost Collective Farmers of Tajikistan and Turkmenistan Speech Cooperative Publishing Society 1935 Interview Between J. Stalin and Roy Howard, March 1, 1936 1 March 1936 Interview Cooperative Publishing Society 1936 Defects in Party Work and Measures for Liquidating Trotskyite and Other Double-Dealers 3 March 1937; 5 March 1937 Speech Cooperative Publishing Society 1937 Reissued as Mastering Bolshevism. Speech Delivered at a Meeting of Voters of the Stalin Electoral Area, Moscow, December 11, 1937, in the Grand Theatre 11 December 1937 Speech Cooperative Publishing Society 1937 First of two times Stalin stood for election. The Final Victory of Socialism in the Soviet Union: Stalin's Reply to Ivanov Letter Communist Party of Great Britain 1938 American title: A Letter to Ivanov. Speech Delivered at an Election Meeting in the Stalin Election District, Moscow, February 9, 1946 9 February 1946 Speech Foreign Languages Publishing House 1946 Second of two times Stalin stood for election. J.V. Stalin on Post-War International Relations: Full Text of Interviews to Press Correspondents and Exchange of Messages, 1946-47 1946–1947 Interviews Soviet News 1947 Marxism and Problems of Linguistics Pamphlet Foreign Languages Publishing House 1950 American title: Marxism and Linguistics . Interview with Pravda Correspondent [on Atomic Weapon] 16 February 1951 Interview Foreign Languages Publishing House 1951 Multiple titles and publishers. Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR 1 October 1952 Pamphlet Foreign Languages Publishing House 1952
English-language topical collections
A number of English-language titles collect speeches and articles dealing with specific themes, occasionally featuring material not published in Works, Problems of Leninism, or as free-standing pamphlets. Several symposiums including one reprinted Stalin article are excluded.