Before this treatise appeared (1914), however, Stalin was sent to Siberia.

After the Revolution of March 1917, Stalin returned to Petrograd (now St Petersburg), where he resumed the editorship of Pravda. Together with Lev Kamenev, Stalin dominated party decisions in the capital before Lenin arrived in April. The two advocated a policy of moderation and cooperation with the provisional government. Although he played a not insignificant role in the armed uprising that followed in November, Stalin was not remembered as a revolutionary hero. In the words of one memoirist, he produced the impression of a "grey blur".

The Administrator

As the Bolsheviks' expert on nationalism, Stalin was Lenin's choice to head the Commissariat for Nationality Affairs. Together with Yakov Sverdlov and Leon Trotsky, he helped Lenin decide all emergency issues in the difficult first period of the civil war. Stalin participated in that war as a commander on several fronts. Within the party Stalin strengthened his position by dogged organizational work and devotion to administrative tasks. He was commissar for state control in 1919-1923, and-more important-in 1922 he became secretary-general of the party. As Stalin converted this organizational base into a source of political power, he came into conflict with Lenin on several minor but ultimately telling issues.

Before his death, Lenin came to regard the flaws in Stalin's personality and conduct as political liabilities. In his political "testament" Lenin doubted whether the party's general secretary would use his great power with sufficient caution. He also attacked Stalin as being "too rude" and called for his removal. Luck and adroit manoeuvring enabled Stalin to suppress Lenin's testament.

The Despot

After Lenin's death Stalin joined in a troika with Grigory Zinovyev and Kamenev to lead the country. With these temporary allies, Stalin acted against his archrival Trotsky, the foremost candidate for Lenin's mantle. Once the threat of Trotsky was eliminated, however, Stalin reversed course, aligning himself with Nikolay Bukharin and Aleksey Rykov against his former partners. Trotsky, Zinovyev, and Kamenev in turn challenged Stalin as the "left opposition". By skilful manipulation and clever publicity, but especially by interpreting Lenin's precepts to a new generation coming of age in the 1920s, Stalin bested all his rivals. By his 50th birthday (1929), he had cemented his position as Lenin's recognized successor and entrenched his power as sole leader of the Soviet Union.

Stalin reacted to lagging agricultural production in the late 1920s by a ruthless, personally supervised expropriation of grain from peasants in Siberia.