In the summer of 1937, Iosif Stalin directed his full attention to a seemingly trivial matter: the editing of a primary school textbook, the Short History of the USSR. In fact, this modest primer for third- and fourth-graders was the culmination of a three-year project to hammer out and popularize a fundamental revision of the official Soviet historical imaginary. Specifically, the Short History inaugurated a “useable past” for mobilizing Soviet society in ways resonant with the new ideological mainstay: Russocentric etatism. This narrative celebrated pre-Revolutionary “state-building efforts and institutions as well as the priority of leadership, economic development, societal unity, and national defense” (25). Over the next two decades, editions of the Short History were published in the millions; not only were they read outside schools, but also provided the narrative template for more advanced texts and remediations in historical film, theatre, and other genres.

David Brandenberger’s annotated edition reveals the true extent and nature of the dictator’s personal involvement in the commissioning, development, and editing of this foundational text. Drawing upon drafts preserved in the Party archives, Brandenberger presents the revisions and interpolations (in italics) and excisions (in strikethrough) demanded by Stalin and Party grandee Andrei Zhdanov. Annotations also showcase their respective commentary and marginalia, as well as modifications to the textbook’s illustration program.

Further, Brandenberger’s detailed introduction reconstructs the ways in which Stalin shepherded the textbook into its final form, demanding that its authors foreground the fundamentally progressive character of Russian state-building, which, over millennia, gathered in the nations of the Soviet “family.” As Brandenberger argues, Stalin’s editing of the resultant text further amplified this theme, by sanitizing histories of “strong” Russian rulers and disparaging peasant revolts, reframing Russian colonization as the “lesser of two evils” (rather than outright imperial predation), autarkically insulating national history from world events, and so on. Brandenberger’s appendix goes on to summarize changes to subsequent editions of the Short History, which further accentuated instances of Russian military glory, cultural advancement, and scientific primacy, and went to even greater lengths to rehabilitate imperial conquest as a policy of “incorporation” and “unification.”

Despite its title, Brandenberger’s annotated volume uses the 1938 English edition—not a new translation of the 1937 first edition—as the “base text” for demonstrating editorial interventions. This has its advantages: for one thing, this later edition shows in action the Stalinist policy of damnatio memoriae, which saw victims of the Great Terror excised from the text. Further, as Brandenberger argues, using the official Soviet translation offers a certain “authentic[ity]” (33). This choice, however, is not without trade-offs. Above all, it further complicates an already taxing reader experience: for each textual intervention, one needs to consult the corresponding endnote to establish not only its authorship (Stalin or Zhdanov), but also whether it is specific to the 1937 edition, the 1938 English edition, or common to both. This is exacerbated by Brandenberger’s ambiguous notation: sometimes, divergences with the earlier edition are indicated in the corresponding endnote only, but at other times the 1937 Russian is restored directly to the 1938 English main text. Systematic mistranslations, occlusions, and semantically ambiguous renderings—which Brandenberger’s meticulous annotations reveal dozens of—also forces the conscientious reader to continually oscillate between the text and endnotes, to get a better sense of the text that Stalin actually worked with.

That said, Brandenberger’s volume—and his penetrating commentary—makes significant contributions to our understanding of high Stalinism and the dictator himself. Among other revelations, Stalin’s edits of the Short History bespeak of his persistent struggle against flattery, suggesting that Stalin “was neither craven nor single-minded about the promotion of his cult” (36). Further, and notwithstanding the interventions outlined above, Brandenberger concludes that Stalin’s commitment to Marxism-Leninism was deep and genuine (if idiosyncratic); he was neither a mere statist in disguise, nor an opportunistic revisionist. Perhaps, then, the narratives undergirding the Short History cannot be reduced to a freely-chosen, fully-instrumentalized “useable past,” but were in some sense expressive of Stalin’s own historical imagination.

Going forward, the book will not only inspire further inquiry, but will be a significant resource for researchers taking a more granular look at the treatment of specific historical events under high Stalinism. The pedagogical value of Brandenberger’s annotated Short History is equally significant. Marked-up extracts could be effectively used in lessons on the Stalinist politics of history, and as a fascinating case study in courses devoted to comparative authoritarianism, historiography, and public history/memory.