The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is a 1938 nonfiction book by Joseph Stalin. It is a textbook on the history of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), written to present the party’s story and its Marxist-Leninist framework in a compact, ordered way. The book is also known by the shorter name Short Course.

It suits readers who want to understand Soviet political history, official ideology, and how a state can shape a single approved version of events. This is not a literary read, but a direct and highly structured text that shows how political teaching worked in that period. It will appeal most to people interested in ideological writing, political education, and historical documents with a strong point of view.