The Short Course [History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] was truly a history of the party as Stalin saw it and wanted it to be seen.

The end product of Stalin’s efforts was a biased, distorted and simplistic account of the party’s history, one manufactured by omission, elision and rhetorical tricks. Stalin was a past master at using such devices to present versions of events that were self-serving but credible. That doesn’t mean he didn’t believe in the essential truth of his version of the party’s history.

—Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin’s Library, (London: Yale University Press, 2022), 193.