A unique edition dedicated to Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin presents various points of view on the personality of the leader, including completely opposite ones. These assessments can immediately be compared with the wording of the classic Soviet historical officialdom of that time - a short biography of Stalin, approved and edited by the leader himself. The publication contains both memoirs of contemporaries who met with the main character (this has already happened), and excerpts from the works of domestic and foreign historians who studied both the Bolshevik leader himself and the history of the Soviet Union during his reign. Most of them are united by the fact that the creators of these works rightly saw the key to understanding Stalin's personality in the study of archival documents of that era.